How to create a swimming pool scene?

Hello,

I try to create a pool house scene with a swimming pool but I'm wondering how to implement it as I think I need to enable ground for the shadows but in that case, ground cuts the pool.

In the scene below, it would be possible to crop the background but in LH30 version, I wonder if there isn't a problem with this feature as it seems that distorsion doesn't work anymore.

Anyway it wouldn't be always possible to crop the image if, for example my model doesn't cut the background on the whole width.

But, if the background is not cropped, it doesn't allow to see the depth of the swimming pool as shown below.

what's the solution?

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on September 11, 2012 at 8:57am

You can use the ground plane for shadows only, by un-checking Opaque and checking Make Alpha for the ground plane. Then you'll get the shadows on your background image, but still be able to see down into the pool.

Can you explain why distortion doesn't work for you with background images?

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Permalink Reply by Alain Bonnefoy on September 12, 2012 at 11:50am

Hi Rich,

I don't really agree with you or maybe I didn't understand everything.

In the image below, just created to clearly see the problem, shadows are ok but in the swimming pool, we see the background image and not the bottom. This is my problem.

Do I have to cut up the bkgd image around the swimming pool?

I'll create a specific topic for the layer wizard.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on September 12, 2012 at 12:05pm

Try turning off the reflection on the water material and see if you still see the trees on the water.

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Permalink Reply by Alain Bonnefoy on September 12, 2012 at 12:29pm

So in the next image we verify 2 things:

First, clouds are no more reflected on the water so, bkgd image is not reflected by the water.

Secondly, the grass in the water is really the background seen through the ground.

In fact, I need the ground to see the shadows on the background image.

But, the ground necessarly cuts the swimming pool. In that case, when I make the ground alpha, it becomes transparent for the bkgd, not for a part of the model under the ground!

Any idea?

I'm going to try with a transparent sketchup's ground, not alpha fot iRender.

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Permalink Reply by Alain Bonnefoy on September 12, 2012 at 12:45pm

With a transparent sketchup's ground, I see the swimming pool's bottom, but I don't have shadows and I have the problem of semi transparency of the ground.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on September 12, 2012 at 1:19pm

Sorry, I thought you could use the ground plane for alpha shadows, but still see geometry below the ground, but as you show here, that is not the case. If you use the ground plane for the shadows, then you won't be able to see into the pool.

I guess the only solution is to add your own faces to be your ground plane, to show the shadows of the building, and not use the real ground plane at all.