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graham75

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Everything posted by graham75

  1. Very cool... all of this sounds like I'll finally be upgrading from 12.5.
  2. I have to render plexiglass/acrylic/lucite all the time... I usually use the Glass Accurate setting in the Reflectivity menu when I create a new Texture. To make it more like acrylic, I will reduce the Refraction slightly, increase the Roughness slightly, but to reduce reflections I would take the Mirror all the way down to zero, and perhaps reduce the Specular highlights as well.
  3. Any improvements to Renderworks in this version?
  4. I'm on day two of using Snow Leopard with VW 12.5 and still no problems. If anything, I think the rendering time is slightly better.
  5. Please, please update Renderworks... I don't want to abandon it for Artlantis or Cinema 4D. Renderworks is good and it can be better... updates should include more video/animation options, better use of 64-bit systems (Snow Leopard), and better use of memory and multi-processors, etc, etc... I'm an armchair techie, but I'm quickly gleaning from these forums that Renderworks is drastically behind the aforementioned rendering applications. I just downloaded the demo for Artlantis and the speed at which in rendered blew me away. I'm not as impressed with its interface, but dang... it's fast. No reason why Renderworks can't be too. I'm in the process of downloading the Cinema 4D demo, but quite frankly, I'm getting too old for this. I've already switched gears with CAD/modeling software several times in the past, and I WANT to stick with Vectorworks. Call me old fashioned... but I'm a one-CAD man. I'm still on 12.5 and I'm dying to use the new Parasolid engine, but I've been waiting for a significant update to Renderworks before I upgrade... and I'm starting to feel like that may never happen. I'm not looking to create video games or render the next Pixar film... I just want to be able to use Full Radiosity without my computer crashing or taking 2 days to render. I'm tired of reading posts that suggest workarounds to using Renderworks like "use less lights" or "try not to extrude objects" ... I don't want to sacrifice details in my models for the sake of Renderworks... I simply want Renderworks to work for me, not against me. So, can someone from Nemetschek give me any indication that this will happen?
  6. So? Why don't you any more? Because I moved to another company that doesn't use it.
  7. I used to work with Form-Z, and this was a nice feature of that program. I believe VectorWorks is one of the few 3D modeling/rendering programs that doesn't allow this. Could make good use of some older computers sitting around doing nothing in my office.
  8. Also, there is a preference for this I think... check the VW Preferences / Display tab "Display Light Objects" select "Only In Wireframe" or "Never"
  9. Not sure what that wouldn't work, but either way, I'm pretty sure that it won't show up in the exported or printed image despite showing on screen.... pretty sure.
  10. Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. While watching my Activity Monitor I saw my System Memory usage approach 6GB, but that was while also running Photoshop, Illustrator, Keynote, Safari, etc, etc. On the other hand, the CPU was maxing out so I guess that is the cause of VW crashing on me while trying to rendering my glass bead curtain. But why would I get a "Operation could not continue due to lack of memory" dialog from VW?
  11. That's what happens when you lay off people with a skilled trade that goes unappreciated until after they're gone. ;-) Anyway, enter the grouping of the fluorescent tube... select the line light, and (I'm doing this from memory now) either uncheck "Render Geometry" from the Obj Info palette or just remove the Line Weight entirely from your Fill/Pen Tool palette. As for the hot spots and glare, you just need to play with it... if you are turning off the Layer Lighting, and depending on the correct light fixtures to light the room realistically, then you'll need to render in Full Radiosity. Otherwise, turn the Layer Lighting back one and dim your lighting fixtures... maybe even triangulate some Spot Lights in the room to artificially create a Full Radiosity look. You can also use an HDRI or spotlight dome background to artificially create the Full Radiosity look.
