Phantom walls?

[DesignR]

I'm new at using TR so this is odd, any way you look at it. I'm working on a vehicle and wanted to render out this cutaway, having only the right side of the body checked on my SketchUp layers and the left side unchecked or invisible, as you can see in the lower image. No matter what I do, however, I cannot get TR to acknowledge the absence of the left-side wall. It is not 'hidden' it is simply not visible in my model - yet it renders.

Another frustration here is that it won't render the 2D figures I have standing around my model. Any workarounds for either of these situations?

Thanks in advance-

[Chris]

Can you PM me the scene? I would be more than happy to look at it to see if there is a problem.

[DesignR]

Chris,

Sorry, this work is for a client that would not be happy to have our project off campus, as it were. Has this ever happened before?

And is there any way I can render my 2D figures? Do they render in others' efforts?

Thanks,
Andrew-

[Chris]

Your 2D figures should certainly render, and the wall you have hidden should not render. Why it's not, I'm not certain without being able to see the file.

2 things to check:

• Make sure you don't have any section planes. If you have section planes but they are turned "off" in the View menu, they will still render. They need to either be hidden individually or deleted.
• If the wall the is rendering (but shouldn't be) is a component, right click on it and choose Twilight V2 -> Render only visible Layers in Component (or you can choose Render only visible Layers in ALL components). How SketchUp handles multiple layers inside components is weird (and doesn't work correctly if you ask me). It is possible that there is a layer conflict that is causing the wall to render when it shouldn't.

Otherwise, if you can send me any kind of example scene that demonstrates the problem, that would be the most helpful in figuring out what is going on.

[DesignR]

Thanks for the tips. No, the invisible wall isn't a component, unless there is a way to accidentally make it one... I hate some of the way SketchUp handles it's layers - no matter how logical it is.

I made a simple floor & box setting to experiment with DOF (which doesn't act as simply as that youtube video) and left in the default 'figure'. And what to my wondering eyes should appear,... but the rendered 2D figure. So something is going on with my 'vehicle' file. Maybe there are too many elements for TR to handle or something,... I don't know.

I'm going to copy the whole model and paste it into a new SU window... maybe that will clear out the ghosts.

Thanks again,
Andrew-

[Chris]

Sometimes copying and pasting your model to a whole new file does work. I have no idea why.

[DesignR]

Hey Chris,

Well, the Cut&Paste didn't do it. I'm thinking there might be a file size limit somehow - don't know.

I did try the 'explode' and then 'group' the figures and that worked,... although they are no longer 'face-me' components - but they are visible now. Again, this didn't happen in other large-ish models I've rendered in.

Also - is there any kind of documentation on Twilight Render - any kind of users' manual? "Exploring" is so time-wasting and many of the tutorial videos are so fast with minimal 'explanations', I'm hoping something is out there for us to read.

Andrew-

[Fletch]

Our email support is confidential. If you have a non-disclosure agreement with the client, we will sign the non-disclosure if that is possible. It is basically impossible for us to debug a scene which we do not have.

You can have your IT person set up a secure temporary ftp site where we can sign in and download the file using a password so that you would be assured we have not shared the link. then after downloading you could then delete the file to eliminate possibility of sharing.
We have never shared tech support scenes with anyone. Once scene issue has been resolved and "case is closed" the file will be deleted.

email support is available for V1 licensed users and for V2 pro users only.