Sun Study

[lucylou]

Hi. I am trying to create a sun study to show the sun paths throughout the day on my model. i have always done this in SketchUp before, but was hoping to stick to VW this time. I have followed the 'help' topic but it doesnt work, and doesn't make sense to me! Have also tried to find other threads on the forum but was unable to.

Any help, most appreciated.

[CipesDesign]

Lucy, Some things that may be left out of the HELP are that you must 1) make sure that there is no (active/on) light source in the file (otherwise you will end up with very weird and overlapping shadows), 2) Set the view (solar animations are done with a 'static' shot of the building, and with moving shadows), 3) RENDER in Final Quality RenderWorks;(if you start out in Wireframe you will end up with a fairly useless Wireframe animation, with no shadows), 4) Now, with the scene rendered, and with no light source, go to MODEL/CREATE SOLAR ANIMATION and follow the dialog (taking the defaults is fine, usually, but make sure to set the Latitude/Longitude and Day of Year accurately).

The Solar Animation will take some time to complete, depending on your system, and will end up as a Named QuickTime File (you named it in the dialog) in the location specified (in the dialog). Each FRAME must render, so reducing the TOTAL RUN TIME of the animation or the FRAME RATE per SECOND will speed things up.

I have fantastic results with this in VW's. Very accurate (proven by actual buildings). For passive solar I usually create four animations: Dec 22/March 22/June 22/Sept 22. And yes March & Sept. are the same. But for it's sometime easier not to have to explain why (and in fact daylight savings time may affect these by 1 hour, depending on specific location).

Good Luck & Let us know ;-)

[gmm18]

Peter's description is very concise, and you can end up with very nice animations.

But it is sad that it takes this much work, especially compared to the speed and simplicity of Sketchup. (turn on shadows, adjust sliders to change season/time).

I am sure that NNA is seeing this as something to work on. But perhaps we are

getting somewhere with the ability to have shadows with OpenGL rendering, which

might lead to the rendering to be fast enough to enable sun/shadows to be controlled with a slider in real-time. Currently I notice that the OpenGL shadows are not accurate, but hopefully it will continue to improve.

[CipesDesign]

Yes, OPEN GL Shadows are not very good yet (sorry NNA). That's why I used FQRW in my description (above).

I must also comment that it does not take very long to create these, especially in terms of the end result, which is a complete Solar Study, usable for many, many things that are crucially important to intelligent building design.

Of course, if all you need is one view of (sun) shadows at one particular time, you could just set the Sun Position, render and export image file. Very very fast...

[lucylou]

Thanks peter for your response... you make it sound so easy!!! i'll give it ago and let you know how it goes! In the time waiting for responses i have of course just exported it to SketchUp and done it that way! but i WILL give it a go in VW as i want to be able to do it in the future. Its like gmm18 says, sketch up is soooooo easy and quick! thanks very much, much appreciated )

[IanH]

Slightly OT, but when I am checking sun intensity throughout the day in various parts of a garden, I run with multiple suns simultaneously lit, typically 4, then I can see which parts of the garden get the most intense light.

I was working on a plug in that linked the sun with the north point and would create the suns for me automatically at various times of the day and year, but I got briefly stuck (trying to match sun positions) and never bothered to revisit it. But someone did mention that there was a 3rd party heliodon tool in the Australian version.

[lucylou]

Peter, i have re-tried it and thought it was working however it seems to save it as a text file??? and there doesnt seem to be an option to save as Quick time file/movie file. any clues?

[CipesDesign]

Lucy, Sorry you're having trouble with this! Could you please list all of your system info and VW's version & build number (you can do this as part of your "Signature", then it will always be there). This might help someone diagnose your problem. P

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Another nice effect is to use the Artistic Renderworks option of Lines and Shadows setting the shadow to a nice gray - the result is a Hidden Line rendering with gray shadows...here are a couple of screen shot from animations using that effect

Edited May 7, 2009 by Wes Gardner

[lucylou]

Here you are Peter, have updated my info! hope that helps!.. means nothing to me!!! )

[CipesDesign]

Hi Lucy, Here's a small test: 1) Restart your computer; 2) Start VW's; 3) Draw four walls with a roof (or an extruded rectangle and a roof); 4) Render in FQRW; 5) Run the Create Solar Animation command, using all the default settings....

If it works, then try it with your original file and see what happens.

If it does not work (ie: you end up with a TXT file) I would recommend getting in touch with tech support (your local VW's distributor) and see if they can help.

You could also send us the file (via this site or privately) and let us try it...

Peter

[Itchy]

i don't know why VW does this, but when you are asked by the dialog to input the file name, it does say to you that it will save it as a text file, ignore this and continue anyway, once done it will be a quick time movie.

[lucylou]

Right, i did what you suggested peter and the first time i did the solar animation, it worked fine, however when i tried to do it a 2nd time, it just created the text document. Ian is right in saying that it suggests it will be a text doc, but the first time it did create a QT movie. hmmmm....

i have attached a copy of my test file, so let me know your thoughts. must admit, the urgency of sorting this out has reduced as i have just done it in Sketchup but Im keen to pursue it as VW are always harping on about doing EVERYTHING in the one package... !!!

[CipesDesign]

Lucy, it worked fine for me but only after I modified a couple settings: first I set the LAT/LONG for my area (42N/122W) and then (more importantly) I changed the "number of minutes per frame" from 1 (which would create a huge file - that would be ?12 hours X 60 , or 720 individual frames - each frame has to render) to 30 (which is a fairly reasonable number - in other words I will see the sun at half-hour intervals- which is accurate enough in most cases). I tried attach the resulting QT file, but unfortunately ".mov" is not one of the acceptable file types for uploading. P

[Don Chin]

Lucy - were you ever able to solve this problem? I have run into the exact same situation - it worked the first time but subsequent attempts have resulted in txt files.

Donald

VW 2008 SP3 RW

Windows Vista Business

Sys Systems Core2 Quad 2.66GHz, 8MB RAM

PNY Quadro FX 1800

[Don Chin]

I just saw in another post, answered by NNA's engineer to add the .mov suffix to your file name. It works for me.

Donald

VW 2008 SP3 RW

Windows Vista Business

Sys Systems Core2 Quad 2.66GHz, 8MB RAM

PNY Quadro FX 1800

[lucylou]

Hi peeps

no i didnt ever resolve it... i just gave up and used sketchup instead!!!!

thanks though, i may try it again next time i need it.