Rendering in SketchUp

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Chapter 24: Simulated Lighting
Fig. 24.28: 
The park model render has many lights and large amounts of 3D trees.
General Simulated Light Strategies
This section reviews some general strategies for rendering with simulated lighting. The goal is 
to achieve faster and more efficient renderings.
exposure
The Light Exposure settings found in all of the IRP lighting menus are very important when 
you’re working with simulated lighting. You will need to increase or decrease the exposure 
during the iterative rendering process to achieve the best results from the placed simulated 
lightings. There is no set value that can define the best settings. Each scene will contain a 
differing number of lights and light types, and will have lights placed in different positions.
Before adding or removing lights, try to adjust the exposure settings first to see if this 
improves the lighting in the scene. If the scene appears overlay bright, decrease the exposure. 
Conversely, if a scene appears too dark, increase the exposure to bring out more of the model 
detail. These settings are reviewed in the IRP chapters.
placing Lights realistically
Add the light sources as you would in the real world (Fig. 24.29, Fig. 24.30). Place a light 
emitter wherever a light might be needed in a room, interior scene, or exterior scene
(Fig. 24.31, Fig. 24.32). These light sources will usually be associated with some sort of fixture: 

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Part 5: The Iterative Rendering Process
ceiling light, wall lights, lamps, bulbs, florescent lights, etc. For most models, these fixtures 
are part of the design, so placing the light sources will depend on the amount and locations of 
model features (Fig. 24.33, Fig. 24.34).
Fig. 24.30: 
The rendered scene
Fig. 24.29: 
Lights are placed in outlined 
blue components for the hanging light 
fixtures (1). An LEM is placed above the 
counter (2). A point light is inserted into 
the ceiling component (3).

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