Monadnoc

Thanks for the info Dave, I did not know that. I went into Custom Renderworks and set the Anti-aliasing to "On" and "Very High", and I also set the Indirect Lighting and Environmental Lighting to "Very High". Although I think it would only use one or the other, depending on your lighting setup. It added quite a bit of time to the render, but I think it's worth it. It seems to have gotten rid of the moire pattern/interference on the roof as well. At least when you're looking at it at 100% zoom. When it's zoomed out it's still there, but that's just a screen display issue I think. I had been using Final Quality Renderworks, is anti-aliasing turned on for that? And at what level? Thanks. This list is very, very helpful. A great resource. I'm posting the two re-renders, but leaving the originals up so I, and anyone else who's interested, can see how they compare. I wonder if it looks different displayed in a browser window? Monadnoc

Thanks. The tree line in the far distance was from a link you gave in the Textures Resources area, for free trees and backgrounds. It worked pretty well, I just had to drop the saturation of it a little in Photoshop to give it that "far way" look. I thought about using decals somehow too. But I haven't delved into it yet. Mainly because I first wanted to create something that is tilable over large areas but not look tiled. I do think decals could be very effective for adding little finishing touches throughout. I'll probably be in touch with you to pick your brain when I get to that point. Which will be a while. Right now I'm just dabbling in VW part time after work. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

That link billtheia posted is a very good one for insights on creating grass in VW. I think Ray Libby's comment in it about a flat surface is a key one ("no matter how good a grass texture is it will never look good on a flat surface"). All lawns/fields have hollows and crannies, and fields of modeled grass always look better on rolling hills. For medium distance shots I think a procedural grass shader can look halfway decent, and for a bird's eye view is probably the only one that won't look tiled. Dave Donley has a link in that same post to one that he created called "Granite grass". You should see if that works better for you. And Tamsin is right, adding a strong bump should help a little. I sometimes use 200% bump for grass, even %300 - %400 in some cases. Also, the larger the real world area covered, the better. Your grass texture should be at least 20' x 20'. I think 40' would be even better, but I haven't found any that large yet from photos. I am currently experimenting with some techniques for good grass. Most are trying to simulate some of the capabilities C4D has that are missing from Renderworks (namely shader layers) and using noise in a few different channels. It's still early on but here's an example. It's all done within VW. And it's all image based textures so far. It's also done on a perfectly flat plane. I figured if I could get a decent look on a flat plane, it will look even better on a modeled surface (I hope). This is my first project in VW2011, and this is my first attempt at a half-serious render. But I'm just starting, so be gentle. And this is my daughter's 150 year old farmhouse remodel, so the lawn is hardly a manicured lawn, thus the English Daisies scattered throughout. After I nail down a good technique for image based grass, I'll try out some procedural based ones. And then some pseudo-modeled and compare all three. This is a WIP (Work In Progress), that still needs a lot of work. Foundation Plantings are still needed, as is some site modeling. The first image shows a background and some trees, etc. and has a more finished look. The second is just to give you a different angle on the grass. But you also can see how having no background elements really takes away from it. Kind of gives you that "falling off the edge of the world" feel. Monadnoc

Here's a few more webinars. Two on Renderworks/Cinema 4D, one on GIS integration with site stuff, and I found the second part of the OpenBIM series. "Beyond Rendering: Simulating Real-to-Life Animations in Vectorworks? 2011 with CINEMA 4D" http://download2CF.nemetschek.net/www_movies/webinars/VW-C4D.mov "Optimizing Design Models using Vectorworks 2011 with Renderworks" http://download2CF.nemetschek.net/www_movies/webinars/Rendering-with-Dan-Jansenson.mov "Integrating GIS within CAD Workflows? http://download2cf.nemetschek.net/www_movies/webinars/Integrating-GIS-into-CAD-Workflows.mov OpenBIM part 2 http://download2cf.nemetschek.net/www_movies/webinars/openBIMpart2.mov That's all I'll be posting. I just wanted to catch people up who might be interested but missed those earlier ones. For future webinars I would just bookmark the webinars page, and go to it often to see what's being offered. Monadnoc

