wow! thanks! so it seems that there is something corky with the view exporter - the view exporter does not keep all settings associated with the view. those who read this make sure u check ALL the settings even if they are buried in custome settings somewhere.
thanks again.

the second image didn't seem to post - here it is

the first image shows sun at 6:15am on 6/21 casting shadows accross a northern face. this is the angle i was counting on later after i have gone through severall design iterations. But when i exported the view and imported the view into a my more developed model (the second image) i could not get the sun to cast the same shadows! i noticed that when i checked the veiw settings it was an hour off at first: 7:15am on 6/21. i though no big deal but when i changed the settings to match6:15am, the sun angle was not the same - no matter the setting: 7:15 or the matching 6:15!

here are two models with all identical settings: sun angle and coordinates, time of day and month, object in same location in respect to origin, same view angle, etc.

sun bug-2 models and 2 jpgs

yes as i said the sun coordinates are exactly the same.

I frequently use the pageExIm.rb to transfer views to various versions of a model. I am finding that eventhough the exported views don't always keep their shadow settings (minor annoyance) I can't manually get the shadows to be the same!

I have verified that each model is in the exact same location in respect to the origin. I have verified that the sun coordinates are exactly the same; and I have verified that each model has exactly the same shadow setting shadow settings. And yet...the shadows do not match! does the pageExIm.rb mess the sun up some how?

anyone have the same prob. or a solution?