I am trying to make a light beam, how do you hide the edges of a cylinder and the circular base?

[Kav]

Hi there! I am trying to make a light beam and want to make the edges of the cylinder disappear so the light beam looks more realistic. I have tried softening edges and turning off edges in the view tab but this doesn’t seem to be working.

Any tips on on how to do this, or make a light beam generally would be much appreciated!! Thanks

[wataru.kannuzuki]

Try going into the Styles menu and turning off profiles.

[Kav]

Hi thanks for the advice! this seems to work, however is there a way to only turn off profiles for certain components, or do all the components need to be turned off in the model?

[Anssi]

I would perhaps make the “beam” a 2D triangle with hidden edges and make it a “face-me” component.

[Danimaupin]

@Anssi

make the “beam” a 2D triangle with hidden edges and make it a “face-me” component.

This feels like it might be a genius moment and will probably come in handy at some point in my travels.

[Danimaupin]

I do light beams a LOT and I don’t have any trouble hiding the edges with the eraser…. Just remember that the cylinder/cone has a lot of hidden geometry going and you have to hide each and every edge of every face.

File ——> source4 beams.skp (345.1 KB)

[Charevir]

Try this: turn hiding geometry on, select all edges, on entity info check soft and smooth and uncheck the toggle eye. This should work I figure it out in a 3DWH model that didn’t show the perfile.

[orbsphere]

Turn on X-ray (edit11/15/24: then go to View select Hidden geometry then) select the Eraser tool then while holding down the control key drag the eraser over the edges you don’t want to see. Control softens and Shift hides. If you don’t hold down a function key you will be erasing stuff. I generally don’t hide edges unless a couple objects butt up against the same edge. Using X-ray will allow you to edit lines on the far side without having to move around the object. VERY IMPORTANT make sure there isn’t anything behind what you’re working on while using X-ray and the eraser. If you work over something in the background you’ll soften/hide the edges of objects back there also. If you make a mistake undo your way back one step at a time and read the undo hint to help keep track of where you are.

[endlessfix]

Much more on this subject here:

Lighting Cones

Changing color by editing the base PNG texture from within SketchUp on Mac. You can edit individual textures via the edit function of the materials pallet. Right click to choose edit and once in edit mode switch to the sliders control and select a color picking method from the overhead menu. set the color then close the editor. This is applied in realtime to all existing instances of that texture in the model. The modification is non destructive (original version is retained) and can be undone …

Lighting Cones

The Mac material interface can be buggy sigh, duplicating materials and managing custom lists can sometimes have unexpected behavior, it’s a long standing complaint. Here is a simple and reliable way to create colorized textures that will stick. Open two SketchUp windows simultaneously and use copy paste to move the edited color cones into a new file one by one. I start with your file (I selected and right click - hide - the circle edge at the bottom first) then I apply the gradient texture…

[Kav]

Thanks for the tip!

[Kav]

Thanks for the advice!

[Kav]

Thanks for the help!

[Kav]

Thanks!

[Kav]

Thanks for the tip!

[AndrewNVKB]

I have done this before many times in interior design models. A couple of 2D beams emanating from the ceiling lights or the sconces can seriously spruce up a simple Sketchup render (If I’m not planning taking it into a separate rendering program).

It’s also pretty easy to find premade light beam PNGs with transparency, which can be placed on a face to make it even better and more interesting/realistic.