[chedda]

I am currently working on a night scene which involves floodlights. The light sources are placed at the base of a 6 story wall. However the light never seems to reach the top or illuminate the wall sufficiently. Could someone suggest a technique for this ? Many thanks in advance.

[bograt]

When you say 'illuminate the wall sufficiently', do you mean that the wall is not bright enough? or just that it is not even? if the lights are placed right at the base of the wall it will be difficult to avoid hotspots near the light source.

Are you using planes for emitters or have you modeled an enclosure?

[chedda]

Yes i have it burn't out near the source at the base of the wall, yes i am using simple .2x.2m planes. I tried with a shroud around them but it didn't help get the light higher. I have a feeling it may be connected to the texture used on the wall. Perhaps the trick may to use extra emitters angled in stages at the wall ?

[polynurb]

Give it a try with. Ies/eulumdat.

If i remember right general electric has floodlights with ies files on the web, sure there are others too maybe philipps.

[chedda]

Thanks Polynurb that is a good idea. I have yet to use IES lights within sketch up, because it's a material do i have to make seperate groups for each light object ? Or will the plugin understand ? I'll have a trial run and see what happens !

[JDHill]

IES needs a direction to point, so you need to apply the material to something that has a direction -- a group or a component, and not a face. When IES was introduced in the plugin, I made an example IES light dynamic component, which you can find linked on this page.

[bograt]

I think an Ies is worth trying to control the distribution of the light but the positioning of the flood lights will make a huge difference.
When you look at flood lit buildings you will notice that either the flood lights are fairly far away from the wall, or you get hotspots, obviously it is more noticeable on photos



Vs

[Fernando Tella]

A 6 story wall is a big wall...

[polynurb]

generally you are looking for a "wall washer" fixture
i used this one for a project a while ago:

http://www.colorkinetics.com/ls/rgb/colorblast12/

there are different versions, the ies are further down the page. but make sure you get the horizon right when you align the ies in 3d, as these have no rotational symmetry; sorry no sketchup user.. so i am not sure how/if you can get visual feedback for ies "roll"

[chedda]

I just stumbled over this tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10X_Cqx1iQY

It seems this may be a good technique to avoid burnout and control light.

[bograt]

Thanks Chedda, Jfrancis had a similar video on egg crates but it was not as direct and clear as this.
Good job James!