zoomer

As the PC was faster and less restricted than the M1 Mini, I once did a larger project VW/C4D on the PC. So just VW and later C4D. Not sure why but somehow on PC the C4D Exchange did not work. Therefore I had to get back to M1 Mini in VW, for all C4D Exchanges, to save a C4D back to the PC for rendering. So I also ran into the path problems with textures and references. Yes, most paths were relative but there were some Library dependencies and especially many paid C4D Materials which hide usually their dependencies and it was a nightmare. If you can strictly separate your daily peripheral usage on Mac from just all demanding 3D/CAD/BIM work on a PC, I think that works great for many. But for me it already gets uncomfortable when I try to search and preview for textures on Windows and such things that for me it would get a constant ping pong between both machines though. So at the end it would have been much more effective and less stressing if I had stayed with the weak Mini and waited around 3 times longer vs the Ryzen 3950X for the Batch(!) Rendering. And for everything that is not related to limited raw power, I am happy that I can stay with a Mac anyway.

Or an (unlikely ?) Mac Pro M4 Extreme coming winter ? (If you have to ask for the price it's not for you)

I think it is worth a try. Maybe it works well for you. You can even work on Mac and access the PC remotely by Microsoft Remote Desktop App (in Apple's App Store) I have access to both machines on one desk, both with own monitor and input devices or from one to the other remotely. But somehow I neither bother to switch desk sides nor activate remote access. So for me, still with the weak M1 Mini, Mac experience is still just not bad enough. So I just boot the PC every few months to update Windows and my Linux installations. 🙂

I was only PC user until Apple's Intel switch and Bootcamp in 2007 and I was very happy with that decision for many years. Because of the difficult Apple Desktop/Pro hardware situation, beginning in 2012, in 2017 I sadly thought I should switch back to Windows. I always kept my Parallels Windows VM to test and follow Windows development and Windows seemed to work well for me also. But I only tested 3D and CAD/BIM Apps and no other daily tasks. And it was only a VM, so "virtual hardware" stayed basically the same over the years and was maintenanced by Parallels Updates. So the assumption that I could replace macOS with Win10/11 easily changed quickly when I build my PC in 2018. Hardware (freedom, specs and building) was great and fun of course. But opposed to a VM, I now had to really care about BIOS, Driver and Software Updates again, lots of configuration need, missed lots of macOS included and/or peripheral Software and their quality, felt bad with telemetry or Windows constantly sabotaging my privacy settings or reinstalling Windows Apps that I uninstalled, ...... I quickly realized that I do not want to work on Windows. I also tested quite a bit of Linux. MacOS and Apple environment is still a much better experince for my usage. Currently, with ARM, Apple hardware offers look again reasonable and so I will stay with Apple. If Apple may get too bad again at one point, I would go with Linux anyway, not Windows.

That is not possible. You can create a Slab (AEC (?) / Create from Object / Slab) from 2D Rectangles or a closed polygon, or Walls from Lines or the lines that define open or closed polylines ...... If you need it for BIM only you can simply assign an IFC Class to a Solid, like IfcSlab or IfcWall .... and it will IFC export as an IfC Wall. But it will not be never a true Wall or Slab inside VW modeling, e.g. you can't insert a Window or Door PIO to these, they aren't parametric, may not appear in default tables without special criteria. Well, VW Wall PIO does not allow freeform, slanted, ..... Walls. If you need to extended PIO features VW offers, you need to model it manually using custom geometry though.

I think it is part of the german localized Version of VW .... (Snake for soft and zig zag for hard insulation) They also had a Foil Tool to draw the thick black and white dashed lines in section detail drawings. (But AFAIK that got legacy for some reasons)

Thanks for sharing your experiences and observations. Seems to make sense. And sounds like the Datasmith path would not work for my usual projects, that were so far done (successfully) by VW/C4D Exchange and had constant updates. 1. I could import real C4D Materials into VW Resource Manager to assign to my geometry in VW. They might look simpler in VW, I could even overwrite them for VW, but when exporting to C4D, C4D will use the original C4D Material definitions. That means you do not need to care of overwriting/keeping Material changes at all. 2. If I create new VW Materials or get them in from Library elements, I can overwrite these in C4D by C4D Materials. These overwriting will stay future exchanges. 3. If I create new elements in VW and assign an existing Material, after exchange, it would bring in again the VW Material. But my C4D Materials were sorted in Layers, VW Materials come in without Layer but usually same name. So I could easily ALT+drag overwrite them with the C4D Materials again. This was the worst situation, not comfortable but manageable. 4. In the worst case you could define a separate C4D File, with Materials with same names as the imported Materials and replace/overwrite these from the Material file in one go after each re-import. This Setup was all manageable. So if I create new objects, even if you copy a Wall or add/remove a Window in Wall (?) (I think that also means a new GUID), I can easily find the incoming old Materials and can overwrite them. But in Twinmotion you usually overwrite VW Material imports by own TM Materials and their own Material Names. If a Datasmith Exchange is not as reliable as C4D Exchange, and I would get in geometry with partly lost/old/changed Material assignments - I could not handle that for larger projects. When Datasmith was introduced, or even before (?) my first VW to TM attempts and tests of how updating (FBX ?) exports into TM would keep Material overwriting, I had mixed results. I had a few PIOs and Solids and also a Curtain Wall. In TM I assigned a few materials like a wood floor and better glass for the CW panels. Then I went on modeling a few more things in VW and re-exported. Suddenly material overwriting was not only partly lost but also assignments mixed up. Means that some of my CW panels changed from glass to wood and such. After that I did only a few tests of how a project would come into TM and how it looks, but unfortunately never again really tested reliability of a re-import/exchange.

