Plugin Idea: Flashbulb

Whaat

I had an idea for a plugin a couple of days ago that would be really useful for lighting setup for rendering. Seeing as how I am swamped right now, maybe someone else could have a go at it. The idea is really simple: to create a single face the points towards whatever the user is currently looking at. This is how it would work:

prompt user for rectangle height and width (this determines the size of the flashbulb or softbox light)
prompt user for inclination and azimuth offset. The coordinate system being spherical with the origin at the view.guess_target position and the z axis pointing up. The offset is with respect to the camera position. For example, for a camera flashbulb, the user could input 0.5 degrees for both inclination and azimuth offset to create a rectangle that is slightly offset from the camera position. To create a rectangle that is rotated 90 degrees from the camera position, you would input an azimuth offset of 90 degrees. (You see now that this plugin could be used to create studio lighting setups very quickly... )
prompt user whether to create the rectangle inside a new group
prompt user for material to apply to the rectangle or rectangle group

After receiving all user input, the plugin simply creates a rectangle pointing towards the view.guess_target position and then applies the offset transformations.

Make sense? Sorry for the lack of visual aids. Anyone interested?

Whaat

hmmm...the plugin should have a radial offset as well, to control the distance of the rectangle to the target position.

MartinRinehart

How about a picture?

tbd

something along the lines will be released with next version of Podium. and with on screen UI.

as I said before, it would be nice to have a standardized Sketchup architecture for render engines - to create lights, setup materials/scene. each render can attach its render code and implement as extensions specific parts.

the idea is that the user setup the scene only once and then can render with each render without additional setup steps.

regarding the flashbulb idea: i think that are too many steps, it needs to be done in max 3 steps.

Whaat

@unknownuser said:

regarding the flashbulb idea: i think that are too many steps, it needs to be done in max 3 steps.

well, all the user prompts would be in the same dialog so there are only three user steps:

set up camera position
launch plugin
enter input in dialog

xrok1

whaat you could make a component (dynamic if you light) call it camera_light and then use the align camera light ruby.