New User Question - Lights

[rca19]

I've just started using this package - it's really fantastic. I have some questions about lights that I've been unable to find an answer to in the user documentation or forum.

1. What is the impact of change the size or angle of a light? I'm playing with just basic white and incandescent lights, and changing these values doesn't seem to have any impact. I've tried with both ceiling turned on and off, and I get light/shadows, but changing the values seem to have little impact.

2. Using the Advanced Renderer (Tools-> Create Advanced Photo), when I render the image, most of the furniture pieces disappear. If I use the standard photo renderer, all of the furniture is visible.

3. How do I import the the light plugins (basicLights.sh3f, BasicPlusExtraLights.sh3f)? I'm running on Linux, and I've copied them into ~/.eteks/sweethome3d/plugins and restarted the application, but I don't see these features.


Thank you

[Puybaret]

1. What is the impact of change the size or angle of a light?

The angle has no impact. A bigger size gives softer shadows.

2. Using the Advanced Renderer (Tools-> Create Advanced Photo), when I render the image, most of the furniture pieces disappear. If I use the standard photo renderer, all of the furniture is visible.

The advanced renderer isn't compatible with Sweet Home 3D from version 3.4. Just don't use it. All its features are in the current version.
Maybe I should remove it from sweethome3d.com server.

3. How do I import the the light plugins (basicLights.sh3f, BasicPlusExtraLights.sh3f)? I'm running on Linux, and I've copied them into ~/.eteks/sweethome3d/plugins and restarted the application, but I don't see these features.

You can import a SH3F file with Furniture > Import furniture library menu item, but if I recall correctly these lights won't bring you anything more, and using the default lights is enough.