I am working on a model, trying to decipher how to show the natural shadows on an interior camera view. When I render it with shadows the interior walls are black. HELP - what am I doing wrong?

Hard to say w/o knowing a little more (VW version, what rendering mode, texture on walls, design layer or viewport....)

Have you tried setting your ambient layer lighting higher? View>Lighting>Set Layer Lighting Options

hth

michaelk

VW2009, Final Quality RenderWorks, I haven't added textures to the walls - is this necessary? Design layer/model space - I think... still kind of new to VW as you can tell.

I set my camera view in RenderWorks, then viewed in the object info palette. Is there an easier way to view interiors?

I am trying to get a snapshot of how shadows are cast into this room that is already part of a model I have been working on, and then show a series of shots for a basic solar analysis.

Thanks.

It's not necessary to add textures to the walls. But it is possible to create textures with odd shadow behavior.

Are you getting any light into the interior? (ie is the glazing on the windows and doors transparent?)

If you add a point source light in the interior, does that help?

If you turn the ambient layer light level higher, does that help?

...and I wouldn't say this if I hadn't done it: Is your camera object inside a wall?


hth

michaelk

The default texture set in the walls drawn is stucco medium white wall. I played around a little with other textures - which did help, however I am still having a few issues.

Openings are translucent, and I can see sun through them. The sun just does not project into the room as much as it should be. Is my north screwed up? How do I check this?

After playing with the textures I am able to get light, but it is appears either washed out or too dark depending on the brightness.

No, the camera is not in a wall. I Can see the furniture and person I placed in the model etc....

I don't have any light source in the interior - I am guessing I need to add one in...

I appreciate your help on this.

Did you use the Set Sun Position command? View>Lighting>Set Sun Position...

This will take care of the true north compared to page north problem, and set the sun position for you.

Turning up the ambient layer light should light what isn't being struck directly by the sunlight.

Or using Final Radiosity will bounce the sunlight around the room to light the walls.


hth

michaelk

Set the Stucco texture reflectivity to Matte and max the ambient and diffuse settings.
Then play around with the View>Lighting>Set Layer Lighting options. You can select your 'Sun' and change azimute (height) and Latitiude (rotation) so that the sun 'shines' into your windows better. NOTE!! Once you change this, the original location settings will NOT be correct, so if the point of the presentation is to show how the sun behaves in this particular location don't fiddle with those settings.....

If you are only using an exterior light source to light an interior model, you'll need to use Radiosity or Final Gather in Custom Renderworks to get the light to bounce around. FQRW will only give you "direct" illumination (no bounces.)

I have lit model interiors using only an HDRI background outside the model and it gave good results but the render times were quite long.

See the following posts:
http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=112213

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=112664

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthre...13944#Post60037

I REALLY wish that there were more thorough Renderworks tutorials/manuals. I've suffered through LOTS of trial and error.

And i thought that i was the only one experiencing this affliction.
One way to ease the pain of experimentation is to utilized low dpi Sheets with stripped down Viewports.
Instead of rendering the entire scene at hi-res, first, crop the VP to show an average vertical or horizontal slice of the scene.
Then, reset the Sheet to something like 54 dpi and have at it.

Excellent suggestion, islandmon.

I also use Custom Renderworks and set all the variables to Low until I have things worked out. That, when combined with the low sheet layer dpi, results in VPs that render very quickly.

You can also use the render bitmap tool, while working on a design layer, to render just a portion of the image.

Yes I finally realised that I did not have any 'direct' light.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Islandmon - thanks for that suggestion!

Interiors are tough. Lots of trial and error.

PIP, how's that model coming along? Any images you can post? I'd love to see what others are doing out there with RW.

While we are on the subject of lighting...

Attached is a room we are working on with input from a lighting designer. The room is rendered with only her actual lighting along with sunlight. It still seems way too dark although I don't think it is a product of her lighting placement.

We do have an HDRI outside along with one sun. Interior is lit only with actual lights an no ambient light.

Render is Custom Renderworks with Final Gather at 12" and 10%.

My question has more to do with reflectivity of surfaces - our walls and ceilings had no reflectivity in the texture. Should we use "image reflectivity" or "matte" in order to get the light bouncing more? The wood floor has phong as the reflectivity.

It seems that we really aren't getting very much from the sun. I think the reality is the room will be very bright during the day.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

thanks

What happens if you try Final Gather at 6" & 40%?

By looking at the shadows, sees what lighting effect it will have if you rotate the room 180deg in relation to the sun source. See what light will come streaming through the window behind the bed.
Also what is the transparency of the glass?
I would use Image reflectivity and you need to have some sort of reflectivity for it to reflect, might just be why it is so dark in there.

Jeffroyer ... a couple simple tricks ...
1) Floor & varnishes require reflectivity
2) Place Directional Light(s) ( possibly colored ) above ceiling panels,
then assign the panels a simple transparency to allow the light to radiate through.
( i sometimes do this with fake walls opposite the ambient for brightness ).