Hair and Fur is only available in the Studio bundle, not Visualize, which is the bundle that is marketed for VW users, and has the special side-grade pricing. You would also need the cloners only available with the MoGraph plugin, which also isn't part of Visualize. MoGraph is also needed for the realistic, random distribution of trees and plants (unless you have Surfacespread, which I do, and is great - better than MoGraph for landscape modeling). But there are other things MoGraph is needed for. I'm thinking of upgrading my copy of Visualize to Studio before the sale ends tomorrow - just for those two capabilities (plus Cloth). I plan on doing a lot of Architectural and Landscape modeling, and without the ability to do realistic grass and trees/plants, I feel a little hobbled. But be aware, modeling grass with Hair will create huge render times, and may be more than most computers can handle. But there are tricks (using clones and xref's) that make it doable. Certainly your scene is very doable. And a very nice house, by the way. I really like it. And your scene isn't too far off from looking very nice even within VW. Just add a few trees and plants and I think you'll be fine. And good grass is one of the hardest things to achieve in any rendering program, C4D or VW. I've just started experimenting in VW and am getting OK results with medium distance, texture based grass. Similar to your scene's setup. But it's a challenge. Monadnoc

Taoist, I wasn't implying you would start bashing, it was meant as a general statement. This list has a habit of people arguing over which is better, Mac or Windows, whenever anyone mentions what either one can do. I was just trying to avoid that situation. Monadnoc

Actually, I believe Renderworks does utilize multi-core processors, it's just Vectorworks that doesn't. I'm not sure about 64 bit, as I'm on a Mac and they don't have separate 32 vs 64 bit apps, they have one app (Universal Binary) and the OS figures it out. At least that's how I think it's handled. I'm a little unclear on it myself. But with Cinema 4D being a full blown 64 bit app, and for quite some time now, I don't see why they wouldn't incorporate that into Renderworks soon. And I am not trying to start a platform war, so please no one start bashing one over the other. Thanks. Monadnoc

Thanks for the response. I plan on viewing the one on one demo soon. But you really should finish your web site.

I agree. It would save scrolling time, be better organized, and just make a nicer, cleaner interface for the RB. On a similar note, it would also save a ton of time if when you went to change a texture on something it jumped to that texture. Right now it goes to the top of the list, then you have to go find where the original texture is highlighted, then change it to another one, which is usually right next to the one you want to change. If I'm changing a roofing texture, chances are I want to change it from Shingles Lt. Grey to Shingles Dark Grey, or some other Shingles texture, not to Asphalt Small or Brick Paver Rough. It's just common sense. And it would really, really speed up changing textures. Monadnoc

I don't think there is a way for anything except Symbols. There does seem to be an option to create a folder for symbols, but that's it. Although I'm still learning the in's and out's of the Resource Browser, so maybe there's a way I just haven't found yet. It would be very handy to have folders set up for groups of similar textures, etc. All exterior siding in one folder, all roof material in another, etc.

I agree it seems a little fishy to me. In fact, I would make sure my website was finished before I even launched a new product. And I can't imagine many people would be specifying Trex over cedar, pressure treated, or second growth redwood (I myself don't use redwood of any age, but realize the industry still does). I would think everyone who bought it did so to use as a deck design aid in Vectorworks, not because of the Trex product association. And for materials list generation. And mostly by Design-Build firms. Which I'm not.

When I have nothing selected, it sometimes acts just like it used to in MiniCAD days, with most of the objects off screen and out of view. You wind up looking at a mostly blank page. But if I select something, it will almost always center the view on that. Maybe even always. It's one of those things that you don't pay attention to when it's working as designed. But occasionally I just can't get it to center on my drawing objects when nothing is selected.

I have found it to be iffy for me. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Actually, most times it works. But I haven't been able to figure out what makes it not work sometimes. The times it doesn't work usually is when nothing is selected. Then if I select something, it works fine.

Hmmm, I have Cinema 4D and I don't have a problem at all. Works perfect. The file created should be a .VW4D file. There must be something going wrong. Have you tried using the "Send to Cinema 4D" command instead of the "Export Cinema 4D" option. That's what I always use, and every thing works as slick as can be. I'm very happy with it. You need C4D installed on the same machine as VW to have "Send to .." available. Monadnoc

Thanks for the feedback. I contacted them and they offered to do a one-on-one demo over the internet. Which I will probably take them up on. They said the plug-in has been a huge success and they've been too busy filling orders to finish their web page. Seems strange, considering no one on this Forum seems to own it. My biggest resistance to buying it is it seems to be a marketing tool for Trex, and therefore should either be free, or very cheap. I have to PAY them $400.00 for their advertising? I don't know about that. But it does seem like a great plug-in. As long as I can use real wood and not Trex.

