SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Announcements, requests and support regarding SkIndigo - the Sketchup / Indigo exporter.
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Frutiger
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Frutiger » Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:40 am

rayrender wrote:Hey Whaat,

Thanks for this great work. Now I can make cool Outdoor-Scenes with Sun and Clouds, Great.

But I have little problem with the light-settings. When I create a Group, like a Lamp, and copy them, the first Group dosent light so bright as the other. So I copy them and the first light I move into the wall or behind the camera :)
It's also realy hard to get the right settings between sky illumination, sun and lights.

I've had some similar issues with brightness between identical objects. If a light is copied, its brightness won't necessarily match its clones.

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Whaat
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Whaat » Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:55 am

rayrender wrote:Hey Whaat,

Thanks for this great work. Now I can make cool Outdoor-Scenes with Sun and Clouds, Great.

But I have little problem with the light-settings. When I create a Group, like a Lamp, and copy them, the first Group dosent light so bright as the other. So I copy them and the first light I move into the wall or behind the camera :)
This is strange. Groups that contain lights should look all render identical if the emitting material has the same emission scale for all of the groups.
It's also realy hard to get the right settings between sky illumination, sun and lights.
Use light layers! :D

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Whaat
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Whaat » Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:58 am

Matteo wrote:
Frutiger wrote:
Sorry for the delay. Thought I'd responded already!

I followed the steps you posted a little earlier.

1. Create new material.
2. Apply .exr file as the emitting texture
3. Change render settings to use texture as environment map

However, this is a file that was created before 3.0.15 so I'm going to copy all the geometry over and start anew.
How do I create an image of exr on sketchup?
You cannot view the EXR inside SketchUp unfortunately.

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Pibuz
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Pibuz » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:15 am

Hi Whaat.
Sorry to bother, but I must admit I have some serious problems working with emitters.

I can't make them work the way I would like to, since I changed to the 3.0.15 version! :lol:

Since there have been some changes with the introduction of emission scale, I'd very like to have some tips from you regarding the use of emitting materials, especially the ones with a texture applied. I know one can play with light layers, but as a base I'd like to have some basic information about the way skindigo handles emitters:
1. what is emission scale?
2. what is the numeric value of the emission scale of sun and sky?
3. why a default emitter material is set to 1750 lm by default?
4. how do I work with the emission scale parameter? I thought that parameter was introduced to make each light layer's calculation more handy: if I set same emission scale scale to two different materials, the one which has more power takes more CPU power. Is this correct? But..
5. where do I set the power of the emitters? Where is the gain parameter gone? does it still matter?

Sorry, I know this is kind of a very open question, but I think a complex subject like emitters is worth a precise description.

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Frutiger
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Frutiger » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:19 am

Pibuz wrote:Hi Whaat.
Sorry, I know this is kind of a very open question, but I think a complex subject like emitters is worth a precise description.
I'll second this.

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CTZn
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by CTZn » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:16 am

Before Whaat provides you with a detailed description I can shed some light, what else.

1. Ultimately, emission scale refers to the rate at wich an emissive material will shoot rays.

2. This numeric value is variable depending on the time of day and is displayed in the render log before the render starts. I tend to use a value of 8,000 lumens for outdoor emitters, it's slightly more than the sky can provide I think.

4. There's something special about the unit one would choose in order to scale emission: some units are dependent on the emitting square surface, some set a constant value for the luminaire independently from it's dimensions. I am not sure but I believe that only lumens is absolute, ie scale-independent.

So yes, that's how you set two emitters to emit at the same rate. However concerning the CPU/GPU usage I assume, it also depends on the exposure of each emitter to the camera. Consider one simple scene with two emitters at the same "lumen rate"; the one the less obstructed is by essence the most efficient.

That's where the artist's eye plays a role also, in estimating visually the efficiency of the contribution of each light to the scene. You may indeed want to tune that most efficient light down (and eventually put it on its own layer - that's not necessary though) so it doesn't over run the evaluation of the other light emitter, wich was primarily as powerfull but more obstructed to the camera (less efficient).

Hope it helps

PS: you can refer to the Indigo Technical Reference, page 97 for more informations, and to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminance
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Whaat
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Whaat » Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:28 am


Rinkwell
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Rinkwell » Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:26 am

Happy Friday gang! I have noticed an error that seams to occur only in 3.0.15 (see below). If I re-install 3.0.14 the message does not appear. I have tried it on a couple of models and I get similar errors (only with a different "Material" not defined. I also tried deleting the material in question and the error would proceed to another material in the model. Any thoughts?

Error: Scene parsing error: Error while binding material ' Zinc' to geometry 'Group#92': No such material defined ' Zinc'

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Whaat
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Whaat » Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:04 pm

Rinkwell wrote:Happy Friday gang! I have noticed an error that seams to occur only in 3.0.15 (see below). If I re-install 3.0.14 the message does not appear. I have tried it on a couple of models and I get similar errors (only with a different "Material" not defined. I also tried deleting the material in question and the error would proceed to another material in the model. Any thoughts?

Error: Scene parsing error: Error while binding material ' Zinc' to geometry 'Group#92': No such material defined ' Zinc'
Hi,

This error is related to an issue with version 3.0.15 that should be fixed in the next version.

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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Jeff Hammond » Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:57 pm

hmm..

this new env map thing is, well, odd(?)
[plus i can't get it to work without crashing either indigo or sketchup]


i hope it gets a re-think :wink:



[edit]
ok, so i got it working..
still claiming it's a bit odd! :D

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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Rinkwell » Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:02 am

Rinkwell wrote:Happy Friday gang! I have noticed an error that seams to occur only in 3.0.15 (see below). If I re-install 3.0.14 the message does not appear. I have tried it on a couple of models and I get similar errors (only with a different "Material" not defined. I also tried deleting the material in question and the error would proceed to another material in the model. Any thoughts?

Error: Scene parsing error: Error while binding material ' Zinc' to geometry 'Group#92': No such material defined ' Zinc'
FYI Seems that there was a space in front of all the materials that were giving me trouble (probably because I have the space bar as a short key for deselect and I hit it out of habit when I finish editing a material or object). Deleted the spaces and now everything works fine!

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Whaat
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by Whaat » Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:48 am

Rinkwell wrote:
Rinkwell wrote:Happy Friday gang! I have noticed an error that seams to occur only in 3.0.15 (see below). If I re-install 3.0.14 the message does not appear. I have tried it on a couple of models and I get similar errors (only with a different "Material" not defined. I also tried deleting the material in question and the error would proceed to another material in the model. Any thoughts?

Error: Scene parsing error: Error while binding material ' Zinc' to geometry 'Group#92': No such material defined ' Zinc'
FYI Seems that there was a space in front of all the materials that were giving me trouble (probably because I have the space bar as a short key for deselect and I hit it out of habit when I finish editing a material or object). Deleted the spaces and now everything works fine!
Good to know! I will fix this issue before next beta release to allow white spaces at beginning or end of material names

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cotty
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by cotty » Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:57 am

I don't know if this is the right topic for this question, but here it is: I have read about the changed workflow for subdivision, but it didn't work for me or I did something wrong but don't know what it is. Do you know the reason for the behaviour shown in the picture?
Thanks for any help!
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CTZn
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by CTZn » Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:07 am

Faces that self-collapse upon subdivisions were considered as detached from the neighbouring faces at render time.

To be attached, faces need shared vertices to have the same position (merged) and identical normals (smooth edges).
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CTZn
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Re: SkIndigo 3.0.15 (beta)

Post by CTZn » Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:10 am

I'm not SU saavy but it seems to me that the model is microscopic, could you check this out ?
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