Podium Light System with spot lights

How to operate the Podium Light System for V2 Beta

Take a look at this short video that shows a step by step process of creating spotlight using Podium Light System

Click on the image to view the YouTube short video tutorial

Podium Light System V2 allows you to create spot lights and offers an alternative way of inserting omni lights in SU Podium V2. Podium Light System V2 system uses SketchUp inferences to position spot lights or omni lights in space. There are modifications to the Podium Light System that are still being developed and will be added in subsequent V2 releases.

The following are the steps in using Podium Light System V2 for spot lights:

Step 1. Pick the Podium Light System V2 from the SketchUp Plugins menu. (It is not included in the SU Podium V2 Tool bar)

Step 2.

Hold down the Control key (Alt Key for the Mac) to view the Heads Up Display.

Step 3. Continue to hold the Control key down (Alt key for the Mac) and drag your cursor over power to change the spot light power value.

Step 4. Continue to hold the Control key down (Alt key for the Mac). To change the beam angle and beam width, hold down your left mouse button while the Control key (Alt key) is being held down.

or

Drag the mouse cursor vertically to change the beam angle. Drag the mouse cursor horizontally to change the beam width.
Alternatively, drag the mouse cursor from lower right corner toward the upper left corner to adjust the beam angle. When you have the beam angle you want, drag the mouse cursor left to adjust the beam width.

A note about beam angle and width: The spot light source emits a cone shape light on the face you select. The beam angle controls the size or diameter of that the light. But the width is the size of the light's drop off area or blurred/ soft shadow area of the spot light. If you want the spot light to have hard edges, make the width angle smaller than the beam angle. Below are two examples.

Step 5: After selecting options from the Heads Up Display menu, move the red cursor to select an inference point. After selecting a point, drag the cross hairs to a point perpendicular to your original inference point and click. Next click on the face you want the spot light to reflect off, such as the floor.

Step 6: Render. You may notice that the spot light color is not what you expected it to be. This is a bug we are working on. However, you can adjust the color and light power easily.

Step 7: Make color and power adjustments. To do this, click on the spot light group and then go to the Podium V2 Toolbar and click on the Light Properties icon. From the Light Properties menu change the color and adjust the light power. (Notice how the power that was on the HUD menu is 10 times the value in the Light Properties menu. This is a bug that will be fixed in subsequent releases.)

You can NOT edit the beam angle or width after a spot light is created. You need to delete the spot light group and start over again.

Using the Omni (point light option)

If you choose the omni light setting from the Podium Light System Heads Up Display, you will create omni or point lights. This allows for an intuitive way to insert omni lights using SketchUp's inference. It only requires you to click an inference point, drag the cursor from the inference point and click at some point in space. This action will insert an omni or point light. You can adjust the power and color using the light properties menu in the same way as with spot lights.