Saving the sun...

[Anonymous]

If I understand the software correctly, a viewset created from a 'generic perspective' does not save information about the sun settings. A viewset does not record time and location, as the sun is a global item.

I have various views using one model, some I wish to render at night, some during the day. At the moment I have to modify the time settings every time I move from a day to a night view. Why not allow sun settings to be saved differently from one viewset to the next? Or am i missing something (hope i am!)?

[vistasp]

peter_h wrote:
I can confirm that sun position -- whether entered as time or azimuth, etc -- is definitely NOT saved in views!!

That's odd. I've always saved different sun position with different views in the View Map.

[Karl Ottenstein]

vistasp wrote:

peter_h wrote:
I can confirm that sun position -- whether entered as time or azimuth, etc -- is definitely NOT saved in views!!

That's odd. I've always saved different sun position with different views in the View Map.

Me too. Never had a problem.

[Anonymous]

Peter, are you ticking the "Redefine image settings with current" tickbox?
(See Erika Epstein's screen-capture earlier in this thread)

[Anonymous]

OK, now that some of you are saying "No, it DOES store sun in Views for me", I did a few more test to see how we can all be right.

Turns out, we both are. I just did a few more tests:

It turns out that it depends on the View's Source Viewport -- whether it's a "Camera X", or the "Generic Perspective"!!!

Conclusion:

• Views that have their Source as "Generic Perspective" will save the sun settings in the View.
  
  Views that have their Source as a Camera, will save their sun setting in the Camera source, not the View.

I got my results using a Camera source which is located on a Path in the 3D folder of the Project Map. When I created multiple Views from it, non of the sun settings would stick to the Views. If I created another Camera on that Path, the Views that were created from it maintained a different sun setting from the first Camera.

I then created multiple views from the "Generic Perspective". The views that were created from it all maintained individual, unique sun settings.

Feel free to verify this conclusion too, and post back with your results.

This is all a bit of a bummer for me -- I was trying to set up a raft of different views showing shading at different times of the day and year, but have them all based on one source perspective , that can be changed (if need be) in one place (the Camera), and have all the views change their perspective but keep their sun settings.
Looks like the best I can do is have a Camera per moment-in-time, and have that be a source for my 4 views based on that time (Proposed, Existing, heightEnvelope+existing, heightEnvelope+Proposed). Still leaves me creating 9 identical cameras for just 3 times of day, at 3 days of the year... and then have 4 Views for each of those cameras... totalling 36 Views. If I want to change my perspective, at least I'm only changing 9 cameras, not 36 (if I use "Generic Perspective" as the Source Viewport for each of the Views). But, you know, it could be just 1 to change if GS had some consistency as to where sun settings are stored. 😕

[Anonymous]

Ok, I did a few tests. I reckon Peter has a point - the difference is whether you're using a perspective or parallel projection.

[Anonymous]

dv_chris: Yes, it made no difference. See my post above for my conclusion as to this oddity.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Good to know! (Camera vs Generic Perspective) I generally don't use cameras as I use Artlantis for animations, etc.

As far as I know, the Sun Study parameters are global. If they could be set per-view, then since the Sun Study can save images rather than a movie to a folder... and the time increment can be set to 3 hours (180 min), it would be a way to reduce the number of views.

Artlantis sun studies (an animation with only the sun info changing) are per-view, so you could create three views (one for each day - each view generating the 3 hour increment images) there...and the batch render feature generating all images for all views when you need them. You could even make the timeline jump to the other dates so that one 'animation' would generate all 9 image files.

Thanks for the tip on sun values for camera-based views!

Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks Peter,
Looks like you and I were typing our theses at the same time.
With your new info, I went back to check the View Settings of my sun studies. Sure enough, their source is "Generic Axonometry"

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Did any of the logic described in these posts get undone with subsequent releases? I'm trying to set up 4 camera views with different Sun settings and am having no luck whatsoever using any of the methods described in this thread.

Doing this in AC 18.