Dome Light HDRI texture not showing

[TommyTheLoot]

Hello,

I'm checking out the latest trial version (3.6.02) but having a problem using a dome light.

I am unable to get any image associated with that light to show up in my renders. It does show in the "Bitmap" preview box in the Asset Editor.

I've watched a number of videos and I think I'm doing everything properly, but still no luck. I've been searching the forum but not finding any answers.

I have turned off the Sun light, tried several different image file formats (JPG, HDR, PNG, etc) & also several different models.

I have only had a chance to test this on one computer so it may be something local. But I wanted to ask if anyone else has seen this issue before. Maybe I'm missing something simple but it's getting quite frustrating. I would really like to be able to use this feature but it doesn't seem to be working for me.

Please let me know if I haven't provided enough information about what I'm doing or my current settings & I will update this post.

Thank you in advance for your time! TtL

PS...So far, I'm quite impressed with this program! I do like what I see.

[konstantin_chaos]

Hello,

I'm checking out the latest trial version (3.6.02) but having a problem using a dome light.

I am unable to get any image associated with that light to show up in my renders. It does show in the "Bitmap" preview box in the Asset Editor.

I've watched a number of videos and I think I'm doing everything properly, but still no luck. I've been searching the forum but not finding any answers.

I have turned off the Sun light, tried several different image file formats (JPG, HDR, PNG, etc) & also several different models.

I have only had a chance to test this on one computer so it may be something local. But I wanted to ask if anyone else has seen this issue before. Maybe I'm missing something simple but it's getting quite frustrating. I would really like to be able to use this feature but it doesn't seem to be working for me.

Please let me know if I haven't provided enough information about what I'm doing or my current settings & I will update this post.

Thank you in advance for your time! TtL

PS...So far, I'm quite impressed with this program! I do like what I see.

Hi TommyTheLoot,

What does the result look like? Is the background black or it's something else?

One possibility is that your camera exposure is not enough for the light to show up, especially with jpg or png images (low-dynamic range ones).
In that case you can set the Dome light intensity to 30 and see if there is any difference.

If it doesn't help you can share a scene so that we can investigate it further?

Regards,
Konstantin

[TommyTheLoot]

Hi Konstantin,

To update you, I installed & tried on a different computer & did have some success so I'm thinking it may be a graphics card issue. But I don't know enough about computers to be sure. I'll keep trying to experiment to see if I can understand what's going on. It may turn out to be operator error in the end

To answer your question, the result I get is just black. I tried turning up the exposure but just got shades of gray. I'm new to this program but I think I was able to export the scene for you to take a look at.

I'm trying to upload a scene so you can take a look but I keep getting an error message that it's an invalid file. Do you know if there's a size limit? The one I'm trying to upload is about 4.4Mb. If you can help me with sharing, I'd be happy to do that. I appreciate your assistance very much!

[TommyTheLoot]

New update. Making some progress!

When I started a drawing with one of the native Sketchup template files, when insert a dome light, I do get the image showing up in the VFB window. I know now it's a setting in my drawing file that's preventing the HDRI image from displaying. I suppose now I just need to import my model into a new template & that should solve at least one issue.

However, in playing around, I did not notice any lighting changes when I rotate the dome light object. The image changed but not the light direction. Did I misunderstand something in the way these behave? I'm going to go back & re-watch some videos but any tips or advice would be appreciated. Hopefully this will help somebody else down the road.

Thank you again for your time!

[TommyTheLoot]

New update again! As I suspected originally, I believe my issues were due to operator error/inexperience!

As I've been playing around & reading, it looks like not having the dome light's 'Use Transform' option turned ON was causing the issue with light direction. Please correct me if that's incorrect. I had it turned OFF previously.

The dome light objects are very slick & I look forward to learning more about using them!

Thank you again for your time!