By andy5000
#389764
[I can't seem to get any emitters to render at all. I know how to create emitter materials and have done so many times. now however nothing I do works.
plugin version 3.2.2 on sketchUp 2015.

Image
Last edited by andy5000 on Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By JDHill
#389766
I'd need a more specific description of what isn't working, because I don't immediately see any such issue here. To try and isolate it, open a new file, create a box and group it, create a new material using the Emitter Character and apply it to the group, and then render it with environment type set to None (adjusting emitter power & camera exposure as necessary). Assuming that is working fine, I'd look at the direction of faces to which emitter materials are applied, the overall scene scale, and so forth, to figure out where the problem is coming in. If you upload a model (to dropbox or similar) that shows the problem, I'll take a look and see what's going on.
By JDHill
#389768
The problem is that you are using the Spotlight Character, but assigning the material to a face (you should find it works fine if you switch the Character to Emitter). Spotlights (and IES & image projectors) will not work when assigned to a face, because they need a transform to define the position/direction from/in which they should project. So, please create a small cube, group it, and apply the material to the group -- you should find it works fine, and that you can control the orientation of the spotlight by rotating the group.
By andy5000
#389769
thank you ! very helpful. I could have sworn ( as I was swearing a lot) I tried that before posting. I have used that many times as I have never reallyunderstood how to create spots. face applied works as you said perfectly.
question :

I did that and created a small cube. spotlight. the wattage is set to 1100. in the small box (8' square
why does the wattage need to be so high to illuminate?
I have never been able to use spotlights. is there a good tutorial?
By JDHill
#389770
Not sure about a tutorial (you might look here, or at the Maxwell channel on youtube). That said, I'll mention first that wattage is meaningless without also specifying efficacy. However, probably more importantly, the camera in your scene is set up for a shot in broad daylight (EV=14). If you set up a similar scenario in real life, you'd be hard pressed to detect the spotlight, until it was nighttime, and you adjusted your camera EV to the 5-7 range. In that case, a single spotlight with 1100W @ efficacy ~50 would be very bright indeed.

Just try that as an experiment -- start with the environment & camera as they were in the file you sent (Env. Type=Sky, EV=14), start FIRE rendering, then set the Environment type to None, then adjust the camera EV to 6. While observing the effects of these actions, think about how it would work, were you shooting this in real life, with a real camera -- it is not possible to set the exposure to deal with the relatively-bright ambient lighting, and also to detect much light cast from fixtures in the room, simultaneously. Think of photographing the exterior of a house in broad daylight -- it doesn't much matter whether the lights are on or off inside, the windows will appear dark either way, which is why so much real estate photography depicts houses at dusk.

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