Trouble generating shadows in model
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Hello,
I am a grad student working on a landscape design project and was hoping to utilize sketchup to generate a 4 season sun/shade analysis for a broadscale landscape design I'm working on.I have built very simple building models and installed 3d pines on a PDF basemap, all placed on their own respective layers, which are on and visible. I have geolocated the model. However, when I attempt to generate the shadows it seems only the buildings cast shade and more often than not they don't cast it onto the base map, it seems to go through. In some instances, there are no visible shadows until either early dawn or late dusk, often times only showing up underneath the model and base map. This is a flat model, I haven't had time to create the correct topography. I have been messing with all the settings in the shadow dialogue box, and yes, shadows are turned on in the view dropdown tab. I have done some work previously in sketchup pro 2016 and the shadows function always worked seemlessly, so Im a bit confused as to whats changed!?
I am a bit under the gun, need to wrap this up in the next few days and would prefer to use Sketchup rather than hand rendering. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
- Ben -
Not sure why pdf 's behave this way ? Quick fix if you imported the pdf as a texture - make a .jpg or .png copy of original .pdf in photo shop or the like. In SU material window edit the texture , removing the pdf and replacing it with the jpg or png, might have to rescale / position the texture after the swap.
Added screen shot test. Copied everything left to right, made texture on right unique and replaced pdf for png. Shows how material window looks on a mac, can't be that different if your on windows.... I hope....
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oops, sorry it is a .png file...
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o.k. check this.... make sure the "cast" and "receive" shadows boxes in the entity info window are checked. see attached.
p.s. attaching screenshot or .skp file of problem always helpful, sort of searching in the dark without....
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ok, in entity info for the basemap layer both boxes were checked. my materials window is a bit different, not sure how to navigate that but if its a png should this matter?
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head up butt when made last post..... check the "on faces" box in shadow settings
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Don't sweat the different look of our material window, it is the same, we're both on a mac. My first screenshot is how the window looks when you edit a material.
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tried toggling all those boxes, no go... im starting to think its a bug. rather unfortunate, need this by friday...
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Did a test last night with SU2017pro. as long as cast and receive shadows is checked and settings in shadows are set I have no problem with shadows in the model. Unless the problem is tied to geo location ( I never use it so clueless to check that avenue ) I don't see it as a bug. If you still have access to SU2016 suggest saving your model back to that version to finish up.
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yeah, I don't have SU 2016. think im done with this for now. gotta keep the project moving.
thanks for the help, I appreciate you taking the time. Will try to work it out when I have more time to play with things, as it seems like a usefull tool if I could get it to work.
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Maybe the basemap texture is transparent? (allowing shadows through)
Also, make sure all of your SU geometry is on layer 0Charlie
![shadows.....on ground; "off"](/uploads/imported_attachments/bQwl_ongroundoff.JPG "shadows.....on ground; "off"")
![shadows.....on ground; "on"](/uploads/imported_attachments/yAPc_ongroundon.JPG "shadows.....on ground; "on"")
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It's just a guessing game without a copy of the file.
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Assuming that the object [or its face] is set to 'receive-shadows' [see Entity Info]...
Some faces might still not accept shadows... e.g. the face's material is translucent beyond a certain %, or it has a PNG material which itself has an alpha channel set up [i.e. it's transparent - even if it appears opaque for other purposes], or it's a PDF image [applicable to MAC users only]... -
Guy's glad you chimed in on this, I ran out of steam....
Charlie_V, Tig , Think you guys hit it spot on as a problem with the image itself. That didn't dawn on me ,
,I've gotten in the habit of pre checking images in Gimp early on due to weirdness like this. Didn't think to mention check the image ......Pbacot, Yeah... thought I could help the O.P. by "reverse engineering" the problem also known as"shooting in the dark". Got a taste of what you SU guru's go through...
not so easy.Brings up a question for you guy's, hope you see this. I discovered early on mac + pdf image = weird behavior , so learned not to use them pesky .pdf's. What's up with that out of general curiosity ?
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