Before I get to my post, why does the Wishlist area have an "Ask New Question" field? Users don't ask questions here, so why is it petitioning us to ask one? This is a place for declarations, not questions. But I digress...
I have a little time, so I thought I'd explain how I feel the Visualization palette can be improved in regard to lighting:
As far as I can tell, there is no good way to preview how lights will look when rendered in one of the raytracing modes (NOT Redshift). The only way to do it at present is low-res renderings in one of the Final Rendering Interior styles in a trial-and-error process. VW's lighting controls are very rudimentary compared to other CAD/Modler applications and even this small toolset is mostly not accessible in the Visualization palette. This is unfortunate because the lights can be adjusted individually for each viewport via the Visualization palette--a fantastic feature that is not taken advantage of.
Right now, the Visualization palette allows turning the lights on and off and controlling whether or not they cast shadows. That is not enough. They should also control the diameter of the spread and the brightness, just like in the OIP. As new feature, VW also needs to add the ability to control the distance of the falloff. A user should be able to control the distance in which a light goes from 100 percent to zero. Right now, there only are three falloff selections: linear, inverse square, and none. That does not allow a way to control light levels except to physically move the lights back and forth in the scene. Being able to control the falloff in each viewport would save a lot of time lighting a scene since, at present, the light levels in one viewport don't illuminate the same way in a different viewport that is looking at the scene from another angle. I don't know if this would be helpful for Redshift since I don't use it due to its present limitations, but I imagine the controls I'm describing would be helpful to those who do use Redshift. An additional feature would be a small preview rendering window (as one sees with Vray installations) that give a true view of how the lighting will illuminate the scene. It could simply be a black and white image showing light intensity on surfaces if full color is out of reach.
I hope that makes sense. In general, while the rendering quality has continued to improve, the lighting tools are way behind other applications and really need to be a priority in upcoming versions of Vectorworks.
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MGuilfoile
Before I get to my post, why does the Wishlist area have an "Ask New Question" field? Users don't ask questions here, so why is it petitioning us to ask one? This is a place for declarations, not questions. But I digress...
I have a little time, so I thought I'd explain how I feel the Visualization palette can be improved in regard to lighting:
As far as I can tell, there is no good way to preview how lights will look when rendered in one of the raytracing modes (NOT Redshift). The only way to do it at present is low-res renderings in one of the Final Rendering Interior styles in a trial-and-error process. VW's lighting controls are very rudimentary compared to other CAD/Modler applications and even this small toolset is mostly not accessible in the Visualization palette. This is unfortunate because the lights can be adjusted individually for each viewport via the Visualization palette--a fantastic feature that is not taken advantage of.
Right now, the Visualization palette allows turning the lights on and off and controlling whether or not they cast shadows. That is not enough. They should also control the diameter of the spread and the brightness, just like in the OIP. As new feature, VW also needs to add the ability to control the distance of the falloff. A user should be able to control the distance in which a light goes from 100 percent to zero. Right now, there only are three falloff selections: linear, inverse square, and none. That does not allow a way to control light levels except to physically move the lights back and forth in the scene. Being able to control the falloff in each viewport would save a lot of time lighting a scene since, at present, the light levels in one viewport don't illuminate the same way in a different viewport that is looking at the scene from another angle. I don't know if this would be helpful for Redshift since I don't use it due to its present limitations, but I imagine the controls I'm describing would be helpful to those who do use Redshift. An additional feature would be a small preview rendering window (as one sees with Vray installations) that give a true view of how the lighting will illuminate the scene. It could simply be a black and white image showing light intensity on surfaces if full color is out of reach.
I hope that makes sense. In general, while the rendering quality has continued to improve, the lighting tools are way behind other applications and really need to be a priority in upcoming versions of Vectorworks.
MHBrown
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