Lighting Plugin for Sketchup

AdamB

Neophyte question.

I seems that Area lights and Spot lights are similar. What is the difference between the two?

LightUp doesn't have spotlights per se. It has Point Lights that radiant evenly in every direction, and Area Lights which radiant in a "spread angle" around the face direction (eg 90 degrees means radiant in a hemisphere). So you can create "spot faces" (aka spotlights) simply by giving an area light a small spread angle and big power. I tend to wrap light sources into components just for ease of use.

Adam

Max_B

After I made a "clean unused components" in one file, I no longer see point light component in the material palette (nor the cache). Even after SU restart and LU reinstall.
They both are there, i can click on white place holders and add them. Just they don't show up.
How can I get the icons back?

Edson

@max_b said:

After I made a "clean unused components" in one file, I no longer see point light component in the material palette (nor the cache). Even after SU restart and LU reinstall.
They both are there, i can click on white place holders and add them. Just they don't show up.
How can I get the icons back?

i had the same problem. my solution was to dump the plugin and reinstall it. the icons came back for a while but then disappeared again.?????

Edson

adam,

two questions:

@unknownuser said:

Also by default any material whose name begins with “$” will be skipped
when calculating lighting so they will be displayed at full brightness all the
time. This is useful to create fake emitters.
(from getting started with lightup)

this must sound like a dumb request, but would you care to elaborate on the above? i do not understand what you mean by it. and what would be a fake emitter in LUp's sense?

and secondly, what is this component for?

AdamB

@unknownuser said:

Thanks for the tuts Adam, as a matter of note, the RSS feed I have bookmarked for your site fails to load, has been for a couple of days.

Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out!

AdamB

@edson said:

@max_b said:

After I made a "clean unused components" in one file, I no longer see point light component in the material palette (nor the cache). Even after SU restart and LU reinstall.
They both are there, i can click on white place holders and add them. Just they don't show up.
How can I get the icons back?

i had the same problem. my solution was to dump the plugin and reinstall it. the icons came back for a while but then disappeared again.?????

LightUp adds its built-in Components each time a document is opened or created. There are times when the icon disappears but (as you say) the component is still there and useable. I don't know why this happens.

Adam

AdamB

@edson said:

adam,

two questions:

@unknownuser said:

Also by default any material whose name begins with “$” will be skipped
when calculating lighting so they will be displayed at full brightness all the
time. This is useful to create fake emitters.
(from getting started with lightup)

this must sound like a dumb request, but would you care to elaborate on the above? i do not understand what you mean by it. and what would be a fake emitter in LUp's sense?

and secondly, what is this component for?
[attachment=0:2yb9c0ua]LU_compo.png[/attachment:2yb9c0ua]

Fair point, "fake emitter" is a bit confusing. What I mean is that a face with a material beginning with '$' will be always full brightness as if it is self illuminating like a real area emitter. This is useful sometimes when you want something to look like a bright light but not actually emit light. I posted studio2.skp a day or so ago; the windows at the back of the room are bright white "fake emitters"; they come out bright white but add no lighting to the room.

Secondly, that is a LightUp component called an Irradiance Cache. It is discussed in the getting started document. Basically, you place these in your model to hint to LightUp where reflective surfaces can get there reflection information. It is a method getting fast reflections during the Tour tool mode.

Adam

Efrado

PLEASE HELP!
I just registered trying to downloud this MARVELOUS plugin from AdamB,but unfortunately the compressed file does not appear.what do I must do?

Edson

adam,

thank you for your patience. fake emitters understood. i went back to the skippy and played some with it.

as for the Irradiance Cache, understood in theory . i have yet to see it in action to fully grasp the idea.

regards.

AdamB

@efrado said:

PLEASE HELP!
I just registered trying to downloud this MARVELOUS plugin from AdamB,but unfortunately the compressed file does not appear.what do I must do?

After you've registered an email is sent to you.
You need to click on the link in the email LightUp sent to activate your registration.
You then login and go to the download page to download the demo.

Adam

AdamB

@edson said:

adam,

thank you for your patience. fake emitters understood. i went back to the skippy and played some with it.

as for the Irradiance Cache, understood in theory . i have yet to see it in action to fully grasp the idea.

regards.

I'm planning a video tutorial very soon.

Adam

Pixero

Is it possible (or can you make it) so that we could export the model with baked lighting?

Efrado

Thanks ADAM for this your astounding work
which promises to be an incomparable and fast tool for rendering the SU projects.

I am going to start studing the documentation.

By the way did you find the corkscrew? Ihope so. Drink a big sip for me

david_h

Thanks Adam. I just got my DEMO and docs. Anxious to play with it. Congrats!

REGIS

Hi Adam and thanks for your plugin.

I'm playing with light up now but I don't find the point light component in the component's window.
Where is it gone

Thanks.

@+

Edson

@regis said:

Hi Adam and thanks for your plugin.

I'm playing with light up now but I don't find the point light component in the component's window.
Where is it gone

Thanks.

@+

it is there, but one does not see it. click on the white space.

REGIS

Thanks Edson it's OK.

Efrado

I reproduced the steps shown in the video tutorial but what I get is a white screen.
what I am doing Wrong?

pmiller

For all those who are unable to unzip* the file (blocked), is there any chance of a new zip file?

*despite using properties to unblock. BTY this zip file is the first I have ever encountered that will not unzip.

Edson

@efrado said:

:? I reproduced the steps shown in the video tutorial but what I get is a white screen.
what I am doing Wrong?

have you tried reversing faces?