ajs

I've been away for a bit, and just now found out about this 3D Power Pack dingus. Can we finally talk to C4D from VW with this?Interesting stuff. regards.

A fairly easy way to do this is the RW Render Preview tool. Set it to whatever resolution you like, drag over the area you want rendered, (come back in a few days @ 400dpi...) and paste the result into Photoshop.Save the Photoshop file, and Bob's your uncle. Watch your memory allocation with this-it is easy to swamp the program with high rez on large models-you can always do it in pieces, and composite in Photoshop. hth

hm, this again.y'know, I was talking to the VW rep at MacWorld NY this past summer, and he alluded to a project called, I think, Turntable, that would allow improved (read:seamless) translation between these 2 programs.Which seems like a good idea, considering that yes, they are owned by the same company...It was allegedly targeted for this fall.Was he just funning with me? 7parella, if you search this forum for Cinema 4D, you'll find that this is a commoner issue than you might think. My experience has been spotty at best, and I think that you might have the best luck with dxf. Don't waste your time texturing your VW model, either-do all texturing and lighting in C4D.FWIW, I have had much more success moving formZ models to C4D via .obj., but even that is a bit wonky. My experiences are with VW9/C4DXL 6.3-YMMV. Yo, Nemetschek-more than a couple VW users seem to be wanting to do this, and the demand doesn't seem to be diminishing-how's about getting this to happen before I finish my transition to formZ? Especially in light of all these fine localized EuroVersions of VW. C4D is a bit bigger in Europe than in the States, I believe-wouldn't it be a Good Thing to be able to export directly to it?

turbosquid has a couple in dxf format. haven't tried them personally.go to Turbo Squid home pageand search for 'piano' hth

Yeah, what's that 'can't read V8' files foolishness about? Since 9 can read 8, and the (very large) viewer seems based on 9, and a whole lot of people are still using 8 or have files to move in that format, why can't the viewer be persuaded to read 8?

Mr. Quinsey- You might try nosing around the news and forums at www.xlr8yourmac.com where there are lots of technically saavy types who love questions like this. I do know that the nVidia cards have been well received. Were the issues with them found in the famous Video Card Woes thread on this site resolved? There's a guy named Archken that posts to the Rendering forum here-he seems to know something about Artlantis

Mr. Samsa- No real reason not to buy a new box direct from the mothership. However, many of the usual 3rd party retailers will offer similar pricing, and often throw in some bundled goodies, maybe free shipping, (also currently offered by Apple) etc. Useful if you need them. If I were buying a new box from Apple, I'd get the RAM minimum, and probably the smallest HD I could, and then load up on those from outside sources. Apple right now is charging up to TEN times the going rate for a gig of RAM, for instance. Also, if you don't need the SuperDrive, you can bump an 867 to dual 800s for $600, and so on. Just shop carefully. I don't think you get any secret support line or extra warranty perks by buying from Apple, so I'd look for the best price on what I want (as opposed to a stock unit, unless that's what I want) from any reputable dealer, including the mothership. And don't forget that refurbs now have the same warranty as new. HTH

You'll need RenderWorks to do that. Plain Vanilla VectorWorks won't, if I remember. If you have it, then I do believe it is in the manual. HTH

I have to second most of what Mr. Wardlaw says. I use VW/RW 9, Photoshop 6, and Cinema 4D 6.3 quite a bit on my dual 450. For PSD and C4D, that extra processor is a big old help. You can literally see the second processor when rendering in C4D, (and you can put it in the background and keep working) and I am all over my boss' 733 single when it comes to PSD, much of the time. My VW/RW performance is satisfactory, speedwise, but the program has no idea the 2nd chip is there. Also, unlike many folks on this board, my stuff tends to be less involved/demanding, because I am a scenic designer, and my models are probably much more modest. your mileage may vary. I dunno if the coming Carbonized VW/RW will permit background rendering, and I dunno a thing about Artlantis and its relationship with multiprocessing. Right now, though, the only dual being sold is the dual 800, and it is tres spendy. Though you can order slower models from the Apple Store, and customize the order for a dual 800, for several hundred less than the straight cost of the dual, I've heard. And as always RAM, RAM, RAM, and do not buy it from Apple. : ) HTH

I bought SL 8.5 RW 9, with the understanding that I'd receive the free upgrade to 9/9.0.1 Including real manuals, whoo-hoo) when they shipped. I did not purchase this direct from NNA. Since SL 9.0.1 is now shipping, when should I expect to see this, and is there anything that I should be doing to assure that this is happening?

For some reason, my VW 9 and 9.0.1 'Set 3D View' command seems to do nothing. It acts as though it will do something, i.e., you draw the viewing line, and enter 'viewer height' and 'look towards' height. But then, I am right back where I started, view unchanged. Seems to work in SL 8.5.2, though. I haven't used this command in quite a while, so I hadn't noticed this little treat. Any thoughts? -ajs Mac G4/450 dual, 9.1, 1GB RAM, 344MB for VW

A while back, I subscribed to the Theatre/Spotlight mailing list, by following the instructions on NNA's site. Any attempt that I have made to post to this list has been met with a reply of 'you are not on the list at this time', or some such. Any attempt that I have made to unsubscribe to this list (no instructions; I have tried subject lines with 'unsubscribe', message bodies with 'unsubscribe' and both subject and body) has generated the same response. In any case, mail continues to show up from this list. How do I make it stop??? Mac G4/450 dual, 9.1, Netscape Communicator 4.73 [This message has been edited by ajs (edited 07-09-2001).]

