MikeB

Cut and Paste

VW 10.5 overall seems more stable than 9.5.2, I cant address your individual problems, because I actually didn't experience them under 9 or 10 on either platform. I work cross platform daily. Office: Mac G4 733-OS 10.2.6-VW/RW 9.5.3 Home: PC P3 800 - Win XP Home - VW/RW 10.5 What system are you using? The only time I've had trouble rendering is when I have lots of lights(Over 30), and this was under 9.5. Under VW 10.5 I've been using the sky dome object from vector depot which has 60 lights with no problems at all. Over all 10 seems a little quicker when rendering, and like I said, more stable over all. Good Luck

The viewer is built on the base Vectorworks package. The renderworks plugin in is not part of the viewer.

What Biplab is suggesting is that you enter the solid. You do this by using the edit group command. If you use this on a solid subtraction, for instance, you access the 2 objects that created the subtraction. At this point you can edit them and then use the "exit group" command to return to the drawing area. You can use the "edit group" over and over until you access the origional 2-D polygon used to creat an extrude(for instance). So what Biplab is saying is to enter the solid (edit group) over and over until you get the the most primitive objects. then exit the solid (exit group) over and over until you are back in the primary drawing area. This will force the solid to recalculate and may solve you problem. Good Luck

You have to add the new functions to your existing workspace. Or you can use one of the preset workspaces.

Sorry, It'll be awhile befor I can try this. I'm in a huge production push both in my full time job and in my side work. I was just curious about the technique. Maybe Dave can post some screen shots.

Thanks

quote: Originally posted by Dave Donley: Yes, the same as HDRI. I now know why those guys would take pictures of chrome spheres on sticks in those "making of" sections of the Star Wars, etc. DVDs. I'll try to post a RW example of this soon. So are you faking HDRI in Renderworks ? If so I'd like to see a tutorial of that

quote: Originally posted by Dave Donley: Looks pretty good! My newest obsession would be image-based illumination Is that the same as HDRI. I've seen some discussion of it, and some test renderings on www.renderosity.com in the C4D section. Pretty cool technology.

I agree, this would be great, it would also be nice to have the option to retain the text size when cutting and pasting.

quote: Originally posted by Kristen: If you want to create an object that looks like a tubular light, you can make a texture with constant reflectivity and apply it to a cylinder. It doesn't ACT like a tubular light -- you need to fake it with other light sources, but it does look like one in a rendering. Yea, I know, but I would like to create a tubular light source so I don't have to fake it. Point dotted along a path work but they are not totally accurate, and the increase the rendering time

Text Attributes as part of Class Attributes would be very useful

I agree, the ability to render a tubular light source would be really useful.

I noticed in the last Dispatch ( the NNA VW Newsletter) that NNA will not be at any trade shows again until late October. This makes me guess that the next update (10.5ish ?) will probably come out in mid October. Just a guess

quote: Originally posted by Kurt Magness: I like using renderworks in conjuction with photoshop to do my presentations. I have spent so many hours with trying to get realistic trees, people, sky, etc. It seems a waste of time when you can just drop a rendered building into a real photo of the site and then monkey around with the file a little bit. I agree that lighting is key to getting a realistic looking rendering. It is important not only in renderworks but also in the photo of the site that you use in photoshop. Yea, I agree

quote: Originally posted by Cloud Hidden: But when the bar is raised such as with the one I just linked--even though it's just a one-angle rendering and not a design, floorplan, prints, or construction advice But thats really the thing, isn't it? The intent of your rendering is very different from the intent of the link you posted. I've done alot of one-off models in VW/RW that were purely for the rendering. In these situations you have alot more freedom to tweek the model than if you are trying to stay in the hybred 2d/3d method of generating construction docs. I think the limitations of RW have as much to do with the intent of the VW drawing, as it is a deficiency in the rendering engine itself. But I should also say that for now I've given up on the notion that I can do a 2d plan, and VW will automatically deliver a photoreal 3d model. I think we're still a few years away from that reality. As I said earlier, if you want a fantastic rendering engine, and a greater ability to controll your textures ( and do true translucency ) than you cant do much better than C4D, its an amazing product. But I doubt you'll be able to simply import your drawing and "poof" have a perfect model, if you go this route you'll inevitably be doing more work than you are now. If you haven't already, you should down load the C4D demo, I've played with it some, and you can get a good sense of it capability relatively quickly. What I did was to import some DXF's from VW to expirment with. my 2 Cents [ 08-14-2003, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: MikeB ]

