topic Re: light on all sides in 3D in Visualization

light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 12:10:15 GMT

This is a newbie question.

When I'm working in an axonometric window checking and editing my model the sides away from the sun source are dark. I've tried messing around with the sun settings ("Sunlight Intensity"=70%, "Contribution to Ambient"=20%, "Ambient Intensity"=80%).

Is there a way to have light shine on all sides at once... or to quickly move the sun around (maybe with a Palette)? It's hard to see my model and it's slow to keep opening the Sun dialog to change every couple seconds.

Btw, my walls are Paint-03 Gray and I'm using the OpenGL 3D engine.

Thanks for any tips and techniques.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:20:46 GMT

I've asked this question many times myself. The answer that I keep getting is NO

No, there is no way to illuminate your entire building.
Maybe some one here knows how to do it, that would be nice.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Dwight — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:05:08 GMT

What you say is that you want sun on all sides of the building.
However, i suspect that what you need to do is fill dark shadows in OpenGL views......

So, you suppress the strength of the sun, say to:

Camera Dialog Sun Setting: 20
PhotoRendering Setting Sun: 100

Then you artificially increase the Ambient Light:
Camera Dialog Ambient: 100
PhotoRendering Setting Ambient: 500

This, or something like it, still provides a directional feeling to the sunlight while mitigating dark shadows. If sun is still too strong, reduce sun intensity.....

Alternatively, you can create view sets that preserve different, more flattering sun/camera settings for each building face and use the saved views to review your design progress. This will automatically change the sun position....

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:31:04 GMT

Doug wrote:
This is a newbie question...

... or to quickly move the sun around (maybe with a Palette)? It's hard to see my model and it's slow to keep opening the Sun dialog

The palette you need is the 3D settings window - just hit F1. You can drag the sun to any point immediately to suit the veiw. It's not automatic but it takes less than two seconds!

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:17:28 GMT

Philip,
Thanks. That's just what I was looking for. I should have realized I could use a keyboard shortcut (and assign my own).

Dwight,
I'll look into using Cameras. So far for editing the model I'm just using Orbit.

Thanks to both of you for the great help.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Dwight — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:33:24 GMT

From the ArchiGeezer:

There was a time before cameras when all we had to control views was the 3D Projection Dialog.

The camera tool arrived to make a non-printing physical marker that prevents view confusion.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

R Muller — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:02:44 GMT

If you have a camera, and you change the view by orbiting, etc. in 3D, is there a way to update the camera location and settings to agree with the new viewpoint? I know I can save the new view as a view setting, but could I modify or create a camera to have this view?

Once I find the view I want, I would like to have a record of exactly where I am standing on the ground to get this view. The project navigator is the only feedback I have found, and it is very general.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Dwight — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:15:55 GMT

see attached.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Djordje — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:17:20 GMT

Yes ... pull down menu ... the right place for it! The old palette was so non RPG ...

Sorry, I am still angry about this. Old fashioned, I know ...

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:18:02 GMT

R wrote:
If you have a camera, and you change the view by orbiting, etc. in 3D, is there a way to update the camera location and settings to agree with the new viewpoint?

Select the camera in floor plan. Go to 3D view. Use the Orbit tool to redefine the view. Now choose menu command View>3D navigation extras>modify the selected (or insert new camera...)

See the attached screen shot.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

R Muller — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:06:05 GMT

Thanks, guys. It's like magic. The camera just appears! I hadn't figured this out from any of the documentation.

Next step: to figure out how to store the sun settings, so I can render each view at the most appropriate time of day. As I understand it, sun settings are stored with cameras but not with views. The view stores everything else having to do with the rendering settings. So, I need both a camera and a view in order to have reproducible rendering results. Is this correct?

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Link — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:47:22 GMT

Yes it is like magic, except if your camera tool is set to VR Object or VR Scene, and that option doesn't appear. Just something to be aware of.

3D Views will store all the 3D Settings, so it is the view that remembers the sun settings, not the camera. A camera will remember the last one used, whereas multiple views will remember multiple sun settings. Your 3D views should come from a camera (so that the position can be recalled and changed at any time), but they don't necessarily have to come from different cameras.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 09:50:12 GMT

R wrote:
I hadn't figured this out from any of the documentation...

The time spent just experimenting with the menu commands to see what happens will usually be repaid a thousand times. It isn't all in the manual.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

R Muller — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 06:40:08 GMT

Thanks for the info, but pardon me if I seem a bit dense.

If the sun setting is stored with my 3D view, how come whenever I generate the view, then show Perspective settings/ More Sun all I see in the Sun window is the information I last used to set the sun for some other camera, not the information that is supposedly stored with this camera?

For example, one view was set up for the sun to be at 2:00 PM, and the preview diagram seems to show the correct angle. The altitude and azimuth may be correct in the Perspective Settings window, but they are meaningless numbers to me. I think in terms of time of day and time of year. When I click on More Sun to see what these are it shows the time is 9:00 AM. Not only that, the intensity and color in the Sun dialog box is different than the way I remember setting it.

I have over 20 stored views, and can't figure out a way to check them to verify the sun intensity and ambient intensity without setting each one all over again. I am trying to learn Lightworks (I have Dwight's book), but I'm getting totally tripped up on these seemingly elementary things.

What am I missing?

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Link — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:35:23 GMT

Looks like you've found a bug where the Sun Settings dialog does not recall the last accessed view's setting. The view works just fine, but not the Sun Setting dialog. I'll report it for you.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:49:48 GMT

Doug wrote:
This is a newbie question.

When I'm working in an axonometric window checking and editing my model the sides away from the sun source are dark. I've tried messing around with the sun settings ("Sunlight Intensity"=70%, "Contribution to Ambient"=20%, "Ambient Intensity"=80%).

Is there a way to have light shine on all sides at once... or to quickly move the sun around (maybe with a Palette)? It's hard to see my model and it's slow to keep opening the Sun dialog to change every couple seconds.

Btw, my walls are Paint-03 Gray and I'm using the OpenGL 3D engine.

Thanks for any tips and techniques.

Sorry for dragging up an oldish thread, but I may have figured out a work around for the problem described.

I was having problems too with very dark (black) textures on the sides of the building in shadow especially on an already dark texture.

I noticed if you adjust the emission colour to something just a bit lighter than black, the texure becomes visible again in the OpenGL window. You can also increase the whiteness of white textures too that normally show a dirty grey.

It works best visually if you choose a colour that is close to the materials colour anyway.

The changes will have an effect on how it renders, especially in the internal engine, however if you use the lightworks engine it has separate material settings and the emission can be turned off (under 'Pipeline').

Now, the question is in my excitement have I missed something fundamental? Will this screw up something else I haven't thought of?

Re: light on all sides in 3D

Anonymous — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:53:30 GMT

By the way, this is how it used to display for me.

Cheers!

Pete.