Where the shadow falls...

[Zacchia]

... is not so easy sometimes in SU. The shadow dialog seen on screenshot is how to set the shadows. Now i do not like this because i need sometimes a lot of time until the shadow is on the right place for me. Now i wish that i have an easier shadow dialog. Something like: sundirection 0-360° 0° means up, 90°right... and for the hight timesetting is maybe O.K. I do not like the system of SU with date. Sometimes i have to move the whole scene until it is fine. What does anybody think? And can you TWL guys make this in TWL?

[Equis]

It wouldn't surprise me if there was a Ruby script that did this for you...

[Fletch]

yes and no...
you can insert a powerful spot distant from your scene to represent the sun, and disable the actual sun. This will give you ultimate control, and actually render a bit faster.

[Gaieus]

Hi guys,

Jim Foltz has two little plugins that may be useful with this:

• Map Sun which "plots points along the path the Sun takes durunbg a 24 hour day. It uses the date set in the Shadow Dialog..."
• and Sun Tool Preview that "is a plugin for sun studies. It's in the very early stages..."

Indeed the built in "real time shadow" really sucks in SU - and I especially felt this during my last project where I used a transparent png on the windows - and as you all know, transparent png's do not let light through in SU therefore I had to set the shadows in all workaround ways for my interiors.

[Zacchia]

Sun Tool preview is fine, thanks for this!
Here is another one: http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubylibraryDep ... c_page.htm
map_sun_1.rb