"This same list of textures shows in the OIP." Ahhh, now I understand what you've been meaning whenever you talk about getting textures into the OIP. You're referring to the drop-down list of textures. I thought you were confused, but it was actually me who was confused. That makes perfect sense. That is a list of all the textures currently in your active document. Which is the same thing that is showing in the Resource Browser Textures pane. They are mirror images, identical. But you can't add to the list in the OIP Render Tab, you have to be in the Resource Browser Texture pane to add/import new textures. But then they will also show up in the OIP Render tab once you've added them. "If I switch to any of the favorites, can't apply any of the textures." If you are viewing the textures of a Favorite from within the Resource Browser, they aren't actually in your active document yet. You will have to import them into it before applying, UNLESS you had selected an object before you browsed into your Favorite file. Then you can choose Apply (or double-click) and it will be applied to that object, as well as imported into your active document. I suspect this is where most of your problems are coming from. It sounds like you are viewing textures in other documents and Applying them with nothing selected. Then nothing happens. You only think they've been applied, but they haven't. They've been Imported instead. And once you go back into your active document, they'll show up there. Then you Apply them. They really should have the Apply choice greyed out unless something is selected. It is very confusing. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it all works. "Still having issues with applying textures to walls and solids (3D) or 2D extrudes though." This should be fairly straight forward, so I'm not sure what the problem is without more details. To apply a texture to any 3D object, select the object, then choose the texture in the Resource Browser, and right-click and choose Apply, or double-click, or drag and drop it onto it. You could also select the texture from the Render Tab in the OIP. Walls are unique, though. When you use any of the above mentioned techniques on a wall, it only applies it to the edges. At least in my version of VW. The only way to get a texture on the sides of the walls, is by assigning them either via Classes, Wall Styles, or in the Render tab. Make sure Mode is by Object, Part is either Left or Right, and Texture is either Class Texture (assuming you've already assigned a texture via class), or choose whichever texture you want from the list. "How do I show/use other textures for the current working file?" Import them into your active document, then they'll show up in the Textures preview pane (click the House/Home icon to make sure you're viewing your active documents resources), and in the OIP Render Tab pull-down, and in the Class texture choices. If you haven't Imported them, they will not show up. If you have, they will. "Now I need to learn how to edit the textures for Specular, Opacity, Emissiveness, Reflectivity, Bump, Ambient." Unfortunately, Renderworks has very limited texture editing capabilities. Hopefully these will improve in the next few releases, now that it is using Cinema 4D. But to access/edit them, right-click on the texture in the Resource Browser and choose "Edit". There will be places to tweak Color, Reflectivity, Transparency, Bump, Size (a great feature - I wish C4D had this), whether it Cast and Receives Shadows, and Indirect Lighting options. Make sure to click on the Edit buttons for anything that has one, as that's where you can really tweak what it does. You can also edit a texture via the OIP Render Tab. With an object selected, next to the Texture field displaying the name of the texture that is applied to that object, there is a little black triangle. Click that and you will have a choice to Edit [texture name] Resource, Duplicate it, or Edit Image Shader. But for really good Texture/Shader capabilities, you'll have to take it into Cinema 4D. Fortunately, the process for doing this is the best I've seen. If you have C4D on your machine, just use Send to Cinema 4D and it opens up in Cinema. If you don't have C4D, just use Export to C4D and you can transfer the file to a machine that does have it and open it there. All textures, lights, cameras, etc. will come through. "In the OIP there is a Sketch Slot with options. Using OpenGl does not seem to make any difference." Sketch is used with Hidden Line rendering. You can also set it under View > Rendering > Line Render Options. There's a check box to activate it. You can also apply it to Top/Plan view, either to the whole plan, or just specific elements of it. And also as a Viewport option. HTH Monadnoc

