Dave Donley

Hello Aristobulous: Indeed, there is a "Camera Effects" checkbox in the Render Style Options and/or Custom RW Options that should be on to show effects from RW camera objects. Maybe that is not on for you.

It also sounds like Camera Match could be helpful to align your background image with your rendering.

Hello again Antonio: This is a bug that is fixed in Service Pack 2 (upcoming). For now the workaround is to reset the light distribution by loading the IES file into the light object again.

Hello Antonio: It looks like your scene is using IES lights exclusively. If you reset the custom light distribution by loading up the .ies file into the light again does that help?

There was a bug (Windows-only, fixed in 2020 SP2) where VPs might show black when default image compression preference was set to JPEG (instead of the default which is PNG compression). Don't know if that is the issue here. If it is file specific that helps to know. If it is machine-specific that is helpful to know too. Can you strip out any proprietary stuff you can't share and post the VWX file here so we can try it?

Hello Mik: Since this started with a Windows update, you should maybe go to the NVIDIA site and make sure your video drivers are the latest ones from NVIDIA. Oftentimes strange video problems that are machine-specific happen because the video drivers are the default old ones with an OS release and not the latest ones from the video card manufacturer.

Regarding portal option for textures, yes windows create glazing texture that has this set by default. However if you create your own texture this will not be set. It helps the renderer make sure to send rays toward those openings and not just find the sky by chance. It doesn't help speed but it can really help quality when significant lighting is coming from the window openings rather than other sources.

Q: What does the rendering look like with indirect lighting turned off? The glazing texture on the windows should have its Indirect Lighting Options set to Use Portal. That will help the renderer sample the light from the direction of the windows. Some of the splotches will improve with higher indirect lighting quality setting but it should be reduced with some investigation of these things which may help it a lot. I am wondering if some of this is coming from the rough reflective floor texture.

Hello digitalcarbon: For the second image the new AR Measure mode in Nomad might help you get some of those dimensions, and can create a VWX file for you which might also be useful. https://cloud.vectorworks.net/portal/help/pages/measure-in-ar/?app=IOS_NOMAD

The environment that is closer to our hearts would be CINEMA 4D, it can do anything SM can do and there are all manner of rendering plugins for it, including Keyshot: https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KP/pages/38477184/Cinema+4D

Oh, caustics must have been added after 2015 then. Caustics are focused reflections which I think is what you are wanting. The indirect lighting is "diffuse" and doesn't really simulate focused light like from refraction (water glass) or reflection (disco ball). Without that you could project a pattern manually by making a textured 3D polygon floating in space (using transparent image shader in the texture) with a spot light behind it. But I doubt you would want do that much work for it.

As a simple rule we are using WYSIWYG. If you don't want the export to look like the design layer you will need to turn off data viz. If data viz is on we assume you want the C4D export to look identical. We feel that any other solution to this would just be confusing. It is like the current layer and class visibilities being used for the exported model. Unfortunately a side effect of making the rendering have a consistent look is not compatible with also making these objects C4D instances on export.

OK thanks a lot for the info Claes!

I think the requirement is kind of silly, it's like the customer saying you must use only Craftsman hammers. If Keyshot is very easy to use then it is a pretty low bar that you must have that skill. Q: What format(s) are you using to get VW models into Keyshot? Are these exports doing it for you? We rely on Maxon as our built-in rendering engine supplier. The acquisition of Redshift is very interesting.

Hello domer1322: I think what you are wanting are caustics? To do that you turn on caustic photons on the light (spot or point I believe) and also it has to be on in the render settings (like render style or Custom RW Options). And the caustic photons have a brightness that you can control at the bottom of the Obj Info palette for the light.