I just tried exporting a simple 3D scene from Spotlight 8.5.2 as a QD3D pict, and it worked just fine. Is it possible that you are opening the pict file in a small window, and not seeing the rest of it?-I only ask this because I have done that very thing, more than once. If you have RenderWorks installed, you can use the Render Preview tool to render an area of your model. The resulting bitmap (at whatever resolution you tell the tool to use-default is 72dpi) can be copied and pasted into Photoshop. Large images (or high resolution ones) can be fairly easily composited. If you don't have RW, then ignore this trick completely. You should also be able to hide the lights in a QuickDraw render by adjusting your preferences to show light objects Only In Wireframe, if that helps your screen capture trick to work better. Also-you got plenty-o-RAM in your box? HTH G4/400/1.12G/9.0.4/Spotlight 8.5.2

So, then Mr. Wardlaw- Does this mean that you export VW to formZ? If so, may I ask what you like about that approach, and how you do it? -ajs

So, MikeB, does the fabled printed manual include samples of all the new, built in textures, or is it just a hard copy of the pdf, and we have to get our samples the hard way?

For whatever its worth, I don't have the Metafile option in my Export menu, either. Is it a custom install option, or Windows only, or is it Mr. Bug? Mac OS 9.0.4, G4/450 DP 1GB, VW/RW 9 -ajs

see also www.imagecels.com (Thank you, GBlyth!) [This message has been edited by ajs (edited 06-20-2001).]

just for fun, I just tried exporting dxf from Poser 3 into VW9. It worked well enough, but the resulting figure is heavily triangulated, and not really usable, as colors also get Very Wierd. I have to go with MikeB, here. Look at GBlyth's entry near the bottom of 'Post Your RW 9 Renderings!' for some good advice on the topic, as well as a good source for 2D people.

I have just attempted this. I get an 'invalid serial number' error. My package arrived with only one serial number, specifically for Spotlight. Do I need a Spotlight number and a VectorWorks number (the way there is a separate RenderWorks serial number)? If so, how do I go about getting an academic VectorWorks serial number? [This message has been edited by ajs (edited 06-13-2001).]

GBlyth, thanks for the pointer to imagecels. They got some Nice Stuff. In both VW 8 and 9, when you select the Render Preview tool (the one button palette), a button appears up in the main toolbar. It has the same icon as the one on the palette. Just click on it, and up pops a preference dialog, giving you resolution and depth controls. Re: RW9 On my Mac dual 450, 9.0.4 it seems to have many improvements. One big caveat is that if you open an RW8 file in RW9, be prepared for Much Misery, as the RW8 textures play hell with RW9. Count on creating all new textures. I have not used 9 as much as 8, yet, but many things do seem to be better. -edited for typos [This message has been edited by ajs (edited 06-11-2001).]

I have about had it with this path extrude command, which doesn't work except for when it does, and gives me some nonsense error message about 'failure due to invalid profile or path objects'. An octagonal path and a rectangle object are invalid?? Two rectangles are invalid?? Two rectangles converted to NURBS are invalid? Is there somewhere I can submit a file to for someone to be able to explain this to dumb old me? VW/RW9, G4/450 dual, 300Mb of 1G assigned to VW, OS 9.0.4

If I draw an arc through 3 points, I get arc and chord lengths in my info palette. If I draw a curved wall through 3 points, I don't get that info. The machine has to know that info, since it is part of the arc. Apart from hand drawing a matching arc, and checking that, how do I get that info? -ajs

I just tried pismox's trick and it works just fine from AI8 to VW8.5.2, though you paste a bitmap. If I do the same thing on my AI9.0.2/VW9 machine, the paste results in polygons and bitmaps. For example, a filled path in AI pastes a vector path for the path, and a bitmap for the fill in VW, stacked on top of each other. The polygon can be reshaped in VW.

I am trying to extrude a stairstep shape along an octagonal path to create arena seating levels. I have not found a reliable way to predict which part of the profile object will be 'up' in the finished extrude, and they are time consuming to do, which makes trial and error a pain. Also, when doing this operation, sometimes the extrude happens, and sometimes it aborts, even using identical objects. This last makes no sense at all, and usually happens when I think I've finally got the profile facing the right way. Manual says very little beyond 'extrudes objects along a path'. Well, yes... Anyone have tips how to make this work better/more predictably? The whole thing feels a little like a chimp with a revolver right now. VW9.0, RW9.0, G4/450 dual, OS 9.0.4, 1GB RAM, 300MB physical RAM allocated to VW.

Running RW9 under VW8x? It seems like an Inherently Bad Idea, but has anyone tried it, yet? If so, what happened? (You'll notice I'm not volunteering, here )