  12. How much RAM/memory is VW capable of using (12.5, 2008 or 2009)? I am still on VW 12.5 and have upgraded from 4GB RAM to 12GB RAM, but I don't see much of a difference in performance within VW. As a test, I recently modeled a large beaded glass curtain (with actual modeled beads, rather than a texture... excessive, I know. With only 4GB VW crashed during the Geometry phase of rendering... now with 12GB, it goes a little further into the Geometry, but then gives me a dialog box that said something like , "Operation could not continue due to lack of memory", and then it crashed, still never getting passed the Geometry phase of rendering. My specs are: Mac Pro 2x2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 12 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM 250 GB internal HD w/ 500 GB LaCie external HD
  13. I've been using VW12.5 for a few years now, and I think I'm finally ready to start playing with VectorScript... I'm familiar with hand-coding HTML, PHP, CSS, Javascript, and can learn my way around new code pretty well. Are there any tutorials out there for VectorScript? I also learn well by taking things apart, so are there any existing scripts that anyone would recommend for dissecting? For my immediate need... is there a way to hack the 'Create Seating Layout' script so that it works with NURBS surfaces rather than just polygons? Basically, I'm using it to populate areas of my model with repeating objects (not chairs), and it would be great if I could do this in 3D space also on a NURBS surface, rather than just in Top Plan view with Polygons. For example, let's say I wanted to create a "seating layout" on the surface of a sphere.
  14. Thank you, Dave! 1) You were right, turning off the "Receive" shadows gave me the result I wanted. (The "Cast" shadow turned off didn't keep the light inside my object) Also, it seems like the "stippled/grainy" shadow effect happens more when the light source is either very close to the object, or hitting the object at a severe angle... which is probably why I hadn't had this problem before. 2) Yes, whichever the last field I edit DOES remain selected when I try to click "OK". However, the actual numeric values don't seem to be the problem since I can still apply the same numeric values directly in the Obj Info/Render palette and get the desired result. This is only giving me problem from the Edit Mapping dialog. Another observation: this seems to be happening to Objects that were Extruded Polyine>NURBS>Solid Subtraction. In this specific case, a curving Polyline extruded to 15', then converted to NURBS, then another extruded object Subtracted from it.... then a texture applied.
  15. I'm on a Mac, Leopard 10.5.5, 4GB Ram, 2x2.66 Ghz Dual-Core, etc, etc... 2 issues have come up recently both related to texture mapping/rendering. 1) The Translucency setting has been giving me undesirable results. For back-lit surfaces with Translucency applied, I get a rendered stipple effect in the shading of the translucent object that looks really grainy in Final Quality Renderworks mode. This seems to go away when I switch to Custom Renderworks with the Shadow Mapping instead of Ray Traced Shadows, but I haven't had to do that before. 2) When editing a NURBS surface in the Mapping dialog box, the changes I make won't take effect and it actually won't let me close the Mapping dialog box when I click "OK". The workaround I've discovered is to edit the mapping within the Render section of the Obj Info palette, rather than clicking on "Mapping" and opening that dialog box. Strange, right?
  16. Is this something that the Extend NURBS tool helps? ---- Nope, that doesn't change anything in this case.
  17. Yes, it doesn't seem to help with the stretching effect.
  18. I'm trying to texture map a table linen on a Drape Surface. Only problem is that the texture map stretches along the fall off of the Drape Surface. I know that it is only following the NURBS surfaces, but is there a way to Modify the NURBS Drape Surface so that the shape itself is no longer stretched on the fall-off? Do I need to convert it to another kind of object first, and then texture map it?
  19. I just tried this on a NURBS surface... changing the weight doesn't work. However, when creating a NURBS curve, you can modify the vertex using the Change Vertex Mode option in the 3D Reshape Tool, so that it becomes a Corner Point rather than a Bezier Control Point. But that only helps you if you want that point to be a corner. Unfortunately, unless someone else has a solution, you would need to redraw this using multiple shapes and your Modify drafting tools.
  20. Would increasing the vertex weight to 100 (max) achieve this? Anyone else know?
  21. What is it good for? I've been texture mapping with the mapping options dialog box. Just curious if I've missed something special about this tool. Does it allow you to "decal" specific parts of the model?
  22. Thank you Dave! So I understand... If I set my main Edit Texture size to say 1' And I want to apply a 2" grid with 6"x6" openings, then I keep the scale at 1, width=0.5, height=0.5, and grid size= (approx) 0.2. And since I'm only applying a transparency, the Object Size in the main Edit Texture dialog box is irrelevant, right?
  23. What are the increments of the Grid Transparency width, height and grid size values... inches, percentages? I've looked in all the manuals and help sections and can't find anything about this.
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