Twilight Render User Forum

How do I have Twilight render hidden layers in my components?

Example: You want just Tree branches to show up in SketchUp, but when it renders, you want it to show the leaves as well.

EDIT: UPDATED (10/2022) FOR TWILIGHT V2 USERS

To render hidden layers, find the "Set The Rendered Layers" dropdown menu in the Render Dialog for Twilight Render.

Click the layer(s) you wish to render until a GREEN CHECK MARK appears next to the name of the layer. This will force it to render.


Example 1
You can have a component such as a door with multiple models inside of it, each door model in a different position showing open, closed, and half-open.
Now you can show the doors as open or closed by controlling the layer visibility using SketchUp scenes.
In this case you would want Twilight to only render layers as shown in SketchUp's scenes... this is how it works by default- it gets the information from the scene so that it knows which layers to render.

Example 2
You can have a component such as a tree. You can put the geometry inside of the tree component onto a layer called "tree". You can have a few "edge lines" on layer 0 be in the shape of the trunk and a few branches. Now you can copy that tree hundreds of times. The few edge lines on layer zero help you to place the tree accurately in SketchUp, while the hundreds of trees in the scene do not slow SketchUp down while you work...
but it will not render the tree geometry on the hidden layer in Twilight by default (because of the Example 1 above)... now, you can select which layers in that component you want Twilight to Render.

Another workflow tip for adding and working with high-poly content in SketchUp.

1. Using the Fur Plugin or Component Spray Tool, spray a very simple proxy (stand-in) model component, might be even just two lines made into a component a little bit like this.
2. Then Double-click on the component to edit it, making sure to "Hide rest of model" and "Hide similar components".
3. Now, open the high-poly tree in another instance of SketchUp, select it and Ctrl+C to copy it
4. Return to the first instance of SketchUp where you are inside one of the components, and Ctrl+V to paste it.
5. Immediately move the high-poly geometry to a new layer hidden in all scenes created with the "Add Hidden Layer" ruby by Jim. If you haven't created any scene tabs yet you can skip this script and just create a new layer and hide it.
6. Making sure the high-poly geometry is invisible and that you can only see the proxy models, close the component
7. Place a camera and render.

It is advisable to use an unbiased or progressive render setting such as Easy 08, 9, 10 or 11.

The workflow I developed is the following:

1. In every complex component of mine I create a special layer (named ZZZ to make it sure it is the last in the layer list)
2. I also create a simple triangle without a face or similar so that I can see that stuff when the ZZZ layer is turned off (TL will not render standalone edges anyway)
3. I put all the heavy stuff on the ZZZ layer but leave its visibility on (so that the thumbnail will be generated and visible correctly in the component browser) and save it to my components
4. In my "master model", I also create a ZZZ layer but keep its visibility off and when I pull a component in, the heavy stuff is already hidden but I can see the "placeholder" triangles

guys you are amazing!

A Million Thanks for these precious Tips. They will save a Lot of my moderate Capacities. I am looking forward to Checking out.

I am seriously struggling with this topic. When I right-click on the component, I don't see "render all layers in component" as seen in the tutorial.

I'm sorry this is years later but I will gladly take any assistance.

The original tutorial is from quite a long time ago. The behavior of Twilight Render has changed since then. You will want to choose one of the available options, depending on your needs: either to render all visible layers in the current component, or in ALL components. If you are having issues with a layer not rendering in a component, choosing either of the available options should work for you.

Chris, thank you so much for the response. I will give it another go but I am glad I am not going insane seeing those options.


I been browsing these forums for a while now and trying to get my company to get me a pro license as they have seen an amazing improvement over our renders due to this amazing software.

squall25 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:14 pm Chris, thank you so much for the response. I will give it another go but I am glad I am not going insane seeing those options.


I been browsing these forums for a while now and trying to get my company to get me a pro license as they have seen an amazing improvement over our renders due to this amazing software.

Be sure to get AI denoise plugin when you buy. Our holiday sales will be coming soon. AI denoise will cut render times in easy 09 render setting (best for architecture interiors) drastically.


here is an image rendered for 2 mins with Easy 09 with denoise vs 2 mins without Fastforward AI denoise (right click image and open in new tab)

We have updated this old tutorial to match current V2 functionality. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.



To render hidden layers, find the "Set The Rendered Layers" dropdown menu in the Render Dialog for Twilight Render.

Click the layer(s) you wish to render until a GREEN CHECK MARK appears next to the name of the layer. This will force it to render.