Dark Rendering

[Doug.S]

Tony,

If you want both inside and outside (sun, faked) lighting, turn off sun, place exterior street type lights in place to shine into interior (placed to simulate sun position but not so you can see the lamp post thru the window in the rendered output).

You can often change textures of light fixtures to transparent/invisible to keep from seeing the fixture....or position the fixture out of view but adjust the light bulb position to desired height.  (For example located a light fixture above the ceiling and below upper floor, but set the red lite bulb cube perhaps 1' to 2' below the fixture.)

I have tried many lights at low wattage to get even lighting distribution but with little success.....low wattage bulbs get overwhelmed by one higher wattage bulb or the sun.  Best to have all lights about the same power.

Often a small light fixture position change can fix undesired/unrealistic shadows. Ray-trace shadows are harsh. Advanced renders distribute light/shadows better...usually.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Doug,

I think from Tony's original post, his aim was not to produce an image as such but use TFP to see if it would show how much natural daylight would lighten a room without needing artificial lighting. It is obvious that it is expection too much of it to expect that - faking it defeats the purpose obviously.

Interestingly Envisioneer has a new rendering engine and one of the options is a 'real sunlight calculation' (haven't tried it yet). It may do the trick but I have a suspicion that TFP won't inherit it.

Allan

[Tony Weddle]

Thanks for the comments, Allan and Doug.

Allan, I was prompted to try again by your reply. Yes, it did seem to be the floor except that the error started to appear after I'd already had successful (if dark) renders. I'd considered removing the floor and re-inserting except that I have room divisions and may want more. Re-inserting the floor effectively removes the divisions, which can't be re-drawn as the help says they can only be used with automatic floors (which I find remarkable as I think the old Floorplan 3D had the capability). Anyway, I tried replacing the main room floor as I don't think I will be dividing that room (though the option is now closed to me). It worked. But the floor was created automatically, so I don't know what went wrong.

I didn't get a reasonable midday render, as below (note the loss of colour on the matt walls and at the far end). I've now added some curtains (drapes) to the ranch sliders in the main room and now daylight rendering is much darker than I expected (and check out part of a chair back on the left, which has lost all of its colour). However, I can use internal lighting for any renders I want, but is there any way of opening the curtains, other than creating my own? You're right that I wanted to see if there was plenty of light inside, during the day but I agree that I'm expecting too much, despite the program's claim that it's like using a real camera, which it definitely isn't.

Thanks again for your help.

[Edit - actually the first render is with curtains/drapes, so I removed them for another render (highest quality, 1500 steps), attached, which isn't much better]

[Tony Weddle]

Mmm. I think the camera was set slightly into the wall/ranch slider, at least on that last render. This seems still darker than I would have thought, but it isn't too bad.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Tony,

Yes you will get very different effects if the camera is inside the wall! It actually does better than a real camera in that way - a real camera does not do at all well inside a wall 

Actually many times TFP renderings are very close to an automatic exposure camera. If you take a photo with a window and sunlight coming in, the camera brightness will drop to prevent overexposure of the sunlit area or outside scene and everything else will be very dark. A brightly lit object in the foreground will have a similar effect on the background. If you point the camera into the darker areas however it will adjust and be brighter - unfortunately, because TFP renders the whole room, it still sees the bright spots and darkens the other areas as a result.
That's my theory anyway! 

Re the floors: What are you using the room dividers for? I have just tried using it to make some different floor surfaces within the room and it worked regardless of the way the floor was inserted. I deleted the original auto floor and all the room divide lines were still there and other floors could be inserted into the divide zones. Again, depending what you are using them for, there are likely other ways to achieve the effect you want anyway.

Allan

[Tony Weddle]

Hi Allan,

Well, in one earlier attempt to get the rendering working, I deleted the whole floor, then inserted another for the whole perimeter. The room divisor lines were still there but there but I could not paint anything except the whole floor in a room. The help says this: "Note: You cannot divide a floor that was created with a Floor tool." That seems pretty final. In fact, I just tried dividing the floor of the main room, for which I had replaced the floor and clicking with the paint brush inside on area covered both areas. So I'm not sure how you managed it.

In several rooms, I'm using the Room Division tool to have tiles next to the ranch sliders and carpet elsewhere.

For now, I'm OK, provided I don't want to tile different areas of the main room in different ways, which is unlikely but possible (e.g. tiling the kitchen area differently).

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Tony,

The Paintbrush will not work but if you insert a floor into a divided section it will work. If the division is surrounded by another floor, eg to make a central carpet surrounded by wood, then click a carpeted floor in the division area, select the inserted floor, right click and elevate it by 1mm. This will raise it above the timber floor around it So you will see both textures and PaintBrush will now work.

For this scenario however it is easier just to insert a rug. The rug can be changed to any texture, eg your tiled section. The rug automatically sits on top of the floor but you can set it to microthin so the edge does not show.

Another option is to insert a floor, right click and choose Cut Opening. You can then put a new floor in the opening.

You can also insert floors "by Picking Points" (start insert then right click before clicking into the room). This can be any shape and if you have OBJSNAP on you can easily join to other walls and floor shapes. PaintBrush will now work also as they are separate floors.