If you have several files open, to make any file the active file as per drawing, it's the standard way, go up to the Window menu at the top of the main Title/Tool bar, and select whichever file you want to be working in. In order to also make that file the active file in the Resource Browser, go up to the topmost pull-down field, under "Files", click and you will see all the open files listed, plus some Favorites, Vectorworks Libraries, etc. Whichever you choose will be the active file just for the Resource Browser, and it will display that files resource contents in the preview pane. It is easy to lose track and think the textures, etc. displayed are in your file, but they're not. They're in whatever file is listed up top. And you can be looking at another files resources/textures even if it isn't open. It can be confusing at first. In 2011 they have a little house icon next to that field, which when clicked automatically syncs the two, and makes the active document in the Resource Browser the same as the active document you're drawing/working in. It's very handy. I don't know if it is in 2008. It wasn't in VW 11.5 The key is make sure the same name is showing at the top of your drawing window and at the top of the Resource Browser window. Unless you are knowingly, intentionally, wanting to be in the resources of a different file. Which you often do. To grab stuff. One thing about Importing vs. Applying, If you have an object selected while you are browsing/viewing the textures from another document from within the Resource Browser, you can right-click and either choose Import, or choose Apply and it will be applied to the selected object directly, with no need to import it first. But if nothing is selected, you will have to import the texture before you can apply it (it will still give you the "Apply" choice, it just won't do it. It will import it instead). And again, just to avoid confusion, I think you mean purging from the Resource Browser, not the OIP. You don't purge anything from the OIP, nothing "lives" there, it's only a Palette that gives you Information on selected Objects. Purge Unused Objects is used to delete a bunch of unused resources at once. But you can also delete specific individual or multiple resources from the Resource Browser by right-clicking and choosing delete. Even ones that are still being used, not just unused ones. HTH Monadnoc

Purge will delete all unused textures from your file. It will not touch anything that is being used/applied to anything. They will remain in the Resource Browser. It will also delete all unused symbols, hatches, etc., unless you tell it not to. So be careful. If you just want to delete a specific texture or two, right-click on the texture(s) in the Resource Browser and choose "Delete" from the contextual menu. This will delete it from your file. To remove a texture from a selected object, in the Render tab of the OIP, select "None" from the Textures pull-down. When assigning textures via class, only the textures currently in your document will be available, PLUS all the textures in the Defaults texture file. The textures currently in your document will be displayed under "Textures" in the Resource Browser display pane. I don't know if there is any limit to how many textures you can import. I've never run in to it. Monadnoc

I've had this problem too. I know it must be some setting some where, but I can't figure it out. Most of the time my 3DS imports come in as grey with no textures. But sometimes they do come in with textures. But I haven't been able to discover the rhyme or reason. Any tips would be greatly appreciated ... Monadnoc

Taoist, Sorry for the confusing post. It looks like you figured most, if not all, of it out anyway. To answer some of your questions: ?How do textures get in the Render Tab of the OIP to begin with?? Textures only show up in the Render Tab once they?ve been applied to an object (and the object is selected). The Render tab shows you what texture(s) are on the object selected. And also provides a way to adjust mappings, tiling, etc. You apply textures through the Resource Browser for most objects. Select the object, then either double-click the texture you want to apply, or right-click the texture and choose ?Apply? form the contextual menu, or drag and drop the texture on the object. This is assuming you already have some textures in your document. If you don't, you have to import them. It looks like you already figured out how to do that. Just remember, in order to apply a texture, the file has to be both the active file in the drawing window AND the active file in the Resource Browser. Or else you're importing the texture, not applying it. That might have been your original problem. "How do you remove imported textures from the OIP?" I think you mean the Resource Browser here. Right-click the texture in the Resource Browser and choose "Delete" from the contextual menu. Again, make sure you're in the active file (the name at the top of your drawing window should be the same name in the pull-down field at the top of the Resource Browser. If it isn't, change it so it is). Unless you DO mean the Render tab of the OIP, then I'm guessing you want to remove the texture just from the object, and not delete it from the drawing file. So just go to the pull-down field in the Render tab where it is listing the applied texture (under "Texture", surprisingly enough), and change it to "none". This will remove the texture from that specific object, but not delete the texture from the file/Resource Browser. I'm still a little confused on what exactly you're asking/having trouble with. I think you might be confusing the Render Tab in the OIP with the Texture preview pane in the Resource Browser. The Render tab just displays information about the selected objects textures, and provides a way to manipulate it for that specific object. The Resource Browser displays textures for the active document, as well as provides a way to access textures/resources from other documents and bring them into the active document. You apply and edit textures with the Resource Browser, and you manipulate how they get applied to the object through the Render tab of the OIP (although you can also apply and edit textures though the Render tab too, just to make it even more confusing). Walls and Slabs are a whole different story. Too much to get into here. Just explore the Mode: by Object vs. Component; Part: Overall, Left, Right, etc.; Texture: pulldown to assign textures; etc. all on the Render tab of the OIP. I hope this helps, and didn't make it even more confusing. It seems complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it all makes sense. Monadnoc