Usually ins such situations, with the Select/Drag Tool, you could select the object of choice first, like by clicking it on top - than hover cursor at the point where it meets Line until the snap icon appears and grab it from there - and VW would keep you Selection. That feature/behavior was thankfully include many years ago. Before dragging had always switched selection and dragged the most top object instead, which was a nightmare. But I have read some comments that made me think that VW 2025 had a regression and switched back to the old behavior or that losing initial Selection when dragging may happen in certain situations. And before that feature, the workaround was to use the "Move by Points" Tool instead, with no number of copies setup. This Tool will reliably use the selected object(s) only.

I was bored waiting longer for that M4 Studio too, that may have or not a M4 Ultra or may be unattractive expensive or not released at all if Tim Cook decides different .... So I ordered a (unwanted) Macbook Pro Max instead. Unfortunately it is further delayed (or even cancelled ?), so not so easy to get a M4. But M4 Pro Mini was a bit expensive for another interims machine.

Oh, could be that Redshift is no more supported on old Intel Macs. AFAIR it needs some modern CPU features ... Apple switched their whole hardware Architecture in 2020 with M1 series chips (SoCs). So there we have the old Intel Macs and now Apple ARM. Currently the 4th iteration, hence M4. Currently yes, unfortunately, as Apple skipped Ultra chips (or Mac Studio in general) for last M3 generation and M4 Ultra is not yet there. But only for excessive Rendering, and it is only a few (5-8 months ?) months and you will likely get a much faster M4 Ultra Studio or Mac Pro (a bit later) at nearly the same price as the current M2. And the current available M4 Max is not very far behind the M2 Ultra. The problem is that Apple does not already offer the Mac Studio with the available M4 Max chip. Currently the only way to get a M4 Max is by buying a Macbook Pro - which is a Mobile and not a Desktop with all its pros and cons.

I have the 6 core D700 Trash Can in my cupboard. Even my current M1 Mini is faster, by CPU, GPU and overall. You can't do wrong buying any current M4 hardware. It will by way faster than you Mac Pro. Just the M2 Studio is not attractive, if you can wait. Since a few years Redshift is part of VW's included CineEngine (RW Renderer) You can also take a look at Enscape, a real time Render Plugin for later VW versions that is macOS compatible. You can also use standard HDRI files as environments in VW instead of VW's physical skys.

I think yes. I don't think you would notice much difference to Ultra in VW. But if you measure expected Twinmotion experience in top of the line Nvidia GPU performances, you want to go with the Ultra. Or if you do RW CPU Rendering, double the core counts of the Ultra should scale nearly linear and be double as fast. Same for GPU cores and Redshift Rendering. This is valid for a speculated M4 Ultra in the way we had with M1 and M2. But we don't know. Maybe it will be again 2 Max glued together, maybe it will be a new design and not double performance. But no one can know if an Ultra or even Extreme version will ever come or not and if, how long we have to wait for it. I don't expect a Studio Max release before WWDC in June (Although the M4 Max is out some months and a Max Studio could have been released with Macbook Pros already if Apple would have been willing to), an Ultra may even take some more time. On the other side, with M4 generation Apple is pricing exactly linear with performance. Means memory, SSD, GPU or CPU count doubled means double price. And where not feasible, like for the binned versions, Apple artificially limits memory options so that these bargain models aren't applicable for most of us demanding users. (Basically you will get the desktop cases and ports for free, just displays and keyboards cost a little extra, but the price is just for performance of SoC, Memory and storage only) Therefore configuration depends only on your demands and needs, currently and for the whole expected life cycle. I think with this configuration and mainly VW, you are not in a hurry, can observe what happens or Apple will release in the near future. And just wait until you really run into hardware limitations with your projects, to make an upgrade decision.

Ah, yes, Wall joining is strange in VW 2025 too. And even Wall Selection in VW 2025 (filled !) for me only works when I hover over parts of the Edges/Wireframe. Hovering over Faces/Fill completely ignores the Walls and selects something occluded behind.

I also have a 4 year 😲 old 16 GB M1 Mini and I will see in the near future if more RAM will help. (being delayed - looks like these M4s are still hard to get) It maybe especially VW 2025 SP2.1 only, but since I see even more all kind of trust killing issues in VW 2025 lately. Drawing View shifting when undoing, snapping point ignorance, visibility issues, memory leaks (1 Nurbs Face + 1 4-solid Object + Surface array cascading to 32 GB ?), zooming oddities, .... so basically most of them graphic issues. Something must have changed with VGM (?) But memory consumption in general, usually I examine my projects in multiple Apps beside VW, I do not get why VW always needs about 3 times as much memory than any else. It looks like I can open the same recent size project at a time in 3 Blenders, 1 Bricscad plus even 1 C4D and 1 Modo and switch between them easily. It works as Apple promised shared dynamic memory with SSD swapping and It looks l like that would work well with only 8 GB memory too. It is just when VW is involved, memory pressure gets brownish easily and everything lags.

Hmmh, I opened that file too. (Found the "Import" Layer) I notice the Layer is 1:1 Scale. But I was not able to see any exploded Line Weights like on your screenshot. Switching line weight scaling on and off does not change anything - I just see hair lines .... As I had these exploded Line Types too in the past, from a customers 2D landscape DWG. (From the additional PDF I would think it was done in VW originally) And it took me a while to get rid of this line thickness but unfortunately I forgot what it was, I only remember that I got rid of it at one point.