Dave Donley

Hello SacSurfin': Are the images used for textures and backgrounds very big, pixel width and height-wise?

Hello: Are there any plug-in windows and/or doors in the walls? What happens if you convert the walls with these into NURBS?

Hello smoothbase: There is a limit of 4000 wide x 32 bits color for imported images. p.s. Cool login name.

Hello again tvetter: Are you rendering in Final Quality RW mode, or Fast RW? Perhaps the size is too small relative to the view and you are getting Moire patterns instead of seeing the joints.

Hello again azizg: From the file you sent me, it looks as if the model is too far from the center of the page. The laptop is about 400 meters from the page. The raytracing rendering mode has a tolerance to it that depends on the coordinates of everything in the model, including the origin, and I think this surface is too small relative to the large distances involved. I was able to render this correctly by creating a new file with a scale of 1:4 and pasting the laptop symbol into it. The raytracing tolerance is OK because the object is closer to the origin.

Hello tvetter: What is the texture size field set to in the Edit Texture dialog?

Hello azizg: Ray and Katie are right. However, I have seen this problem in other files, where a curved hole is cut into an expansive surface; the example I saw was a church ceiling that had tiny light fixtures cut into it. This may be fixed already in 11. Can you model the Apple logo as something besides a cutout? Please send me the file and I can diagnose this further.

Hello azizg: Textures are resources, so you have to create or modify them to get multiple variations of a given texture. RW 11 makes this a little easier to do; there is a Duplicate and Edit Texture menu on the Object Info palette that lets you more quickly duplicate an existing texture that is applied to an object. Then you can tweak the shade or reflectivity for that one object.

Hello markswagner: In RW 11 the image prop doesn't create this locus anymore. Instead an extra vertex is placed at the bottom center to provide a snapping point.

Hello CipesDesign: This is a problem with Mac OS X's implementation of OpenGL that was introduced with I think 10.3.2. We are waiting for Apple to remove this slowdown when the OpenGL model is disposed.

Hello DaveInAustin: Try Model->Create Image Prop. Choose to not create a plug-in object and it will create a 3D polygon for you mapped with the image. The mapping will be done for you. Frame it and hang it!

Hello Tasfire: Also check to make sure that the lights aren't being shadowed by geometry, if they are close to some object surfaces. If you send me the file I can try to figure it out.

Hello Tasfire: OpenGL mode would be slow if there are a ton of vertices and/or polygons. Look for excessive vertices in things like polylines that make up extrudes and sweeps. One file I have seen that was slow with OpenGL had extruded polylines that had over 500 vertices each. Usually the details can be modeled more efficiently to regain some speed. Is this geometry very polygon-heavy? If you can, email me a compressed copy at dave@nemetschek.net and I will look at it for more ideas.

Hello Kevin: Floors, roof faces, and columns are not textured on the side and bottom surfaces. These surfaces would render with the fill color.

Hello Guido: Texturing is a feature of RenderWorks. Do you have RenderWorks? These items are not available if RenderWorks is not installed.

Hello Rpb: Viewports' rendering resolution are set by the Sheet Layer's DPI setting. This value works similarly to the DPI setting for the Render Bitmap Tool. Both of these are relative to the page dimensions, so if you type 300 DPI for the value and render and print, there will be 300 dots per inch on the printed page. If you convert the viewpor to a group, then the Object Info palette will display the pixel dimensions of the viewport as rendered. If you do a rendering of the design layers onscreen, the resolution of this rendering is affected by the zoom, unlike the Render Bitmap and Viewport rendering which are not affected by the current zoom value. To produce equivalent design and sheet layer renderings you would have to click the View Bar's "100" button while in the design layer to set the zoom to 100%, and on the Sheet layer you would have to set the view so that the viewport looks like the design layer in the window, and set the Sheet Layer's DPI value to 72 DPI and render. If you convert the viewport to a group, and then cut and paste the bitmap to the design layer, the resolutions should look equivalent. HTH,

Hello propstuff: What I mean is that if the QTVR is zoomed out more than you'd like with the selected object you can create and select a "fake" object instead just so the zoom isn't as much. If they have no fill and no line weight they won't actually render in your scene. For example I did a movie of a submarine, and I wanted the view to be closer to it than when it was the selection, so I created some 3D polygons with no fill and no line weight, situated within the submarine and used those for the selection instead. Since they were smaller than the submarine the movie was zoomed in tighter. [ 05-14-2004, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: Dave Donley ]

Hello Kevin: The movie is exported at the current window size, with the zoom determined by the selected objects' 3D bounding cube. It is a similar view you would get if you selected the object and chose the Fit To Objects button on the view bar. To increase the resolution so that you can see the object better try exporting with the window larger, or if you can, set the monitor to a higher resolution when exporting. Another thing you can do to zoom in closer to the model is to create 3D polygons with None fill and None for the line style. You can select these objects to zoom to but not have them render in the scene.

Hello Dean: Try the Image Transparency shader on a 3D polygon, with a spot light aiming through it. This is the same shader that is used for Spotlight gobo textures.

Hello michaelohhh: What platform are you on?

Hello michaelohhh: You are posting to the wrong area. Look at the replies to your questions in the RW forum: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=000443

Hello zero: The mapping is determined by the plug-in author. If you want to have a different size you can modifiy the texture resource's size. Otherwise if you need a different mapping you would have to convert the plug-in to a group so that you could edit the mapping on the sub-geometry.

Hello zero: One texture is applied to the top surfaces of the roof (like for shingles), and the other is for dormer walls (like brick or siding).

Hello: Is the chosen folder for the batch render locked? Do you have permission to write to that folder? If you are on a Mac you can see this by doing a Get Info on the folder, then looking at the Ownership and Permissions.

In VW11 you can set the beam texture to not cast a shadow, so this might be an OK workaround for some.