SketchUp Realtime Lighting: LightUp

Game Engines such as Unity make the perfect platform to create a virtual exhibition space. Spaces where architecture, urban models and urban furniture can be displayed and viewed alongside movies and sound-scapes to provide a sense of place.

Google SketchUp is our current tool of choice for modelling internal spaces, the combination of quick and easy modelling with lighting simulation via LightUp provides the perfect work flow.

LightUp is remarkably easy to use, you can simply click on any textured shape and allow it emit light, opening up the way for quick and easy renders out of SketchUp.

Of note is the ability to run LightUp in the free version of SketchUp allowing models to be exported in .fbx without having to upgrade to the pro.

Head over to http://www.light-up.co.uk/ for full details. We will have more on our exhibition space as it develops.

Unity, SketchUp, LightUp and Max: Progress Movie

We have been working on the new exhibition space for the city and agent based modelling work here at CASA for around 4 days. Our development path has changed in favour of SketchUp with LightUp plugin for the rooms layout and 3D Max for the agent based models. The movie below shows progress so far running in Unity:



You can view the previous example, built as a proof of concept for Windows and Mac from here.

Unity Progress

Apologies for the lack of posts today - its all due to the screen shot above. A mix of SketchUp/LightUp, 3D Max and Unity have eaten up our day as we develop the exhibition space for the latest work.

The movie below take a look at the model so far in Unity - the 3D agents are via Max, the room layout and lighting are from SketchUp:

Progress in Unity: SketchUp and 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.

We seem to have a reasonable workflow in place, all we need now is to build some more crowd/delegate models in Max, tweak the lighting, add a fantasy city section, work out how to do panoramas and its ready to go - hopefully next week...

SketchUp, LightUp 1.5 and Unity: Progress

We have been giving LightUp the light simulation plugin for SketchUp a spin this afternoon and we are impressed.


LightUp is remarkably easy to use, you can simply click on any textured shape and allow it emit light, opening up the way for quick and easy renders out of SketchUp. The screen shots here are from our developing City Exhibition Space in Unity - you can download a beta version for Windows and Mac. We should have a new example ready to go next week now our workflow is in place.

Of note is the ability to run LightUp in the free version of SketchUp allowing models to be exported in .fbx without having to upgrade to the pro version.

We will have more on SketchUp, Unity and LightUp next week as our city exhibition space develops...

LightUp: Realtime Lighting in SketchUp

LightUp is creating quite a stir in the SketchUp community and for good reason. The plugin allows realtime lighting inside of SketchUp which by the looks of it dramatically improves the look of models.

The two YouTube movies below provide a preview:





The difference in quality is notable and this is one to watch, a beta website is online with a demo promised in the coming days/weeks.

See http://www.light-up.co.uk for full details.

You can follow the discussion on LightUp at the Sketchucation forums.

Thanks to Pedro for sending us the links...