Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Chapter 5 Rendering in SketchUp
To create a sky probe, clean the sphere meticulously and place it in the desired environment.
Then position your camera on a tripod and align it horizontally. Take a picture (RAW
image format is best) of the sphere with a telephoto zoom and at a high aperture setting.
Finally, crop and scale the image in your editing software so that the sphere completely
fills a perfectly square image (as shown in the top-left image in Figure 5.35). If you loaded
the image as a RAW file, export it as an HDR image; otherwise, just save it in the format the
image came in. You can now use that image as a sky probe in your rendering software.
Ground
A final paragraph in this section should be dedicated to the ground. Whenever your scene
includes a ground (terrain, an ocean, etc.), it is accomplished using any or a combination of
the following approaches:
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Model the ground—At least the ground next to the viewer should be modeled in
SketchUp and textured, which gives it a good level of detail. If you have something akin
to an “infinite ground” (e.g., a view out toward the ocean), you will need to create a
large plane for your ground and texture it.
Infinite ground—Some rendering packages allow you to add to your scene an infinite
ground at some height level. This is most appropriate for seascapes, where the water
plane can easily be modeled this way. SketchUp by itself does not support infinite planes.
Sky environment—If the sky environment (as discussed previously) includes a ground
(e.g., in a spherical sky image), it may be sufficient to use the ground from this image as
long as the image quality is detailed enough.
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