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I'm designing a passive solar gain house. In this type of house, the amount of sunlight and position of the sun are critical to the design to maximize the solar gain and to create a layout where sun glare won't be a constant problem. Is Chief capable of showing shadows inside the house caused by sunlight coming in through the windows? If not, does anyone know any tricks to simulate this? Thanks in advance.
Chief cannot do this at this time. All lights that effect a rendered view must be in the same 'room'. I have simulated sunlight by placing a can light in a soffit above a window, then tilting the spot light so that it shines into the room.
Another trick to try is to declare one of the walls as 'no room definition', thus letting the 'room' bleed into a room outside the room in question. A spotlight to represent the Sun might work in that case if you shine it through the window.
In any case case, you cannot use the Chief Sun to represent what you want.
HTH
Such studies can be done using a 3-D dxf model from Chief imported into POVRAY, Lightscape, accu-render of the like. Untill Chief includes a "ray-tracer" you will have to rely on other programs that do.
DJP