Creating a Night Scene with Exterior Lights

The information in this article appliesto:

QUESTION

I would like to show my building at night to illustrate the exterior lighting. How would I do that using Home Designer? 

ANSWER

In 3D camera views, lighting is calculated on a room-by-room basis; only the light sources in the room containing the camera are used.When the camera is outside a building, the program normally uses sunlight for lighting calculations and turns off all other light sources.

You can turn the sunlight off and use all the other exterior lights to simulate night time views.Home Designer can display a 3D view as a night scene by adding exterior lights for the house instead of sunlight. The procedure in this article describes using night time lighting effects in a 3D view.

To create a night scene

1. Select Build> Electrical> Light . The cursor will display as a cross hair.
   
   
   
2. Click on the outside walls of the house to add exterior lights.
   
   
   
3. Next, its time to generate a 3D view. From the menu select 3D> Create Camera View> Perspective Full Overview .
   
   
   
4. Once the 3D camera view generates, select 3D> Lighting> Toggle Sunlight  to disable the sunlight and create a night scene.
   
   
   
5. To see additional shadow effects, select 3D> Lighting> Toggle Shadows .