Allan

[Tony Weddle]

Thanks, Allan. you certainly know your stuff! That gives me a few ways to do it. It's a shame that the program help on Room Division doesn't include pointers to the information you've given, since it clearly indicates that floors created with floor tools can't be divided. Your information seems to directly counter that (and it works, I tried), which, my having failed with the materials paint brush, seemed to be accurate.

Oh well.

Thanks again.

Tony

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Tony,

What the Help says is technically correct. When you use the Room Division tool on an Auto floor you can use the PaintBrush to change the texture and if you drag the Division line the texture will move with it. Effectively the floor is divided and remains flexible.

If you use the Room Division on an inserted floor you cannot use the PaintBrush but you can insert another floor into the Division and it will work. Technically you now have 2 floors in the one space and the two textures will fight with each other in 3D views. That is why you Elevate one a fraction. If you now move the Division line, the two textures will remain where they were. The floor is not actually divided - you just have 2 adjacent floors, the Division simple being an insertion marker. It can be moved or deleted but the floors will be unaffected - they will remain where the Division was when they were inserted.

It amounts to the same thing except for the flexibility of the Division line. However the inserted floors are now flexible in their own right so the end result is the same. As you said, links in the Help files to the other options would be a good way to go.

All the best with your project.

Allan

[STRONGER1965]

Hello Friends of Turbo Floor Plan.

My problems:
1. I can not make the rendering of the image "clear";
2. I can not insert a railing at the top of the stairs.
3. And my biggest problem: I do not know if it's because of the amount of items, but when I see the picture, I walk by it, everything is very slow.

I do not use hardware acceleration, even having a video card offboard.

My system and hardware:
1. Windows 7 home edition 64bit SP1
2. Intel Core i5-2500 3.30 GHz
3. 4GB of ram
4. NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

If a colleague can spare some time to help me, I appreciate it.

And, if possible, be clear, step by step, because I am pretty new in using the program, close to the capacity of you.

But I'm learning ....  ...

Thank you.

Do not worry about the shape of the roof, because here in Brazil, we do not have snow, especially in Rondônia.

[Doug.S]

Your PC is adequate and should not be very slow. Not super fast, but reasonable.

Did you try using hardware accdelearation "on"? It will make screen work much faster.  Or are you talking about renders? If so, what are your render settings?  some renders can be very slow even on a faster PC..

Don't know what you mean by making an image "clear"? Please explain more.

I did not open your .bld file (no time), but railing at top of stairs should be easy...it is a separate item, not part of the stair itself...just insert railing.

Doug.S

[STRONGER1965]

Ok Doug.S

Let me explain.

1. the "clear" information is about when I use the RENDER, and the image appears like this one attached.
1.1. using advanced render options
1.2. quality level: level 5 (no problem about the time to render)
1.3. number of steps 1500
1.4. updat display every20 steps
1.5. image brightness 0
1.6. enable daylight (clear sky)
1.7. ray trace automatically after radiosity: marked
1.8. enable effects: not marked
1.9. Country: Brazil
1.10. Ciy: Rio de Janeiro
1.11. date today
1.12. time 08:30am
1.13. daylight savings time: not marked
1.14. North direction: angle 175

2. about railing, I think if I turn off collision it will work (I'll try).

3. I'll activate the hardware acceleration.....

If you open the .JPG file, you will see about the "clear" image that I said ...

And, when you can open the file "bld", you will see that the colors of the front, they are not dark.

The colors of the front, are not black..... so, what is happening?

About the slowly, is when I move the house. Walk aroud, go ahead, each movment with the mouse.

Thank you again.

[Allan Chesney]

There are a few simple answers to your problems.

First the "transparent" railings: These are not transparent but you have used a corrugated metal texture which is shiny, so all you have is a reflection of the driveway and grass. If you set the texture to 'dull' you will not have that problem or use the paint textures instead.

The black walls are 'freestanding' in the sense that they are not connected to make a room (see image). The Exterior texture of a wall only appears when walls join to make an enclosed space. Walls that 'stick out' from the enclosed space are by default regarded as Interior walls and will render black as interior walls only react to artificial lights or reflected sunlight through windows.  You can fix the problem by using the Room Divide tool to draw what amounts to an 'invisible wall' between the open ends and then the Exterior texture will appear and render correctly. You can also use the Wall Properties / Basic / "Force Left (or right) Side To Be Exterior". The side of the wall you need to change is left or right depending on how the wall was drawn, where the green marker is the start and red the end.

Exterior rendering is generally good using just Basic and this will also render the walls correctly. Turn off interior lighting in this case. Advanced rendering is generally used for interior views with artificial lights. It can be used for exterior views but usually Quality 1 is sufficient and the Exterior walls must be defined correctly as discussed above.

Moving around is slow as you have a lot of furniture, objects and cars, that use up computer resources when you move. Turn on Hardware Acceleration and use the View Filter to turn off things that you do not need while you are editing the plan. Turn them on when you render.

Exterior rendering is generally good using just Basic and this will also render the walls correctly. Turn off interior lighting in this case. Advanced rendering is generally used for interior views with artificial lights. It can be used for exterior views but usually Quality 1 is sufficient, but the Exterior walls must be defined correctly as discussed above.

Allan

[STRONGER1965]

Good morning Alan
Has anyone told you "I love you" on international day friend?
I'm kidding.
But, thank you so much for your explanations. I'll try to make the modifications.
And happy day friend.