MikeB

Will the 8.5.2 update work on VW 8.5 or do you have to have 8.5.1 installed? Thanks

You use the export image file command in the file menu. Also you need to have the latest version of Quick Time, you can get the Mac and PC versions from the apple web site. the general process is to set up your view, Render it on screen then go to the export image file command and follow the dialogue. A second way is to use the render bit map tool. Although if your image is large or complex you will have to render it in pieces and past it into Photoshop (or equal) to put it back together. Good Luck

As far as color we adjust it in photo shop until we can get the right results. The color problem also gets bigger if you have several different printers, we have a large format HP that prints the same file entirely differently than our small epsom. So we just tinker and print until something good comes out.

No, you dont increase your resolution you have to increase the image size. IN the export image dialoge the two #s at the top indicate the # of pixels exported. If you change your resolution from say 72 to 200 you still only get a defined # of pixles in a smaller area, so you have to either increase the # of pixels in the dialoge ( although our macs crash when we do this, but pc's seem ok) or make your perspective marque bigger in relation to the page size to increase the # of pixles. It seems wierd but trust me this is how it works. Good Luck

I have done several rendering for presentations and the most successful method I've found is to create all of your hard surfaces(the building, paving, etc) in VW and then export the model as an image file and use a Photoshop or equal to add soft element (people and trees etc) Any cad generated person or tree that is at all convincing will slow down your ability to render and print due to the shear complexity of the object. So for me treating the soft elements as 2-D objects in an image manipulation environment simplifies things tremendously. Cars are harder and I generally avoid showing them. Cad cars are hard to find and are generally ugly. 2D cars make it hard to get the perspective correct to look convincing. Hopefully someone else has a suggestion on this one. Hope this helps

I have posted this problem several times and I have finally decided this must be a wish list Item. We have noticed that the past in place command gets screwy when you move the page (printable area). This in a nut shell is what happens. We set up several seperate files for each floor plan. In each floor plan there is a full scale base sheet and usually an 1/8 scale plan. some time during the development of the drawings someone will change or move the printable area in order to print a small piece of the drawing. After this has happened the past in place wont correctly align objects in layers of different scales, such as centering the plan on the base sheet. Also moving the printable area can screw up referenced layers and linked 3D layers. It seems to us that this printable area should only have to do with exactly that, the area that is printed, and the origion should controll everything else, including aligning layers of different scales. Has anyone else noticed this and is diehlgraphsoft aware of it, or are we missing something very important here. Thanks

I havent had your problem but I'm concerned by the fact that some people are using 100MB of ram for vectorworks. I often work on drawings as large as 3-6 MB an I have approx. 30-40MB at most allocated to VW and I dont have any memory problems. I have some 3-D models with file sizes of 10 mb and I can work on them without problems. So could Some one from VW advise us on how much ram to allocate under normal conditions? Also is your Virtural Memory on. I have a G4 400 with OS9 and 256MB of ram. I had all kinds of problems until I turned off my VM. Since then VW has been relativly trouble free. Good Luck

I thought I saw this somewhere here befor but I cant find it. Is it possible to reference the size of a door from the info pallett into the record information. This would allow you to edit the size of the door and automatically update the door schedule throught record information. thanks

Yes but I like the freedom of being able to edit the attributes. It seems there should be a way to duplicate an object in a wall the same way you can duplicate a symbol.

I have a G4 with OS 9 and when I first loaded VW I had lots of problems. Freezing Crashing Ect. I seem to have worked the bugs out and Now VW is fairly stable the main things I did was to download the OS 9.1(or 9.01 or something) upgarade from apple. I down loaded the latest version of Adobe Type Manager ( there is an upgrade on the adobe site specifically for OS 9) and I have turned my Virtual Memory off. Good Luck

Never mind, the image you posted answered my question

Michael was the lower 3-D object on the bottom of the pool or was it a few inches below the higher 3-D object. Thanks

This may be a wish list item but does anyone know if it is possible to duplicate a plug-in window or door in a wall instead of having to initiate the window tool and setting your prefs again. My issue is if you have several different window objects and you want to duplicate one you either have to set the tool up again with all the correct attributes, or you have to pull one out of a wall, duplicate it and then reinsert the origional back into the wall. Am I missing something or is this how it's done. Thanks

Work group referencing uses your page origion to position the referenced layers. to move the position of the referenced layer you have to change your origion. there are two ways to do this, either under the page menu choose origion and follow the dialogue or if your rulers are on you can grab the box at the intersection of the Horizontal and vertical rulers in the upper left corner and drag in where you want the origion to be. be carefull though because changing the origion can screw up linked 3-D layer. Good luck

I was wondering if the slide bars for transparency and shinyness have any effect on a shader or if they apply only to image based textures?

Yes, does this have anything to do with reflected light or is it only objects reflected on a reflective material?

I do use classes alot with 3-D Modeling, and I do use solid subtraction. Although we do have some wierd problems with curves every now and then.

What does the ray trace bounce do, and what difference does the number you assign make to the rendered image? Thanks

I think your problem may be else where, we often have complex files up to 10 Mb with no problem other than the occasional corruption(usually associated with server crash) We have approx 14 Mac's all G3 or higher all on OS 8 or higher.

Something else would be more controll over the shaders. Instead of presets, It would be nice to have controll over a shaders attributes, mabye a slide bars to controll bump, transparency, reflectivity, erosion, ect. This way we could customize the shaders and then apply them to an image based texture. Thanks

I am trying to edit the simple door plug-in that came with VW. I have made a copy of it and renamed it by using the create plug-in command. When I select the copy of the plug-in and select "script" I get a message that the script is larger than 32K and cannot be displayed. Am I doing something wrong or is it impossible to edit this Plug-In? I know its not write protected because I've seen Plug-ins that are and they tell you you cannot edit them when you try. What I want to try to do is to edit the script so it displays a door # with the door object. and you can change the # in the info pallett. I have written some simple plug-ins for Wall types and window types so I just wanted to try and do something a little more complex. thanks

There are several items I'd like to see incorporated into Renderworks 1. Create image textures with the ability to make a color in the image transparent when rendered. 2. Be able to apply a shader to an image based texture 3. One step render export image command 4. Be able to create an environment with images for reflections (I know this is technically possible now but it creats huge problems with lighting) 5. Improved lighting as in form z"radiozity" which supports reflected light. Thanks

I dont think one exists, I hope this is included in VW9

I had this problem as well, I turned my virtual memory off and it seems to have gone away. I Have plenty of real ram (256) so it's not a problem for me. Good Luck

broesler What size (in inches) do you print your final images? I have also played with the settings and the best I can get is to set my perspective marque to an E size sheet and export the image at 72 dpi (if I change the dpi in the export dialoge I just get a smaller image in inches with the same # of pixels, If I increase the # of pixels VW crashes). Then in Photoshop I Have an image that is approx. 44" wide and 72 dpi. I can reduce this to approx 22" at 150 dpi with no loss of clarity and they print beautifully at the full width of 22", the problem is it can take several (up to 12 ) hours to export depending on the amount of transparency and reflectivity. I'm going to try your settings to see the difference. I also use a G4 400 and I'm very excited about VW9 as well. Michael Do you know if Renderworks capability will be greatly expanded in the next version or not? Just wondering. Renderworks is really great especially for the first release, I just hope Diehlgraphsoft will build it up. Thanks