The 2024 version seems to have made a change to how fog is displayed in a view. Now they’ve changed things to be a kind of vignette effect, which is neat, but should be a separate tool!
I often use a white/background fog to show depth in a view, so that things far away get lighter, and I use the Eneroth Fog Tool script to control precisely how much of a model is visible. Sometimes this allows the creation of some very good documentation effects and Photoshop selections for creating a depth cue blurring effect to simulate a vide aperture photograph.
Words matter, so if vignette was to be a cool new feature SIMILAR to fog, I’d get it, but now this feels like a bug. How can I restore the true fog effect without going back to 2022? (*The 2022 version is currently my go-to because some features of 2023 just didn’t work.)
I did try flipping back to “classic” graphics engine, and that restores fog to do what fog is supposed to do, but I feel like I’ll be missing out on things like ambient occlusion and probably a lot of performance improvements. At least they have a workaround built in.
Can you show a comparison of what you were seeing before and what you are seeing now? I just did a little test and don’t see anything different in SU2024 from 2023. I tested with both the new graphics engine and the classic graphics engine in 2024.
Normally, the further something is away, the lighter it should be when using fog. Although some other tools add fog based on elevation above a datum and try to simulate a density of ground fog, but that is another 3D universe…
The general issue is that I do a lot of work needing 2D exports that I use to make scale views in presentations. Switching between engines requires a program restart, so it isn’t an easy option to take advantage of when I might discover that ambient occlusion and graphics performance are super useful upgrades, but then I have to keep switching back for the orthogonal views.
The workaround of just using the “classic” engine is also helpful though because it restores the more extensive right-click context menu, so an odd little discovery in whatever the programmers have done.
Yes, I was trying to use fog in parallel projection. It is a normal trick to get a more rendered-like look for elevations so that things beyond are screened back to give a depth cue.
3-point perspective views do give decent results in a fog effect with default 2024 settings, but it’d be lovely if this change could be an option, or else the Fog tool remains as it was and they add this new Vignette option separate from the Fog, which would also allow both features to be used simultaneously.
Going back and trying the new rendering engine for SketchUp, fog is still not behaving the way I want (i.e. the way it always has been) and is generating the radial gradient instead:
Has anyone maybe produced a script that gets the old behavior to occur in the new rendering engine? It seems pretty basic that the fog would be a depth cue, not a radial gradient on the screen like a watermark. If I wanted this effect in 2D, I’d use a watermark. Yes, in 3D we get the expected depth fog, so maybe the programmers just missed something when working with the new engine?
To get that effect on a floor plan, it may be best to do a vport sandwich stack instead of using fog. That way you could also render in hybrid if you wanted without the unwanted lines popping through the fog.
= SU vport 1 (bottom), semitransparent LO shape (middle), SU vport 2 (top)
The stacked viewport method would maybe work if it was as simple as a single or maybe two layers of fog, and if I were using Layout in the workflow at all.
I could do the same in SketchUp alone with a series of 2D translucent planes, allowing me to dial the visibility in steps of depth rather than the gradient depth cue that occurs in the “classic” rendering engine. The effect I’m looking for is the fog as a gradient, and I still get what I want with the previous engine turned on, with the one big thing I sacrifice is the ambient occlusion.
Maybe I’m unusual in that I don’t use Layout in my workflow at all, but I like the level of graphic control I get from SketchUp alone and we use the graphics to build presentations in InDesign.
I think the effect of the color/linework overlay is nice, especially if it is set by depth using fog. It is also reversible perhaps as you note.
We do need to keep using SketchUp only. And the point is to have a gradient of color to simulate architectural elevation technique of distant things are lighter, but not totally line drawing. Maybe though some linework parts of an elevation can be an added technique for some drawings. I’ll try that when I can get a use case opportunity.
= SU vport 1 (bottom), semitransparent LO shape (middle), SU vport 2 (top)