G_Hannigan

2010 does not support PowerPC machines. It's Intel only. Says he's running Snow Leopard - so it's an Intel.

If your current card is an AGP version, you cannot switch to a PCIe card - it will not fit into the connection. Apparently there were both versions of produced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geforce_6800 "Like all of Nvidia's GPUs up until 2004, initial 6800 members were designed for the AGP bus. Nvidia added support for the PCI Express (PCIe) bus in later GeForce 6 products, usually by use of an AGP-PCIe bridge chip." "The use of a bridge chip allowed Nvidia to release a full complement of PCIe graphics cards without having to redesign them for the PCIe interface. Later, when Nvidia's GPUs were designed to use PCIe natively, the bidirectional bridge chip allowed them to be used in AGP cards."

I just tried to import a file on my Mac that imported fine on Linux and it failed. Unfortunately, I have no explanation for the problem.

Michael, DXF will usually work. The drawbacks are that the import into blender can take some time (~1 min/MB) and VW symbols are exploded into a very long list of objects. gh

I'm using Blender on Linux, Mac & Win - runs great on all - amazing for a free product!

A copy of Blender? http://www.blender.org/ Blender has a Sculpt Mode: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Modelling/Meshes/Sculpting

Michael, Here's one: http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?autocom=downloads&showcat=1 5th one down in the list: Interface I think I have some more on a different machine. There are some free videos here after registering: http://www.cineversity.com/index.asp

Thom, Thanks for the link. gh

Regardless of the renderer, there is always a trade-off between speed and image quality. Renderworks is probably sufficient in most instance where photo-realism is not needed. I've always been bothered by the fact that RW doesn't work in the background, blocking access to VW until the render is done. The other problem are the limitations in mapping materials/textures to objects compared to other renderers (wood grain, eg). This was modeled in VW & C4D, rendered in C4D.

Here's a nice video tutorial:

bcd & Orlando I started to test Luxrender yesterday. As they mention on their site, rendering can take a long time (hours-days?). I wish the examples in the gallery had given render time. It runs as a stand alone and can be paused and resumed. Haven't figured out how to save as a separate file that can be run on a different computer yet. I was testing on Linux, will try Mac today.

I have only recently started to learn Blender. I've had mixed results with VW models exported to Blender via 3ds. I am still using VW 12.5 which does not export in obj format. I don't know if VW 2009 has this as an export option. To test it, I have been exporting to C4D using the Exchange Plug, then exporting from C4D in obj format. Blender seems to handle this format better. Obviously this requires the use of C4D to get from VW to Blender. The problem I had with 3ds export from VW may be due to the particular file. I have been able to import downloaded 3ds files into Blender. I was drawn to Blender more as a modeling,animating, rendering substitute for C4D, rather than as a renderer for VW. I am in a mixed Mac, Linux, Win XP environment and Blender works on all three. Blender can also link to what appears to be a Maxwell-like renderer called Luxrender, but I haven't gotten to that yet. http://www.luxrender.net/ As bcd mentioned above, for ease of use with VW, Renderworks would be preferable to Blender at this point. I will continue to experiment with VW to Blender.

I don't know that it is more difficult, but you must learn how the interface differs before you can test it. From the Blender Manual: "Because Blender makes such extensive use of both mouse and keyboard, a golden rule has evolved among Blender users: Keep one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard." I found it similar in difficulty to C4D after working through some tutorials.

Blender has more in common with C4D than with a stand alone renderer like Artlantis. There is no direct export/import similar to the C4D/Artlantis plugs. Blender also has a very different user interface from other 3D programs. One example is that objects are selected with the right mouse button rather than the left. There are a number of learning resources available. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual The section on rendering is here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual There are some excellent modeling tutorials at Robert Burke's website: http://rab3d.com/ Additional info and examples can be found here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/

Ion, Thanks, now I get it. Blender doesn't have preselect highlighting. In fact, Blender has a very unusual interface. C4D has had this for some time, using a selection mode (Loop Select,eg), the preselect is highlighted in all views as you move the cursor. I don't think this is beyond the capabilities of the software engineers, NNA just doesn't seem to be interested in multiple views. gh