Creating a Night Scene with Exterior Lights


Reference Number: KB-00282
Last Modified: July 23, 2021

The information in this article appliesto:

Home Designer Professional or Home Designer Architectural or HomeDesigner Suite



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. From the menu 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 image generates, select 3D> Lighting> Toggle Sunlight  to render the image as a night scene.


  5. To see additional shadow effects, select 3D> Lighting> Toggle Shadows  .

Note: The maximum number of light sources that can be turned on in a view at the same time is determined by your video card. If your video card's maximum number of lights is eight, the program only uses the eight light sources closest to the camera's position. You can manually turn on and off certain lights in order to get the desired lighting effects in Home Designer Architectural and Home Designer Pro.