Falkestrasse – Coop Himmelb(l)au - A model in SketchUp: Interiors

Again, a little-seen view from the balcony, with a good view of the canopy and folded plate. There's a light fitting at balcony level (see previous original) that I can't quite figure out. The magazine shot is here for comparison.

A view looking up at the balcony, standing in the main meeting room space (just behind the table, in fact). Since this is a SketchUp render, the shadows are extremely harsh – SU has no internal or ambient light sources, only the sun. Also this had to be rendered out in version 4.0, to counter version 5's well-known 'Shadow Volume' bug.


Taking the model into Cheetah (via FBX) we can take the lighting up to a whole new level. Again, HDRI gives us an almost luminous light quality. The 'blow outs' around the beam that braces the balcony to the canopy and around the exterior walls above the canopy are particularly convincing. I also love the light breakthrough at the back of the folded plate wher it joins the wall.
This image also has a lot of interior light sources: uplighters on the underside of the folded plate; the lamps in the 'girder light'; the fluorescent in the hallway. The neon glow on the tube, is, however, a post-render in Photoshop using layer effects. Cheetah doesn't support that lighting model yet.

Here's a try-out using Soft Shadow mapping...a bit rough, but quite effective...and it could produce a way out of the 'flickering shadow' problem.


Of course, this only works for flat, single surfaces...I wonder if SU's engineers could come up with a solution for automatic wrapping...?