Point lights give a pretty even spread of light in every direction.
This information can be found and adjusted by selecting a light fixture, either in plan view or 3D view, open the item, then go to the “Light Data” tab in the Dialog Box. Any light you get from the library can be set to 1 of 3 different types of light source, regardless of what kind of fixture it is. When a light fixture is placed in a plan from the library, it does not necessarily have the best settings for an interior raytrace, but so far, I have noticed they are set up to get a pretty good scene for renders. Next, some info about light source types. This will make the bulb on the light look like it is ‘glowing’ in a raytrace view, and look more like an actual light. Next, click on “Edit”, go to the “Properties” tab, Under “Material Class”, make sure “General Material” is selected, and move the slider for “Emmisive” all the way up to 100%. Chief’s new raytracer will not be drastically slowed down by a complicated model, but it will be drastically slowed down by too many lights, even if they are on a different floor.īefore we adjust the light type, you should open your light fixture, go to the Material tab, select “Bulb”, click on “Plan Material”, select “Lighting, White”. The reason for this (I learned the hard way) is if you have 165 lights on in your model, a “Quick” raytrace might take 7 hours, and if you only have 6-8 lights on, it will drop down to 5-6 minutes. When you set up your raytrace, you will turn on just the lights in your scene. Then just click on the check mark in the box of any light fixture, and this will turn them all off at once. This will “Group Select” all the lights at once. Select the first light, scroll down to the last light, hold your shift key and click on the last light.
There is a lot more involved in getting a stunning raytrace, but that’s also something you can accomplish in Chief, with some effort.įirst thing you want to make sure of, is that all the lights in your model are turned off! Do this by going into “3D>Lighting>Adjust Lights”. The purpose of this article is to enable you to get a really nice raytrace, in under 10 minutes.
Let me start off by saying that I am not an expert in lighting, but with the help of some of the Chief Peeps, I have at least been able to get a working knowledge of how to get lighting set up for interior raytraces, in Chief’s new raytrace engine.