Hi all

Brand new to sketchUcation but I am already V impressed with the site, forums, and especially the fantastic plug-ins.

I use SU Pro as an inexpensive design tool within my lighting business. We build high-end chandeliers and bespoke lighting that incorporates blown-glass elements. I have played with transparencies and by modelling as organically as I can (!?), I've been able to produce some pretty good images for use in customer proposals, etc.

I now want to take it to the next level and start introducing light and producing some nice renders. I've played around with Kerkythea and LightUp but they don't seem to do what I want. I need to introduce light within the elements of the model, not externally. For example, imagine a glass sphere with some cut pattern on the outer face. It would be great to be able to place a light source in the centre of the sphere and represent what that sphere would look like when illuminated.

Am I asking too much from SketchUp or can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks in advance

MonkeyMewett

SketchUp Pro 8.0.16846
Windows 8 64-bit PC
Intel Core i7-2700K CPU @ 3.50 GHz
16GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro K600 1GB GPU