Solar North and scenes
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I have a model ready with all its plans, sections and elevations saved as scenes. After weeks of work I realized my model was not geo-located. No big deal, as far most of the work goes.
However, as I want my elevations to have shadows, I decided to place North in the correct position using the Solar North extension. It works fine as long as I do not change scenes: then the sun direction goes back to its normal position in Sketchup, that is, aligned with the green axis.
What I want is to be able to change the sun's position and for each scene to keep the new position. Right now I am not being able to do it even though I updated Shadow Settings in the Scenes dialog.
Would any of you know how to make the new sun's position stick?
Thanks.
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Go to your scene, set your sun location and then update the scene and it should stick.
I like to use Model Location by Jim Foltz which still works in SU Pro 2021. Might be difficult locating those plugins. I still had them from my old SU versions.
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@edson said:
What I want is to be able to change the sun's position and for each scene to keep the new position. Right now I am not being able to do it even though I updated Shadow Settings in the Scenes dialog.
Would any of you know how to make the new sun's position stick?
In the Animation Settings turn off Transitions. Then you can set the Solar North as desired for each scene.
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In fact, I knew I have to update after setting up the new sun position. The reason for it not sticking was this: in order to set the new sun position I had to leave the section view and adopt a 3D view. Then I would set the new sun position but when going back to the section view it would revert to the old sun position. I solved this problem by getting the sun’s angle while in 3d and then applying it to the sections using the tool at the bottom of the Solar North toolbar, the one that allows one to enter an angle.
I probably could have done it by disabling the Shadows settings in the scene, changing the sun and, when reverting to the section view, enable it again and update the scene.
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@edson said:
What I want is to be able to change the sun's position and for each scene to keep the new position. Right now I am not being able to do it even though I updated Shadow Settings in the Scenes dialog.
Would any of you know how to make the new sun's position stick?
Thanks.
I agree, hoping there's a feature or plugin, something like set and forget. Our models usually got 40 scenes or more.. it really takes time to do it one by one, entering a scene, pasting your north reference line and using the North align tool, and clicking scene update. Not only that, but the lack assurance that all scenes are indeed correct. Once you send it to someone or you as recipient, if you feel like rechecking again the scenes to make sure they're correct, then have to do it again, this time using the "show north" icon for each scene.
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There's no need for a plugin to do this. It's a native feature that's been around for a very long time. Make the shadow settings as needed for one of the scenes that need to be updated, select the scenes that need to be updated in the Scenes panel, click on the Update button at the top of the Scenes panel, untick all of the Properties to update except Shadow Settings, click on Update.
If you've followed the steps correctly there's no reason to expect the scene updates to not work.
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how many times I had been in despair about this very issue
This post, as a reminder so to speak, should pop up automatically once or twice a year 
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