Solar Animation

[lucylou]

Hi

I'm (yet again) having real trouble working out how to do a solar animation. I have followed the help guide, and manage to create a QT video over a period of time, but there arent any shadows!

I was intially trying to work out had to simply add a 'sun' to my model to show accurate shadows at certain times of the year/day (as you can very easily in sketch up) and to show them in 2d images, not a video as such.

Any ideas? I'm really stuck!

Thanks

Lucy.

[bcd]

You need to turn on 'Use Shadows' in the View>Rendering>Open GL Options if you are rendering in Open GL

[lucylou]

Thanks... good point!! But... although that helped a bit, its like the sun is inside my building, and the shadows created from my building dont exist...?

have just tried to up load my quick time video but it wont let me. would have been useful to show you all.

Lucy

[bcd]

In Wireframe look at the entire scene in Side View. You can drag your sun object to be outside the building.

[lucylou]

Hi

My sun is outside the building! but anyway, is it not supposed to be positioned acording to my lat/long settings etc? ie in the 'real' position?

Im so confused! :confused:

[bcd]

Select your light (sun) - is cast shadows ticked in the OIP?

[lucylou]

yes it is ticked...

[bc]

Not to be insulting but do you have a ground modeled to receive shadows from the sun?

Do you see shadows from your roof eaves on the ext. walls?

Perhaps some component texture of your exterior walls will not cast or receive shadows?

[CipesDesign]

Try this: first, as bc suggests, create some sort of "ground" under your building. It can be as simple as a very thin extrude or it can be a fully developed Site Model. Second, set the view so that you are looking at the South Side (if in the Northern Hemisphere) of the building. Third, make sure that no other light sources are active. This means either turn off or remove all existing light sources. (Note: the Solar Animation command will create its own "sun", and if there is a second one already in the model it will diminish the one that is created by the command, sometimes to the point of making it undetectable.) Fourth, render the model in FQRW (Note 2: the Solar Animation will use whatever rendering mode is currently active when the command is initiated.) Fifth, run the command. To do a quick a test set the total time to be very short. But remember that each frame needs to render so this will take time. Hope that helps! Let us know how it works...

[John Windswept Design]

I seem to only get the first frame on my solar animation. The movie will play for one frame then the rest of the movie is blank. Any ideas?

[Benson Shaw]

John - There was a problem with the QTVR movies because of the CINEMA 4D QT Agent.app was not up to date. I thought it was updated with VW SP3 and SP4. But maybe not.

Find it in Applications>Vectorworks2011>Renderworks. Right click the CineRender.app select Show Package Contents. Click Contents>Helpers should contain CINEMA 4D QT Agent.app

My QT movies showed only the first frame. Replaced the CINEMA 4D QT Agent.app and all was well. I will try to email you the new one via your profile.

-B

[John Windswept Design]

I've been working in SP3 for months with no issues and I've just updated to SP4. Now I can't get the animation to work and I've also had my first crash in months. If replacing agent.app with help then much appreciated.

john.t

[Benson Shaw]

Just emailed it to Windswept.

This still requires QT7.

Post back whether it works.

-B

[Benson Shaw]

Sort of strange. I just made two Solar Animations of the same simple test scene. #1 is from Top view, #2 view is skewed via flyover.

#1 launches and plays in Quicktime Player v10.0 (I think that's the most current).

#2 does not play in Quicktime Player. The player launches, and a start/stop console appears. But no movie window appears and no movie plays when the start button is pushed.

But

#2 does play as expected in QT7, but I had to change its launch permission from Player to QT7.

???

-B

[John Windswept Design]

You should see the crazy animations I'm getting. Most have nothing past the first frame others are scrambled. Seems buggy. I'll attach one but you have to change the jpg to m4v. I'll try replacing that file now to see if I can get a more reliable output. Glad I promised that animation on monday.

john t

[John Windswept Design]

Changing the .app didn't effect the animation. I'm still getting blank spaces in my animation.

[John Windswept Design]

Ya!! I got it to work. I might have a sunday after all. I had to switch from video compression to animation. I'm sure I tried this earlier with a scrambled result. So the .app change worked.

Thanks Benson!!

[Benson Shaw]

Very welcome, glad it's working now. But hats off to mar schrammeyer who discovered the fix and posted the file some months ago. He notes that he had to reinstall this file after upgrade to SP2. Constant vigilance required.

-B