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Help: General light is not showing in 3d rendering

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am using archicad 14 and i used the general light sources (light cone down) and when i render its not showing (the lighting) in the rendering why is that? please help and thanks
13 REPLIES 13
Dwight
Newcomer
Of course you have:

turned the light source on

given it some power

enabled lights in the photorendering dialog
Dwight Atkinson
Anonymous
Not applicable
yes i have all that done but only when i use general light it does not show in the rendering but when i use interior light it shows in rendering please help
NCornia
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Reem_92

More information is needed. Can you provide a screenshot of your model and photo-rendering settings just prior to the actual render.

I am wondering if your lamp is above the ceiling, or the luminance distance is too short for it to reach its desired target. Also, the Light Cone Down creates no ambient light, it simply illuminates what is in its path like a spotlight on a stage, so if that is your only light source in a room it will only light the floor and objects directly below.

As Dwight mentioned, check your Document>Creative Imaging>Photo Rendering Settings. Is the box next to Lamps (under Light Sources) checked? Are you using the Lightworks engine, internal engine?
Nicholas Cornia
Technical Support Team - GRAPHISOFT North America
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vistasp
Advisor
Also, have you by any chance placed the light on a layer that is turned off in your 3D view?
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Anonymous
Not applicable
i took an image before rendering and after and it will show the interior light showing but not the general lights
shh.png
Anonymous
Not applicable
second one
Untitled.gif
Anonymous
Not applicable
third one
showroom.jpg
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Where are all of those lights around the base of the cabinet aimed? And what color is their light? (If the light is black, it is invisible of course. If the light is aimed downwards and in the distance, the light will not appear on the floor.)

You do realize that ArchiCAD does not support radiosity or global illumination, right? So no light will bounce around your scene from these lights to illuminate any other surfaces. You have to fake it with extra omnidirectional lights, window lights, etc.

(The effort of illuminating interior scenes with ArchiCAD is great ... a reason that anyone doing many interiors should consider Artlantis or some other rendering package.)

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.9, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Dwight
Newcomer
As to why a certain light source doesn't work in a given scene is something that can't be answered without troubleshooting the model and the setup.

However, users can easily learn how light sources work by making a test room where the test source is clearly positioned to float freely, eliminating any unexpected shadow/blocking conditions.

This is also useful to learn and anticipate energy falloff.

Users should note that Graphisoft made a huge change in the general light source behaviour in Version 11 that reduced output strength.
gen lite.jpg
Dwight Atkinson