Hidden Layer Visibility in Components (aka Proxy Objects)
Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 4:14 pm
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.
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.