Lighting Plugin for Sketchup

AdamB · 21 Dec 2007, 17:36

Geometry occludes light sources (though materials can be marked as non-occluders)

Adam

AdamB · 21 Dec 2007, 17:39

Can you point me at some video that shows the effect you're thinking of. I'm not sure I understand.

Thanks.

Adam

Adam,

This is just something really cool. One of the most genious plugins I have ever seen.

When you export animation with these lights, does tha "classical flickering effect with the shadows" also appear or is this somehow free from that effect?

jenujacob · 21 Dec 2007, 17:40

woohooo! thanks for clearing that up!
may the forces of ruby scripting guide u through this ordeal!!!
best wishes!

Gaieus · 21 Dec 2007, 18:23

Adam,

It's when shadows are on in SU and your camera (during animation) is moving from sunlight into the shadow or vice versa. All the (sun)lights appear to flicker like in this video (some 37 megs though - in the second part when the camera goes into the church and moving to and fro).

AdamB · 21 Dec 2007, 20:09

Took a while to download on the wet piece of string it was at the end of!

OK, so it looks like z-fighting / z-bias issues caused by almost coplanar geometry. Not your modelling I hasten to add! Its the geometry projected onto yours by the shadowing method in SU. So no, this plugin doesn't suffer from that issue.

BTW Nice model! Any chance of me trying it on my stuff?

Gaieus · 21 Dec 2007, 21:43

Ah, definitely it's not the Z-fighting with coplanar faces (I know what that is like) but also a kind of "flickering" effect.
It used to be fixed in SU4 but then due to some copyright issues they had to get it out of SU5 already (older users can talk more about this). Kind of annoying for sure - the only way to avoid it to turn off shadows or try to walk on the bright side of the street (and always look up and smile - maybe GE is taking a snapshot of your area )

Well, I can send the model (say in email - it's about 2-2.5 MB) though it's been a bit "tweaked" ever since (some basic, single faced monastery and plants and some terrain etc. added) though I never really tweaked it for it was going to be used in 3DS Max anyway for final rendering etc (see here).

Also this version is that I used for playing around in Kerky (not with much success) so there are light fixtures in it but you can clean the model as much as you want...

tomsdesk · 22 Dec 2007, 04:56

Adam...Oh yeah, what Coen said: I'd shell out for it today! (Only forget SU7, please, I want to use it now with my sweet love SU5 :`)

Viktor · 22 Dec 2007, 12:28

In the second youtube-film you use three sliders to adjust the settings of the light-emitter. I think that a focus-slider (from sharp to soft edges) next to the zoom would be very useful.

Viktor · 22 Dec 2007, 12:44

How about getting rid of the update-button? Realtime lighting in sketchup...doesn´t it sound wonderful?

Not a programmer so just stop me if I´m wrong here:
Would it be possible to make the program update only one emitter at a time? It seems like unnecessary processing to update the whole file every time. And could it autodetect relevant changes=autoupdate?

I guess your answer will be that this would use to much of the computer´s thinkingpower.
Well, it was worth the try.

Viktor · 22 Dec 2007, 12:51

Wouldn´t this be the perfect way to do the light setup for a render? Any plans to cooperate with Podium??

kwistenbiebel · 22 Dec 2007, 13:03

Some quick questions:
Q1: Does this feature use texture baking?
And if so: are we able to export the new textures?
And if so 2: can we use the default 'pages' animations without extra calculating time?

Q2: can it bake a physical sky ?
Q3: Can it be used with customised styles? (e.g without visible edges in rendering etc...)

Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel

tbd · 22 Dec 2007, 14:12

Viktor: I proposed to Adam a collaboration but it seems it doesn't fit the roadmap

Biebel: Q1, Q3 - yes. regarding Q2, I dont know as I didnt saw any textures in the videos, only color. doing multitexturing (texture + lightmap) only in ruby will be slower

Viktor · 22 Dec 2007, 21:04

TBD,
That´s too bad. Your products in one package would really be a dreamtool for lighting designers.

Phil Rader AIA · 30 Dec 2007, 07:28

Not normally a me2 kinda guy but count me in for any sort of beta testing or just kicking the tires on this plugin. From the looks of it it will satisfy many of the lighting conditions currently unable to do in SU out of the box.

JGA · 31 Dec 2007, 14:56

Fantastic, I'd be surprised if Google aren't interested in your work.
Does it work with animating between different times set in pages?

Gaieus · 31 Dec 2007, 14:58

@jga said:

Fantastic, I'd be surprised if Google aren't interested in your work...

They are aware of it, believe me...

juju · 31 Dec 2007, 15:39

I frikkin hope so... Users have been wanting something like this for a while now.

tomsdesk · 31 Dec 2007, 17:14

Personally, I'd rather support Adam's efforts directly...and know the application is not heading in some unknown corporate, and probably skewed, direction (or just waiting for some greed-reason). I can't imagine the advantage to me if this wonder came under Google's control.

Besides, as an add-on I have more control of my own working environment.

monsterzero · 31 Dec 2007, 21:00

AdamB! Whatever you're sell'n I'm buy'n!

I'd love to see your plugin do a global lighting pass using location and time settings.
I also render my images using the "hidden line" face style. Would your lighting work with that?

kwistenbiebel · 1 Jan 2008, 09:28

@monsterzero said:

I'd love to see your plugin do a global lighting pass using location and time settings.

exactly, that would be useful for animated mass modeling studies...