@ledisnomad said:

I don't render pool water very often, but every time I do, it takes me forever to figure out how to get the caustics to work. I go through all the settings, search for all the tutorials.

I just started another project with a pool and I'm going to want a rendering with awesome pool water caustics.

Here's what I'm doing:

• Creating a plane that is the surface of the water and making it a component.
• Applying a water material to the component and to both faces of the plane.
• Adding a displacement geometry modifier to the component - I use the same noise map from the water Bump channel for the displacement.
• In the water material Refraction Advanced Settings, uncheck "Affect Shadows".
• In the render settings Global Illumination Advanced Settings, turn on "Photon Mapped Caustics".

What am I missing? You'll see in the image that the displacement is working at least.
[attachment=0:2gykd0yy]<!-- ia0 -->pool.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2gykd0yy]

I think you also need to be in CPU mode for the caustics to work.

Do I have the video for you.

This guy - "Winning with Sketchup" - is by far the best sketchup-in-the-real-world teacher I've found on the net to date. He's clear, succint and shows you which plugins he uses. Most are those we already have, but used well as part of an excellent workflow. He's a pro that actually uses Sketchup.

This helped me do almost exactly what you're trying for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA4tGgOFQJQ&t=602s

Also see these ones (2-part series):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWjVrL0oetQ&t=330s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T6xe3z0SEo

Cheers,
Brett.

There is. You need a 'stretch' tool in CAD terms. Fredo has one called box-stretch.

You select the entire object (light, shade, and wire with connector, for example. When you use the box-stretch tool, it allows you to move the center-point from where the stretch will originate. Move it to somewhere on the wire, then when you pull the flex up/down to a point of your choosing, it will not deform the rest of the object.

Everything above the blue grid 'moves' but isn't deformed; only the point where the cut is - at the grid - stretches.

Brett.

TL;DR version:
Go into LIGHTS -> Sunlight -> Caustic Photons and change the EMIT RADIUS there. The units are in your model units. And the center starts from the sun's location.

Full explanation:
Vray projects a beam with an 'Emit radius' when rendering caustics. Where that edge ends, you'll see a cut-off line.
In 3ds max you can set this emit radius' direction and size visually. Buuuht, not here.

In Sketchup the sun is the emit source, so depending on time of day(!) you'll have to fiddle with the emit radius.

The attached image has three swimming pools: at 34' from the origin of the blue axis (0,0,0), then again at 60' and again at 90'.

At 1:00pm the sun catches all the pools nicely, but the 2d and 3d pools aren't getting enough caustic photons to show caustics properly (top half of image), because the emit radius is set to 700, which doesn't extend far enough.

NOTE: The units of this model is inches, so that's 700 INCHES or 58.3'. The yellow circle has a 59' radius, and you can see the 'dark line' cutting through the pool.

The second render shows the emit radius set to 1080" (90'). This time the third pool is captured and begins to render caustics.

Tadah!

@unknownuser said:

I have been holding off on investing precious time in learning another way for modeling, but Chip Walters' "Blender" videos are looking more and more attractive. I might have a damn it moment, bite the bullet and start down the path of learning Blender too.

Before you even contemplate that one, you should take a look at FormZ ( http://www.formz.com/ ). It's a true solid modeler, unlike sketchup, which is a 'bubble' modeler. (Anything you make is already a solid and you hollow it out, where necessary).

It's way closer to sketchup's skill-set than Blender and it's designed for Architectural work. Blender does have snaps and can do 'exact' lengths/values, but it has the feel of an afterthought when you use it... sort of like 3dsMax where the scale of the object doesn't necessarily match the scale of what your scene is.

It also natively handles NURBS (similar to Rhino3d).

Plus, they've got a Christmas sale on, according to the email I received from them today. (I used it in Arch school for free, but use sketchup at the office, because that's what they have).

There's also a vray for FormZ, which is nice.

@juju said:

CLICKBAIT! Just kidding...

Normally I would have seen a number of posts / threads related to the release of the latest version by this time, seeing that historically the new version is released somewhere in November (first half IIRC).

This year, I'm not seeing that. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not holding my breath, but here's what I'd like to see:

I) FINALLY FIXING THE STUPID OUTLINER for one. I load in a halfway detailed CAD model to build a house from and, say, explode the input and if the outliner is showing, it will take 50x longer to get done as it struggles to update that window for every single change it makes to any geometry. Just. Why?

II) How about being able to search through the Layer manager by more than the first letter? Architects use layers and lots of them. Try selecting something and trying to set its layer to A-PORCH. There are about 100 A-somethingOrOther layer names in front of -PORCH but Sketchup only lets you type an A to get to that section and then scroll, scroll, scroll... I know, the program is waiting for VFB input, but why can't it wait for a shortcut for the $#@%-ing layer window's input and then switch to search mode? How about
[spacebar] A-POR and boom, it's highlighting the nearest match(es) for me to select?

III) There's an import for dwg in 'pro' mode sketchup but it can't handle text. Ugh. Every Window-label within a triangle is now just a little triangle. Go ahead and print me up a full copy of the CAD so that I can reference what should be in my imported file. Or, open Autocad in my second monitor and watch Autocad and Sketchup argue about where the cursor belongs. Honestly, it's 2018. 1998 is so... 1998.

In the interest of brevity, I'll stop now.

@driven said:

does maximise make SU use Full Screen mode, or is that just me?

I do use my own nib and have had Full Screen mode since v7, but it was always a separate right hand side pair of arrows...
[attachment=0:2clp5p1j]<!-- ia0 -->yos_full_Screen.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2clp5p1j]
john

Maximize in Yosemite can be controlled: Click the green button and you'll get OS X Fullscreen mode on any app, by default. If you hold down Option while clicking the green button, you get the more familiar Maximize window, while leaving the Menus visible.