Questions about Lighting, Shadows & Luminosity for TurboHome&LandscapeProV12

[mysticlady]

Hello,

When walking in 3d are you able to see the lighting, shadows and reflections or do you have to do a full render to see all 3.

I have an older version when it was owned by Broderbund and I liked the program alot so I wanted to upgrade. For some reason I couldn't download the trial version so this is why I am asking these questions.

Thanks in advance!

Linda

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Linda,

Welcome to the Forum!

Yes and no!  The first 8 lights inserted will appear to be on but it is only a simulation - not true to the proper render.  Shadows are not really there properly and reflections are not there but the view is good never-the-less.

You can render using Radiosity (Advanced Render) which will give you lighting and shadows but reflections only come with the final Raytrace phase so you end up with a static high quality image. You can however click back onto the Radiosity button again and you then have a walkaround of the Radiosity file - still very high quality of the while model but without the reflections.  Unfortunately you cannot save this radiosity view to walk around later. 

You can also create a movie of the model and can create it with lighting/reflections too but the latter is very slow!  The movie without lighting is very good however. There is also a VRML file creation too that saves instantly.  This requires a viewer to view in a web browser but it does not reproduce the textures so is virtually uselsss really.

What was the problem with the download of the trial.  The Trial is actually the full version with a 'timeout'. You only need the serial number when you buy it to unlock the trial.

Hope that helps your decision.

Allan

[Doug.S]

As you "walk" or move the screen, while it is in motion, may display lighting or not depending on the speed and whether h/w acceleration is on or off.  Some people have PC issues with their video display card and TFP, and need to turn it off all the time, or turn it off for rendering only.

But, when the display redraws the view after viewing motion stops (you quit moving the cursor driving screen display motion), lighting (from the screen "lighting", not from sun) shows on objects, but shadows and mirror reflections require a "render"...either basic (raytrace) or advanced (radiosity).

You can control screen display lighting quality (or off, to speed up a slow PC) in the program settings....see .jpg below from my laptop which runs HA "on" all the time OK.

This is quite typical in all 3D programs because screen displays during design need to be fast or the user gets frustrated waiting for the screen....hence h/w acceleration and video cards. Time consuming renders of shadows and mirror reflections require renders to file/screen....and you have control over the render parameters.

Basic renders are quite fast and excellent for "testing" initial results....especially if you zoom in to what you are testing and use a small pixel x pixel output (under 640) and lower quality.

Radiosity renders can be lengthy depending on design contents (especially with many lights and mirrors)  and output quality (higher quality needed to render all lights)....but the results can be stunningly excellent.  TFP renders are typical compared to most 3D programs...meaning TFP is neither much faster nor much slower.

[mysticlady]

Thanks for all the information, I appreciate it very much!

I was able to finally download the free trial version last night but only checked a couple of things because it was late. One thing I  noticed is that it renders in a small screen to the left hand side with options of what kind of rendering you want. Is that how it's supposed to be? My older version gives me full screen rendering.

Thanks again!

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Linda,

Yes, rendering does occur in a separate window as it did in V11 and previous versions of FloorPlan 3D.  TurboFLOORPLAN v12 replaces previous FloorPlan 3D versions but also the Broaderbund product too.  The render window is re-sizable after rendering.  Basic render is Raytrace only and good for exteriaor views or quick interior ones. Shadows are 'basic'. Advanced rendering does Radiosity first followed by Raytrace which supplies the reflections. After Advanced rendering, if you click the Radiosity radio button you can walk around it and it will resize large even if you set the render size to small.  You can Modify the Viewpoint and it only needs to do the Raytrace again so subsequent views render very quickly.

Is your trial V12.00 or V12.01?  If not you need to apply the patch (links at the bottom of this forum) as this corrects a number of major render issues. Also, watch out for Hardware Acceleration as mentioned by Doug.  It can cause all sorts of issues when on (which it is the default) although some have no probems or only when rendering so turn it off for that.  V12.01 seems to have fewer issues with it on my PCs.

There are still a few issues with rendering so you may like to do a Search on the subject to bring yourself up to date on how to handle them. Check out the Tips and Tricks section.

Allan

[mysticlady]

I'm not sure which version I downloaded, I will check later when I get home. In reference to the hardware acceleration explains why I sometimes get errors when my old program is rendering. When it happens again I will experiment turning it off to see what happens.

I have different design software programs (it's just a hobby) and this one is the easiest to use. I'm looking forward to playing around with this one later.