Good idea. Then you also get the toekick.

Has anyone tried the Deckworks plugin? Is it worth the $400.00? I'm interested in buying it, but they don't have much on their web page. And all the "Features" links just say information coming soon. Which is what they said about two months ago when I went to the site. In fact, I don't think anything has changed on their site since then. It looks/feels like it's been abandoned. It makes me wonder if they're still developing/marketing it. If anyone has tried it, I'd appreciate any info on what it does, especially regarding Material Take Offs/Parts Lists. There was one post I found where the person said it had significant flexibility issues with its stair and railing modes. But he still liked it. That has been the only post I've been able to find so far, except for the webinar announcement. I watched the webinar, but it really didn't do much for me. Thanks. Monadnoc

I have always just used extrudes in previous versions. I just checked the Cab PIO in v 2011 and there is still no option for scribes. It would be nice to have fillers/scribes for cabinets. Either by increasing the width of one stile for face frame, or by being added as a separate piece, as in faceless construction. Maybe you should add it to the Wish List Monadnoc

That is the technique I use, too. Only sometimes there are extraneous lines between walls/walls, walls/floors, etc., so when that happens I first render the viewport as Hidden Line, then Convert Copy to Lines, then edit the group to remove the unwanted lines, then re-render the viewport as Final Quality Renderworks with the grouped lines on top (in place of a foreground rendered viewport). Either option works real slick for me for 3D Elevations (with shadows/shading). Monadnoc

Taoist, I posted this response Sunday but removed it because it was a little too confusing. I thought I'd re-write it when I had more time to investigate all the wall texturing options, but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon ... so here it is again. And sorry about the negativity at the end. I really do love VW. But sometimes, I really hate it. It's just part of the deal. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I'm not sure I understand what you mean by get textures into the OIP. You want them in your Resource Browser, and from there you apply them to objects. Walls can be very confusing, as there are 3 or 4 ways to apply a texture to a wall. Maybe even more. I would suggest you read up on Wall Styles in the manual. I don't have my copy of VW accessible right now (it's tied up in a render) so I'm just going by memory, but in general, if it is an unstyled wall, you can either assign a texture by class, or by component (click on the "Components" button), or through the render tab in the OIP. Just select the wall, switch from the Shape tab to the Render tab, and there will be drop downs that you can use to assign textures to different parts of the wall. For Styled walls, it is similar, except you can't assign a texture directly by class or via the Render tab. It is all done through the components dialog. I think. Here it gets confusing because there are several ways again to assign textures, either via class of component, or assigned directly to the component, etc. I can't remember the exact choices. But fool around with them. I find assigning "by class" to be the most flexible for me. But there are some times "by component" fits the situation better. Also, I believe the settings in the Wall Style dialog over-ride the Render tab of the OIP, which can lead to confusion. I'll check when I get a chance. I'm just learning about wall styles myself. I worked through it a few months ago and settled on a work flow that was best for my needs and I haven't revisited all the transmutations since. Best of luck. You'll find Wall Styles very confusing at first, but very powerful. I think they're great. Although they are a perfect example of how excessively complicated Vectorworks has become, although in this case it may be necessary complication (it's been about ten years since I've used VW regularly, and man have they done a number on it. I used to be their number one fan, and even taught it as a grad student in Landscape Architecture. It used to be a very intuitive program, and a pleasure to learn, and use. Now it's just a chaotic mess. I think they hired too many ex-AutoCAD programmers to write it. And it shows. It reeks of AutoCAD un-intuitiveness and the AutoCAD "let's do everything the hard way" philosophy of programming) Sorry for the side rant. I just miss the old MiniCAD/Vectorworks I used to love so much. Monadnoc