Interesting New SketchUp Application

[SketchUp Guru]

I've been playing with the demo version of a new application--well it's a plugin--for SketchUp. It's called LightUp. It creates the effect of multiple light sources and soft shadows with very little setup. Here's a screen grab. The demo version leaves a watermark on exported images and although I don't know why, it seems to square up corners on cushions. Still, it has a lot of promise for making more realistic looking images from your SketchUp models with a minimal amount of work. It won't be free but if you need the capability, the cost my be worth the ease of use.

And a sort of sketchy style of the same scene

 

[wizer]

Interesting. Sketchup is a very versatile app

 

[tim]

Looks good Dave

Is it easier to use than Kerkythea? I didn't register with light up - have you got a price for retail price that you can share?

Cheers

Tim

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Tim, it is much easier to set up than Kerkythea but it doesn't have near the capability of Kerkythea. No reflections or shiny surfaces. I don't see it as a replacement for a real rendering application but for quick and dirty, it's not so bad.

It's priced at $149. I think the author is in the UK. If you register you might get a UK price.

FWIW, here's the results of some more experimentation. This is a combination of a Light Up output and a Hidden Line JPG export. I combined them in a free image editor called Paint.NET.

 

[tim]

Thanks Dave

I have found that Kerkythea is very powerfu but probably more that I need for most customers/ jobs esp since it takes me an age to set up and render. Is this app much quicker to do the render/ effect?

Cheers

Tim

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Tim, with LightUp installed, you open your model, drag in and place light components from the In Model components browser and hit the green button on the toolbar. In maybe a minute or so you'll have an image. You can use the SketchUp sun instead and you can make a few changes to the lights. The lights can be dragged around and placed wherever you want. You can also make emitters in the model although I haven't played with that.

To get the image out, you hit Enter after LightUp has completed it's work. The file is saved as a TGA file at a very high resolution.

The last image I posted is a combination of another style exported immediately after the LightUp version. The second was done with Hidden Line and a sketchy line style applied. The two images were put together in Paint.NET. Probably from start to finish; less than ten minutes.