VIRTUALENVIRONS

The video below shows snippets of how a 1938 BMW Roadster was modelled in Vectorworks. So I came out of the Dark Ages (VW18) and loaded 2022 and 2024. I also decided to look at Rendering and Animation after ten years. 2024 appears to be a game changer as probably was 2023. The 3D Dragger is what has always been needed, not only makes NURBS modelling easier, but actually adding functionality. Although the packaging of C4D rendering engine in VW's is not the interface of C4D, the components are there and I was pleasantly surprised. The Video below is largely what it would look like in C4D using the same textures and HDRI image.

Thanks f Thanks for that Zoomer. But, again, how valuable is that for Vectorworks. From what I have seen you post, you know your way around 3D better than most. Can you describe a scenario where you would build something in C4D to import back in Vectorworks. This is where I don't see it.

Always curious about this. In any pipeline, whether VW's or A-CAD, etc. its geometry to C4D, Maya, MAX, etc. In 40 years I have seldom seen a reason to reverse that pipeline.. But I have occasionally, when I needed to import large scale topology from another program. In years past (20 years ago) I would get survey data from A-CAD. There is no tone in this comment, just curiosity. What would FBX bring to the table? It is not really a CAD tool, but more for animation, hence export FBX.

I agree with Pat, the more RAM the better. Having said that, I only took the default 18 GG RAM it came with because of the cost and I don't anticipate extremely large files in my future. But, I am running very smoothly and quickly with 200 MB files, processing animations very well.

@Tom W. Yes, thank you for that. I thought there might be something like that, but decided it was time to memorize the Icons.

I have been testing out 2024 for a week now on a MacBook Pro Laptop. As I only use a subset of the program, the transition was easy enough. Took a while to find the NURBS icons as the text is not there anymore. I am pushing it a bit in 3D Rendering and Animation. I have not done this for ten years, but things have not really changed in this area. I have come up with two bugs. 1 - If for some reason I do a "select all" of my scene and have no "black space" or "screen space"to click into, I can't deselect. I have to shut my floor off in Classes to deselect all. 2 - Sometimes after I have been test rendering etc, and go to save movie, that menu is completely black. Have to reboot the program to fix this.

@line-weight Perhaps you can do the video instead

If you can wait until tomorrow, I will make a little video showing the various ways to make this.

There are quite a few ways to make this as pointed out. Another way would be to simply extract two curves, top and bottom. Lower the top curve end points down and loft. There are probably more ways to do this besides those already mentioned.

You can use subtract solids on a surface. Make a shape that removes what you want, intersect the two and subtract solids.

I have been playing with it in Surface mode, good tool. Does it modify a NURBS curve also?

Just loaded 2020. Had 2022. There is a new tool that moves/rotates vertex in 3D. it has 3 directional arrows. Trying to find a little documentation on that, but can't even find out what it is called. That would be a big help if I could get the name. thanks

@JuanP' Thanks. That is where I thought they were. They were under Defauls, should have looked closer.

As I understand it, Vectorworks has installed textures. Try as I might, I can't fine them. Can someone point me in the right direction.

I don't know why I did not think of this before, I used this method last week to build a 1938 BMW. I often extract a surface and shell. It seems work better. I don't know if this would work with imported geometry. For the BMW below shell would not work on some parts of the car in both directions, but after extracting a surface it worked.....mysteries of Vectorworks.

@Claes Lundstrom Really nice work. What are you rendering in? The boat. Just interested. Why are the hull subtractions for. Although I have never built a boat, I have rebuilt two.

I have not seen any function that does that, although I seldom use bend or distort tools. What exactly are you trying to do?

@Claes Lundstrom Nice work on the boat hull. Good info on the volume, did not know that. I have used the method you suggested before to create a thickness. but did not see that happening with the Dolphin, too thin at the edges. It is interesting the provided the cross sections. If someone was willing they could simply take the time to recreate them and loft themselves a Dolphin. I would do it the other way, tip to tail.

A mesh and surface model are essentially the same to Vectorworks. I can see the triangles in your Dolphin. I see they supplied the cross sections of the Dolphin. You could use those to rebuild it in Vectorworks, but it would be very difficult and unless you were very familiar with NURBS, not really a solution. Some programs like CINEMA 4D can add thickness to a mesh. I would assume Blender (need help here) could do the same. Blender is free, perhaps someone can confirm this. good luck

Is the dolphin model a solid? I would think an imported .STL file would be a surface model, please confirm

1938 BMW roadster modelled in Vectorworks/Rendered in C4D.

It has been suggested that I move on from VW 18....don't know why. I have always had 2022, but did not work well on my 2019 iMac. Have new MacBook Pro.....speedy. Is there a way to get the Reshape tool to show up on the "Smart Options Display" thingamajig?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you planning to do with this. If we knew what your final goal was, there might be a better solution within Vectorworks. As the Deloriean is a rather square shaped car, it would not be a stretch to build it in Vectorworks, but there are other solutions as below. For example, if you "can" decompose the model in Vectorworks so you can simply separate the parts, you could use "Create Surface from Curves". to rebuild each part in its 3D space. Alternatively, you could use "Extract Surfaces" in a similar fashion.

There is also the question of how it will unfold if it was not made in Vectorworks. You will likely have to convert it to NURBS in Vectorworks and that could leave you with a lot of unfold polygons.

So, it appears that C4D R20 will not load on the new MacBook Pro.....drag. I will keep it on an older Mac for reference and talking purposes, but it appears my sojourn with C4D (22 years) is over. Perhaps it is time for me to start rendering/animating is Vectorworks again.