Brand new user, help with suspended ceiling

[archrender]

Hi everyone,

I have been using sketchup for years but am brand new to Twilight. I am trying to make a realistic office space rendering. I have gone through the basic tutorials on the website but I am not able to watch any video tutorials because of streaming restrictions at my work. I am trying to add some light sources in my model, which requires a suspended ceiling grid with rectangular fluorescent lights. Does anyone know an easy way to do this? When I tried my hand at placing even a single light, I couldn't figure out how to make the light source rectangular or tubular instead of the default "spot" light. Also I am not sure if the best approach is to make the ceiling grid a physical grid within sketchup, or a texture itself. I appreciate any advice as I am brand new and feeling a tad overwhelmed at this point.


Thanks!

[Chris]

The standard lights can not be made tubular or rectangular. They are always spheres. Often you can approximate the effects of more complicated lighting by using such point lights, but that just depends on your scene.

When you can't get away with using point lights, you have to turn to modeling the light. This can be pretty simple or it can get pretty complicated, depending on your needs.

How do you model a light? It's really pretty simple. Create the geometry that will be emitting light. Assign it a material, and maybe name that material "FL_Emit". Use the Twilight Render Material editor and select the material in question. Now apply one of the emitter templates. Finally, adjust the intensity to match your desired light output (watts * efficiency, or straight lumens). Here is an important tip: if your scene has may lights of the same kind (for instance, many FL tubes), create your light tube as a Component and reuse that component for each tube; then, inside the TWR Material editor, change 'Per Sq. Meter' to 'Total Output', and finally set the lumen output for a single tube.

Here is where you decide how complicated it gets. You don't have to model the light as an actual tube. You can just model it as a rectangle that is the correct length and width of the tube. Chances are you won't notice the difference. And it will render much much faster than a tube. But if you want really precise detail, you might go with a detailed model.

If you keep the emitter models simple (like just rectangles), and you don't have too many, you can probably get away with using the Low/+ through High/+ render presets. However, those aren't really made for emitter models, so you may need to switch to Interior/+.

[Fletch]

It's quite simple, once you get the hang of it, but it may be confusing coming in new to any software.
Download this little light component starter kit and read this information carefully.
Can Light and 2x2 or 2x4 Standard Ceilight Light Components

To simplify Chris' great advice above:

Just show a glowing rectangle on the ceiling by painting the face of your rectangle with a color, and assigning a light emitting material to the rectangle.
Render with Easy09 when rendering light emitting surfaces.

Subject: pointlight / light emitter
Subject: Light Emitting Surface Options - VIDEO

[archrender]

I will give this a try, I can't thank you enough for your responses! It is really hard and overwhelming learning a new program on your own at first, and people like you make it possible. Thank you!!