I think that the same problem (over iluminating) is in the second render.... What day time do you set in this model?? I think, that Rogue wrote somewhere in this forum, that the day time has influence on light shining...

if you are talking about the living room:
40.0170N
105.2830W
[boulder CO USA]
north angle 299.3
14:39 on 8th of november

and yes, i've got troubles when setting spotlights together with sunlight on the same scene

Kicbas wrote:


Yes I did! Glad you noticed.

It is mostly at night time to my knowledge.

You can try it yourself if you like! lol... Make a light when it's 8:00, see how bright it is, then change the time to 3:00. There should be a very noticeable difference.

Rogue#1 wrote:


can you please link your topic?
i wonder if this is really a bad thing..
consider that the same spotlight with same lumen, lux and photometric curve,in a real environment shines bright at night, but is only a tiny light at noon.
(this is why spotlight makes no significant difference in daytime rendering)

the most serious issue is that (render[in]) virtual spotlights are unable to turn on modeled sketchup components (e.g. a spotlight inside a component that resembles a real light furniture) nor change the shadows' color when:
a) refracting through a colored material
b) reflecting through a colored reflective material

for instance try this:
1)set up a plane spotlight facing into a colored reflective projector
[if the light is WHITE and the projector is BLUE i'm expecting to get a blue cone of light coming from the projector focus, not a white light coming from the projector's back]

2)set up a plane spotlight pointing through a RED glass on a white wall
[if the light is WHITE and the glassis RED i'm expecting to get a red cone of light on the wall]

i'll add one more significant point: in render[in] the shape and area of the lights do not affect the render.

if i set a plane spotlight centered on a specific point it doesn't matter if the emitting surface is 1 square meter or 1 square kilometer, which is,in my opinion, a great nonsense

if the shape is a square, a triangle , a rectangle, a number, a what-ever-you-want shape, pointing to a plane surface, it always traces a white light circle on it, no matter which shape you choose [this is why kikbas and i (and many others) were unable to render neon lights, nor neon signs, nor glowing shapes]

but this is only a beta,and a great beta, so it's not time for complaints.

phi wrote:


I have no idea what topic that was, anyway it is better explained in this topic.

And don't you think beta is the time to complain?
Beta + complaining = better release product.

i may have been misunderstood, rogue
i think that asking for new features is a must.
i believe that noting plugin's limitations (e.g. no alpha channel for compositing, no caustics, no separate reflection/refraction maps, no emissive materials, no distributed rendering, no animations, memory leak, lights need to be improved) is a good way to make the next release near to perfection.(you're right, we are in beta!)

-please take a look at this must haves , and if agree feel free to sign or add something to this thread!-

but complaining..

after all, it is the only plugin i know that is capable to render a NIGHT/interior scene in realtime, with reliable results, fully integrated in sketchup, giving the unique opportunity to set up lights with istant feedback, and able to render a scene in minutes, not hours,even on a not-high-end pc ( even on my aao 110l netbook, with some limitations!)

and consider that using GPU/CPU render capabilities toghether is a smart idea, but it may be not so easy as we suppose,or wish