Thanks for the feedback. I will try a few things out and repost my results. The renders take a while - we are doing these on an older iMac. Might be upgrading to a new iMac, Snow Leopard and 2010 if a few more checks roll in...

jeffroyer & others,

As a new user to VW2009 in general and RW in particular, I have a few questions:

1) The oak floor texture in the bedroom image you had attached previously: Is this within the VW textures? I f so where? Also did you draw the floor as individual planks or is this a simple flat surface?

2) For lineal elements; crowns & base moldings are these simply drawn, extruded, & dropped into place? The lineal elements tool bar seems to be useful for details, rather than model elements?

Thanks,
Jeremy

Jeremy,

It would make it easier to help and answer questions if you would create a signature with your version of Vectorworks including updates and computer specs including OS. Click on the My Stuff link at the top, Edit Profile.

There are lot's of textures that ship with VW, on Windows they are located here:

C:\Program Files\Vectorworks2009\Libraries\Textures

You can extrude moldings and miter with the Split Tool, or you can use Extrude Along Path.

I'm not sure what you mean by "lineal elements tool bar"

Ray,

I will further search the library. I meant Detailing\Tool Sets\Lineal Material where I said "lineal elements tool bar" sorry for lack of clarity.

As for the moldings are there stock profiles that can be used and/or modified or am I to draw them, extrude them & miter them as you mention?

Thanks,
Jeremy

VW 2010 does come with Copper Beech Millwork profiles. You can also go to manufacturers sites and find cad examples of their profiles. The ones I use are all either a stock moldings or drawn from scratch.

If you are not yet on Vw2010 (or are waiting for your copy to arrive, like me), you can get a collection of 504 moulding profiles graciously provided for free here : Vector Depot :: Moulding Profiles by Matthew Swett. These may be the same profiles as provided in Vw2010, I don't know.

Regards,
Tim

jeffroyer,

It seems to me that you are getting virtually no contribution from the North & East windows. This may have to do with your glass reflectivity or the HDRI outside. You can estimate / calculate the contribution you expect from these and create an area light, angled slightly downward, hide geometry and place just outside the windows.

These are in fact from the New England Classic profile catalog, so they are different.

All,
Thanks for the profile info. I am presently experimenting with them. "Extrude Along Path" is a new command to me. It seems a bit quirky. For instance: (1) it deletes the source profile, (2) if the trim profile is say 3/4"thick, then my offset rectangle(for baseboard moulding) needs to be offset from the wall 3/8"( so the command chooses the centerline?), (3) direction of profile (front/back) takes a little experimentation.

Most importantly, and this is where I need some assistance to "stretch" my new profiles the "3D Reshape tool" does not allow me to lock into the X or Y plane. Also where is the mitre tool? When placing individual pieces of crown at inside/outside corners this would be helpful.

Thanks,
Jeremy

After Extrude along path, right click on the object and choose Edit Profile.

As I said in my earlier post, use the Split Tool to miter.

You should edit the extrude length in the OIP (Object Info Palette).

After you extrude your profile, go to Menu bar>Modify>Create Symbol. In the Create Symbol dialog box name your symbol. Click on the Options... button and choose Convert to Group. When using the symbol out of the Resource Browser the extrude will be placed as a stand alone object and not a symbol. Using this method you will always have the original extrude to work with. If you don't check Covert to Group when you edit the profile it will change all examples in the drawing.

To get to the original profile object, just double click on the EAP and edit the Profile Object.

Move it so that the point you want to run along the path is at the 0,0 point on the screen.

I think VW assumes that you have drawn the path in a clockwise direction. If that is not true, you may have to mirror the profile across the insertion point to get what you want/need.

The above should help you get your molding in the right place more easily.

For your mitre question, type the Split tool in the Split by Line mode from a top or top/plan view.

Thanks guys,

I can now trim out a room!

Best, Jeremy

Hello Jeff:

Regarding the bedroom rendering:

If your light colors are set using color temperature then you might want to go to View->Lighting->Layer Lighting Options and change the color temperature white balance to 3400K. That will make the lights much less yellow.

Try using the Visualization palette to turn off all but the HDRI to see what contribution you are getting from it. You should also turn off ambient in the Lighting Options to make sure you can see what lighting contributions you are getting from the HDRI and sun directional light.

My guess is that the HDRI is too dim, and changing the color temperature white balance and cranking up the HDRI brightness will help lighten up the room.

While you are tweaking the lighting turn off anti-aliasing and zoom way out in the view (if in a design layer) or turn down the sheet layer DPI setting (if in a viewport) to reduce the number of pixels that are rendered and hence the render time.

Area lights and final gather together take a long time to render, I would try using an HDRI for the soft sky lighting rather than an area light.

BTW if you don't set reflectivity of a texture you get the same thing as Matte by default.

Also if you could email this file I'd love to see what I can get out of it.

Go, Dave, go. Really great advice.

Only one question. Do you really think that rendering with area lights will INCREASE rendering time? My experience has been that, in order to get what you need out of HDRI, you need to use final gather, which takes a long time to render. I've gone back to using area lights in the windows and turning off final gather in order to get shorter rendering times.

Dave,

Thanks for the feedback. We have been off this area of the house for several weeks so I had not made it back to this question until today.

We will try out the options you have recommended. I will also get around to sending you a copy of the file (kinda large).

jeff