Bella for SketchUp

Contents

(Top)
1 Introduction
  1.1 Scope
2 Installation
  2.1 Windows
  2.2 MacOS
3 Settings
  3.1 Environment
    3.1.1 Type
    3.1.2 Sun
    3.1.3 Ground plane
  3.2 Camera
    3.2.1 F-Stop
    3.2.2 EV
    3.2.3 Focus dist.
  3.3 Materials
    3.3.1 Types
    3.3.2 Notes
4 Rendering

Introduction

Bella for SketchUp is a simple exporter plugin for SketchUp 2017 and up. It allows setting up the Bella scene & materials, which are then exported to a Bella file and rendered using Bella GUI.

Scope

This document pertains specifically to Bella for Sketchup, and does not cover general Bella concepts, for which you should refer to the core Bella and node definition documentation.

For information on Bella licensing, and how to install your Bella license, see Licensing in the Bella GUI documentation.

Installation

To install Bella for SketchUp, download the package appropriate for you operating system (.zip for Windows, .dmg for MacOS) and follow these steps:

Windows

Download the .zip file and unzip it on your desktop.
Start SketchUp and click Window > Extension Manager.
Click Install Extension.
Browse & select the unzipped bella_sketchup-<version>-win.rbz.
The Bella toolbar should appear (if not see View > Toolbars).

If you encounter any error when attempting to start Bella GUI, download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime from the downloads page.

MacOS

Download the .dmg file and double-click to mount it.
Start SketchUp and click Window > Extension Manager.
Click Install Extension.
Browse & select bella_sketchup.rbz in the mounted .dmg.
The Bella toolbar should appear (if not see View > Tool Palettes).

Settings

To open the Bella Settings window, click the 'gear' icon in the Bella toolbar:

The Bella Settings window will be shown (or hidden, if it is already visible):

Using this window you can set up the Bella environment, camera, and materials.

Environment

Type

One of four environment types may be selected:

Type	Description
Color Dome	The scene will be illuminated by a dome of light, with color set by the current style.
Sky Dome	The scene will be lit by a physical sky simulation, according to the SketchUp date & time.
Image Dome	The scene will be lit by an HDRI image.
None	There will be no scene illumination.

Sun

The sun may be enabled or disabled explicitly, or set according to the current SketchUp shadow settings, by using the Auto mode.

Ground plane

The Bella ground plane will be enabled or disabled according to the current SketchUp style.

Camera

While the physical attributes of the camera are taken from SketchUp, this section allows for setting up depth of field (DOF), exposure, and focus distance.

F-Stop

The F-Stop controls the depth of field of the shot, where lower numbers will decrease the distance between the nearest & furthest in-focus points. Because the Bella camera is set to compensate exposure, this may be set arbitrarily without needing to also adjust exposure.

EV

The EV (or Exposure Value) is a number characterizing the exposure of the shot, where higher numbers will be appropriate for brighter environments, and vice versa. See here for some common values.

Focus dist.

Lastly, you may either set the Focus distance manually, by picking a point in the model, or you may click Auto (this just sets the value to -1) to have the plugin compute a suitable distance.

Materials

Types

In this section of the panel are listed all the materials in the model, allowing you to assign to each a chosen Bella material type:

Type	Description
Auto	The plugin will try to guess an appropriate material according to SketchUp color, opacity, etc.
Lambert	This is a perfectly diffuse material.
Metal	This is a metal material, with adjustable roughness.
Ceramic	This is a ceramic material, with adjustable roughness & specularity.
Plastic	This is a plastic material, with adjustable roughness & specularity.
Urethane	This is a rubber-like urethan material, with adjustable translucence & roughness.
Water	This is a water material. It is a true dielectric, so should only be used on geometry with volume.
Glass	This is a glass material. Like Water it should only be used on geometry with volume.
Sheet	This is a glass-like material which has no refraction, and is suitable for things like windows.
Emitter	This is an emitter material, which allows creating lights from geometry.

Notes

Material settings not exposed in this table (e.g. color, texture) are taken from the associated SketchUp material.

Bella does not support emitters assigned at the sub-object level, so you should only assign emitter materials to groups or components, which have no per-face material assignments.

Clicking on materials in this table will select them for editing in SketchUp's material panel.

For more information on the specific material types, see the core Bella documentation.

Rendering

Rendering in this plugin currently involves exporting the model to a Bella file, and rendering that file in Bella GUI. To export, just click the Render in Bella button (the one with the Bella logo):

The plugin will export a Bella file and open Bella GIU, which will start rendering:

You may stop the render and change any parameters you wish, save the file, render again, etc. For more details on this see the Bella GUI documentation.

formatted by Markdeep 1.11

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