VIRTUALENVIRONS

@EAlexander When we were discussing rendering and complexity, etc. last Sunday, I was starting to work on this project. A young Rhinoceros was in desperate need of a 66 Corvette Sting Ray. Thinking this was a sign that I should see how it looks in Vectorworks, I rendered/animated it in Vectorworks. Surprisingly, it turned out very nice. Each of these frames took about 50 seconds with my Mac Pro M3 Chip. Acceptable for animation.

Surface repair likely means inverted Surface normals, although for CNC they should be able to process them as double sided polygons with the program tessellating the polygons to give a smooth surface. 1-Ask if surface repair means "inverted Surface Normals" Printing. Yes, to print something like this you will need a solid thickness. Optimally It would look like what you get when you first do site q model with the square bottom. Unfortunately, I have reached my "level of incompetence" on this issue. I seldom use Site model tools. There may be settings that does this automatically, perhaps someone else will chime in. I will have a look at this again later on in the week.

Your comment is valid, but don't give up. There are two disciplines in Vectorworks, Hybrid tools and NURBS tools. For the most part, Hybrid tools will serve 90 percent of Vectorworks users for their entire careers. But, If you want to learn NURBS methodologies just post your problem. Someone or several will respond. At the bottom of this post is my YouTube channel. Have a look, there are tutorials.

I looked up Swales this morning. I thought they were ponds, but now I know. I had a similar project in 2017. I had to recreate 5 square miles of WW1 Battlefield with 140 miles of Allied and German Trenching. The topology was created in VW's, then transferred the model to CINEMA 4D and sculpted out the trenches. At the time the limitation was computing power so sculpting worked best. Today, if I only needed the computer model I would probably do it in VW's.

Sorry to hear about the attack, brutal. Thank you for the explanation, but I am not knowledgable enough of the tools to understand, but clearly you do. I have a different method where I "bake" in the complex geometry to a site model. See below

Hi Philip, how is the VW's 3D process going? How do you mix both? I know how to do this, but it would only be a 3D model and not a hybrid site model?

Hi Carol, it seems the usual suspects are busy today. How do you plan to model this? I have a method to add complex geometry to site models, but removes the hybrid functionality. Would this work for you? If yes, I will post.

In and out today.....contractors. I guess each of us may have a different definition of complexity. Animation is a completely different workflow and mindset.

I suppose, although when I have shown that to anyone else, they love it, but perhaps it is the modelling and not the rendering. To be clear, I have had great success with modelling in VW's and rendering/animating in C4D in my career, but I have been using the same rendering methodology for over 25 years. This is basically what all VW's users use today, but it is ancient history compared to the tools now available in C4D, Maya, and the like. Node textures, multiple layer textures, and it goes on. I only barely understand some of them. C4D considers the colour/bitmap channel legacy rendering and I only have V20, don't know what V25 holds. But, although I have worked in all the engineering disciplines, the end result is an animation and not a still rendering. This is different. Let's assume the image below would qualify as realistic. It took 2 1/2 hours to render on a pretty fast machine. So for one second on animation (30 frames) that would be 75 hours. The movies I have made are often over 30 minutes. So you have to lower your expectations.

In C4d there is a setting called environment. So think of it as the ability to reflect a different HDRI background to separates parts of a model. For example, if you have ten objects, you could reflect ten different backgrounds. See below

The reddish background you see is a plane with a texture on it, so it only reflects on the backside and part of the top. The rim I considered trim and has a texture. The body is reflecting and picks up everything. I used the same settings and HDRI background in the C4D image below, except that C4D allow for environmental reflections which produce a superior image. Environmental rendering. This is something that did not make it across that I know of when Maxon transferred its rendering engine to VW's.

Rendering is a funny thing, but also complex. It takes work, no way around it. Having said that, the image below modelled and rendered in Vectorworks has only two textures that have a colour of sorts. The tires and the trim. The body is simply a reflective surface that pulls in the colours from the background and the HDRI lighting. Same with the floor. This model was made with 2018 render settings. Nothing seems to have changed in 2025.

I seldom render in VW's and you are in far better hands with the others....but. How thick is your glass? The Absorption rate comes into play the thicker your glass is. Check the thickness and reduce to test. Also, I have success with this glass texture when I render in VW's. GLASS.vwx

@AlanButt Stange as this may sound....I think I know what you are trying to do. After going back and reading again, it seemed clearer as to why you were asking about working planes. I did not use working planes to create this. Below is a short video showing the 12 Sided Rhombus project out onto a sphere so the elements are curves. I did not break them again into four parts and I coloured a few. Is this what you are looking to do?

@AlanButt This shape was interesting so I had a look. There is a file enclosed with two Rhombi. The dark blue is solid and the light blue is hollow or surface. They might be of use. TWO ROHMBI.vwx