Kaare Baekgaard

Hmm. Even a white surface is pitch-black if there is no light present. So perhaps the problem is inherent to the laws of physic, that Renderworks mimicks. In my old Studiopro, however, there was a neat solution to this, that should be very easy to include into RW: Glow. Any texture in Studiopro can be set to glow a certain percentage, which means, that it renders lighter than what the lighting of the scene dictates. It is like Renderworks 'Constant' reflectivity, but it is incremental. That said, there are tricks to get around the problem in RW today.

Also use 'Decompose' instead 'Convert to Lines', when you need to fix a composed object. If you convert to lines, all arcs and bezier objects will be faceted. Decompose keeps the curves.

I think I understand now! Directional lights are NOT for indoor scenes! Rob - you can do this for indoor scenes - at least on one story buildings. You need to make special textures for all building elements, that cast no shadows. For complex scenes this is indeed a good idea, as it greatly reduces rendering times.

Any suggestions for ways to achieve the effect of small, focused beams of light? Or suggestions on uplighting? Well yes... You should consider cheating, it is fast and reliable. What you do is create a texture in the shape of the spot of light on the ceiling. Use Photoshop to make a gradient. Use the gradient as an image transparency map. Use an all white image of similar proportion as image colour if the transparency map is not square. See example here: http://homepage.mac.com/kaarebaekgaard/.Pictures/Ekspedition.jpg

oscarr Are we talking about a specific file here - or a general observation? I just had the same problem with a specific file. I had to inspect my objects by test rendering groups of objects until I found the group, that caused the problem - then object by object within that group. The culprit turned out to be 5 'invisible' objects. I have no idea how they became a part of my file. After I deleted them, the file rendered normal again. Also I have found that extremely large objects that go all the way around and behind the camera/view will slow renderings exceedingly.

'vary the path expansion height' To my knowledge, you cannot vary the height without varying the width. I would make a simplified cross section where the top, side edges are sharp. Close the extrude along path with a revolve with rail - or a sweep - using 1/2 of the same section. Add the two shapes. This will enable you to make a solid opperation where you cut away the sides to make them taper. Round the longtitutional edges first and the side edges second.

They are curves allright. The representation in wireframe or hidden line is not, however. The resolution is affected by the 3D conversion resolution setting in the Vectorworks Preferences menu item. In Final Quality Renderworks, they will render as curves - (with the exception of Multible Extrudes)

Nope. Only the export image file settings matter.

Try disabling associative dimensions in the document prefs

'Send me your file and I'll play with it.' Katie - thats so hot :-)

By drawing a rectangle or other 2D shape in the crop view (double click and select ) - set it to no fill and no line.

When extruding along path - or lofting with rail - the profile automatically rotates, so it is oriented perpendicular to the path. For most purposes this is good. Sometimes, however, I want the profiles orientation to remain the way I place it prior to exterusion (or lofting) - all through the final extruded shape. I want this, because it is the ONLY way, I can generate certain shapes. So I wish, there was an option within the extrude along path dialogue, where I can disable the automatic re-orientation of the profile shape - if the profile shape is indeed a 3D nurbs curve. This is hard to explain in a way, that evokes exitement. But it is actually really, really important, so I hope you pay attention at NNA :-)

An image prop is basically an image imported into the workspace as a 3D object. I believe you will find it in the model menu. (Create image prop).

1. Select show texture axes when mapping in other than perimeter mode. This will give you the outline of the texture. 2. Use the attribute mapping tool when mapping onto 3D polygons 3. Don't map rectangular or square 3D polygons. Create an image prop of the texture, disable crossed planes, constant reflectivity and auto rotate to viewer, but be sure to tick Create plug-in object. This saves a truckload of time and it allows you to stretch the texture, if you disable 'lock apect ratio'. When the image prop has been created, you can rotate- and place it slightly above the surface, that you want to texture. Besides that I agree that the mapping function is HOPELESS. I wish someone would kick the man in charge of that particular piece of an otherwise great software package.

Also important: Place your desk, so it faces outwards towards the room, you are sitting in - not into a blank wall. This will give your eyes a natural variation in focus distance. If a blank wall is all you've got: Buy a very large mirror and place it on the wall behind your monitor - it works the same way.

http://www.fredericia.com - nice scandinavian design furniture downloadable in dxf.

Nuf? On the subject also - the ability to select and move multible points on a nurbs curve.

I suupose, you've changed the height setting from 0 to something else? (the very first numerical input in the object info palette)

Apart from the obvious - that there is some large shape blocking the view (I once did this with an interior, where I had accidentally reversed the Z- and Delta Z values of a floor, so it filled up the entire interior) - try copy/paste-in-place different elements into a blank document and render them for testing. I once had an experience similar to yours in an earlier version of VW. The culprit turned out to be a solid object, that for some reason spoiled the applications ability to render the scene.

I agree

I use 4 lights with the following characteristics: Main light 1: Intenity 60, Azimut -30, elevatiion 45, no shadows, no colour Main light 2: Intenity 15, Azimut -30, elevatiion 45, cast shadows, no colour Back light: Intensity 50, Azimut -170, elevation 10, no shadows, Colour cyan: 8 (cmyk) Side light: Intensity 50, Azimut 85, elevation -40 no shadows, colour Magenta 5, Yellow 5 (cmyk) Layer ambience set to 25 This lighting is fairly conservative, perhaps a bit boring, but it works everytime.

George, that is a nice rendering. For everyday jobs, however, Renderworks can do pretty good and - if you have a large quantity of custom textures - it can do it a lot faster. Here is an example of an interior with footprint shadows. Its not exactly breathtaking, but I rendered a 60 second animation walkaround of the interior in 800x600 with shadows, imageprops and all in 2 1/2 days on my home 1Ghz Imac. I couldn't have done that with area lights and raytracing.

Hi Mat. We seem to be in similar areas of business. I have two ways of dealing with hard shadows: The first is to have duplicate main lightsources. One is set to 50 intensity with no shadow - the other to 15 intensity and shadowcasting. This makes the shadow less intense and the sharpness of the edges will seem less conspicuous. The second method is similar to the first, except I have 3 main shadowcasting lightsources rotated some degrees in relation to each other and set close to vertical. The intensity of these are no more than 5-10 - and they are supplemented with a classic setup of 3 non-shadowcasting lightsources. The deal is to set the walls and ceilings to not cast shadows (from within the texture dialogues.) This way you get a multible shadow footprint of all objects in the interior - very similar to that of a typical shop.

I do most of my dimensioning within viewports nowadays. How about making a basic associative dimensioning work in this context?

Solidworks is truely impressive, but since tradeshow exhibitions is pretty straight forward modeling, I wonder why you would really need that extra muscle? Also I wonder, why you dont render your presentations in VW? I know its less sofisticated, but I saved gazillions of hours when I went from Studiopro to Renderworks as my rendering platform - hours that now goes into creating tons of textures and image props to make the presentations more appealing and lifelike.