quote: Originally posted by Kevin: Your analogy is very appropriate about the guitar. My analogy is that my guitar has a short circuit in it and sometimes it plays and sometimes it does not. It is tough enough trying to learn to play music without having to troubleshoot the inner workings of your instrument. Good Point, This model was actually a hybred, but I created my own door and window symbols with much more detail that the standard VW plugins have. I also spent alot of time on the textures to get them dynamic enough. I hardly ever use stock RW textures. For instance, I've found for metal, that the Chrome shader works well, it gives a gradation to the surface that seems more realistic for factory finished metal surfaces. In fact the more I look at reality the more I realize that the gradation of surface color is crutial to getting a realistic texture. I don't know what to say about the problems you are having with RW. I have developed a workflow that operates really well for me. And since I upgraded to Win XP (on a 800 mhz P3) I don't have any stability issues with VW/RW. Unfortunately the image I posted is kind of fuzzy, I'll see if I can find a sharper one tonight when I get home.

Here's one of my recient renderings This was done in VWA/RW10 no post. I think if you really want a high level of controll over your textures and lighting, C4D is the way to go. I always find it funny that people expect RW to operate at the same level as 3DS or C4D, when those programs cost 6 to 8 times more than RW. RW is very good at what its intended for, which are decient renderings that can be produced inside the VW environment. That said I think RW is very capable, you just need to spend time developing your lighting and textures to get the overall effect you need. No rendering program will give you perfect renderings by itself, my favorite analogy for this is you cant simply give a man a Fender Strat and expect him to sound like Eric Clapton . Anyway Good Luck

quote: Originally posted by Bruce Pittard: One other thing is text style, it would be great if once a text object is selected, all the attributes for it are displayed and can be controlled by the object info pallete (font, size, justification, style etc) instead of navigating through several menu's to find it out. Man that would be nice

I'm pretty sure NNA is on a 18 to 24 month update cycle. VW 10 came out about a year ago, so I'd guess we won't see VW 11 until next spring or early summer. Just a guess

quote: Originally posted by DaveHi50: i have V10--PC version--I love it, I have no complaints, User since MiniCad 7. Same experience here. VW 10 seems stable, but I'd say slower machines may be sluggish under VW 10. My P-3 800 works well, but there is a hesitation when I select PIO's while the information loads into the palette.

I think 8 uses quickdraw, which is very different from Open GL, you get similar results but they are completely different rendering engins. Out of curosity are you useing dual monitors?

quote: Originally posted by BILL GORE: W hat kind of video card is everyone using for VectorWorks 10. Do I need to get a higher end card to handle rendering better and if so what is recommended This all depends on what you are trying to do. If you are doing interactive Open GL rendering then, depending on your system, a faster video card may help. But if you are doing ray trace renderings, or raytrace animations, then the vidio card has little or no effect on speed, ray trace is entirely dependent on CPU speed, and ram. Good Luck

What OS are you on. The interactive rendering (I assume you are using open GL) is handled by the vidio card, not RW. Make sure you have the hardware accleration enabled for the vidio card. Good Luck

The best and cleanest way to do this is to export the Rendering as an image file, then add the sky in photoshop. You can set up a "billboard" of the sky behind your model, but this can get difficult in terms of lighting and then you have to reposition it every time you want to render a different view. I've tried to wrap the whole model with a cylinder befor, but that can cause problems with shadows. So again, the easiest way to do it out of VW 9 is to export as an image and adjust it in photoshop. Good Luck