I'm horrible with lights....

[Enovikoff]

Dai, congratulations on getting the rendering to work. There are reasons why you were having trouble getting the lighting to work that I believe have to do with the design, not just Chief. You have to be careful with Chief, you can modify lighting options until you can render something that will look much better than the finished product can ever look, and you'll be fooled into not putting enough effort into the actual lighting design! I wanted to point out a few things you could do to improve the design for your customers:

- I generally try to avoid a large skylight in the middle of a room, especially at lower latitudes (I don't know where you're working.) If the room is to be used during the day, the bright beams of sunlight will contract the occupants' pupils, and the rest of the room will look dark and depressing. At higher latitudes, you have to do some calculations, perhaps the beams won't reach the floor, which is the worst place for them to hit. The bright beams also make it hard to read unless you're sitting in one of them, and ruin the view of any televisions in the room. If it's to be purely a sitting room, maybe your design could work without much problem. Some solutions include hanging a cloth baffle in the skylight to diffuse the light, or switching the skylight tower to extend above the roofline and have clerestory windows around its perimeter. This would allow diffracted skylight to light the room gently.
- Don't forget that a large skylight lets in a lot of heat as well as light. You'll want low-e glass.
- I didn't see any recessed lighting around the skylight. Because of what I mentioned above, and also just to get enough light in the room for anything other than conversation, I'd put recessed lighting along the walls or halfway between the walls and the edge of the lowered ceiling. Juno makes some pricey but amazing wall-washers in their Aculux line, that don't leave the usual grainy headlight arcs on the walls. Chandeliers are great eye-catchers, but few put out enough light to brighten a big room, so I always pair them with recessed ambient lighting and wall-washers.
- You have an amazing variety of window/door shapes around the edge of the room. Since the room has some symmetry, changing the window/door arrangement to have symmetry as well could yield some nice benefits.

Good luck!

-eric

[Dai Vernon]

Christina and Eric, thanks a lot for the time invested in those posts. Very informative!

The Roof Lantern originally did have windows around the base walls, but due to costs they have been removed. The client's backyard has been professionally landscaped and the amount of time for me to re-create that look is ridiculous, so I just opted for the traditional boring backyard.

Eric, I would have never ever thought about the latitude/lighting issue. But it's very logical when you think about it. We will be using our Heat Mirror 22 glass which allow zero heat to come through, it's also tinted so maybe that'll help with the situation.

I should actually get better furniture in the room, I just chose one of the ready-made sets.

The appointment has been changed to friday so I have some time to work on it some more.

Thank you all for your advice, I'll definately be using it for this and future projects!

[cgirerd]

If you have a photo of the clients landscaped yard - use it as a backdrop! Client's love that kind of thing. If you don't have access to that, you could still put in a few bushes back by the fence or a tree or two, just to avoid that straight line of brown and green through the middle of the windows. You don't have to replicate what they have, but 5 minutes of "dressing it up" could help a lot.

Christina

[Dai Vernon]

Here is an outside view of the project, everything except for the hottub is new.