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Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
Hello!
I want to put small recessed lights below a wooden panel. While it gets rendered almost as per requirement, I always find that the lights also show off a black circle.
I've put 10x10x10 lights with 10% power, elevated in such a way that almost half of the light comes below the panel surface. I've tried adjusting the elevation, but they always show off black circle as long as the panel overlaps the light. I've tried with different lights of various sizes but outcome is same.
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
While I'm afraid I don't have a pure-SH3D solution, I have been able to create viable recessed lighting using SketchUp models. In essence, you have to create a ceiling object -- that is, a furniture item representing the room's ceiling[1] -- in which you've embedded one or more recessed lighting fixture objects. This composite illuminated ceiling object is then exported from SketchUp, imported into SH3D, and elevated to the appropriate height. Finally, you place appropriately sized SH3D light sources within the fixture's open space.
The reason for all this complexity is to allow you to knock out an opening in the ceiling for the recessed light; I know of no way to accomplish the same using an SH3D-generated ceiling.[2] You should have light placement pretty well nailed down before starting down this path, since even the smallest change requires the entire structure to be remade.
You example is actually much simpler to carry off than ceiling-recessed lights. You'd still want to create a light fixture object and a wood panel object (this latter object would actually be a hollow box). You'd then mount the fixtures inside the panel, knock out an opening for the light, and render the resulting object as a furniture item.[3]
FWIW, the hemispherical object at the top of this image is my recessed lighting fixture object. If I remember correctly, the fixture is 8" in diameter, with a 2.5" light source elevated 0.5" higher than the fixture.
__________ 1. The easiest way to create a ceiling object is to define a wall-less room in SH3D with the same dimensions as the desired ceiling. Set the default floor thickness to equal to or greater than the height of your fixture model, export the room as an OBJ model, and import it into the 3D modeler of your choice: Blender, SketchUp, or whatever. (Alternatively, you can set floor thickness to some arbitrary value and adjust it as needed in your modeler.) 2. Actually, I just thought of a possible kluge -- but I can't imagine it being much, if any, simpler in the end. 3. This conceivably might be possible entirely within SH3D by doing something like importing a standard cylinder object into a Sweet Home 3D furniture library, defined as a staircase. You could then define a room of the same dimensions as the wood panel, placing cylindrical staircases in it wherever you want a knock-out for a recessed fixture. Export the room as an OBJ model, import it back into SH3D as your panel, place light fixtures and sources as appropriate, and wrap the whole thing up as a group. To me, this doesn't really sound any easier than modeling the thing outside of SH3D and importing it whole, but others may have different views.
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
Maz, thanks for the tip.
I've been thinking on similar lines after I posted this question. Based on your suggestion, I've created a basic model in Sketchup. I created a box with cylinder hollowed from it. Then I tried to place the box in the existing panel.
While this concept worked in a trial home, it's quite a lot of experiment to strike exact balance between size of light fixture and the hole. In a way, it's like real world recessed spot light.
I'll update this thread once I have something to report.
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
Hi sharewithkinjal, Hi Maz
Not sure if this will help or hinder you, but i have noticed similar issues when lighting is with spot lights. Here are 2 screen shots showing what i did, the "lights" are just 2 cylinders 3" dia. 1st is with the light source 3 7/8" 10% 2nd is 1 7/8
Hope that helps, in some way, you identify the cause and find a solution.
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
The black circles are the result of an intersection between a SunFlow light source and another object; as best I can tell, there is no work-around possible short of rewriting a large chunk of SunFlow.
Unfortunately, one has to strike a happy medium between using a light source small enough to fit within the fixture while still remaining large enough in diameter not to create white spots in non-matte surfaces. That was why I went with an 8" diameter fixture with a 2.5" source inside: That large a source seemed to minimize white spots (or, as I call it, 'ich') while still allowing it to be recessed 1/2" beyond ceiling height. (Light sources at or below ceiling elevation typically cause 'burn-in' of the ceiling immediately surrounding the fixture and on adjacent walls.) In a few instances where I could only use smaller-diameter sources, I have on occasion rendered the scene twice, once with a small-diameter source and a second time using a larger (8" to 12") source, and combined the two renders in Photoshop. (I'd use the one with a small-diameter source for those sections of the image where the fixture was visible, with the 'ich-less' render used for the bulk of the image.) I realize, however, not everyone is as anal-retentive as I....
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
I'm currently having what I think is a similar issue, albeit not necessarily the same...
If I turn the (standard) "wall spotlights"(to act as a security light placeholder) I get this kind of cone or blob of black emanating from the vicinity of the lights, obscuring most of my 3d view screen, but if I zoom in, the view clears up, yet at the same time the 2 wall spotlights making up my yard light looking thing, well, they don't appear. If they're set to invisible, well, you still don't see the light fixtures, but at least that black crap is gone... I don't know if it's something with the new v7 application, or a furniture file, or what, I just know that the 6.2 portable app I just ran says my project was made in a newer version, and seems to still have that same issue the newer one does. Also I'm on windows 10, and have AMD GPU and CPU if that helps you figure out my issue, plus, I've recently reinstalled windows and java(and sweet home 3d), if anyone wants to suggest I do so, so that's out of the checklist of things to do...
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
For anyone who wants to know if my issue is solved, going to my laptop and loading it up was, for some reason... fine??? Not sure why desktop has issues with certain textures though, such as a slanted roof furniture piece,or the black cloud associated with lights, but I at least got it working on another machine. I'm kicking myself for not trying that first, but oh well...
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Re: Black circle in 3d render for recessed lights
Thanks for your patience. Even if the description of your issue didn't look like the bug described here, the fact that it works on another machine makes me think that it must the same bug. Installing AMD Adrenalin driver version 22.5.1 might help you go back to a working solution.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D developer