Rendering in SketchUp

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Fig. 32.10: 
The destination image is a panoramic of the hills in Kauai, the proposed house’s location.
Fig. 32.11: 
The house is rendered in SketchUp (using Twilight Render in this instance). Only the building needs to be 
rendered. No site context or details are needed.
Fig. 32.12: 
The building rendering is inserted into the destination image file.

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Fig. 32.14: 
The building is scaled and then, using the Mask tools, fitted into the image.
Backgrounds/Backdrops
Using the IRP settings to insert backgrounds or render HDRIs is useful, but does not always 
provide an accurate appearance. Adding custom backgrounds during postproduction will give 
you greater control over the backdrop look.
To execute this method, you’ll need background and backdrop images. A search for pan-
oramic, backgrounds, and skies on CG Textures.com will yield some results. Many IRP web-
sites include background image downloads.
There are two approaches to including backdrops, depending on whether the scene is exte-
rior or interior.
exteriors
Exteriors benefit from skies, cities, and neighborhood backgrounds. The biggest challenge can 
be masking out the original sky of rendering. Rendered trees inevitably are in the selection 
causing the tree edges (where they meet the sky) to overly dither when masked, distorting 
Fig. 32.13: 
The building render is cleaned up. The excess 
edges are deleted, leaving a tight outline of the building.

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their appearance once a background is inserted. In those cases, use a path (Pen tool) and take 
the time to remove the sky with precession while considering the effect on tree edges.