Wall suface patterns in hidden line mode, plus..

[Travis]

. . . have a sun class for each quarter

That's exactly what mar shrammeyer is referring to. Create a "sun" for each quadrant of the sky (I use NE, NW, SW, SE) and give each one it's own class. Paste them (one or all) onto each design layer from which you create elevation or isometric VPs. (I actually have them already in place on my templates) Then, from the VP, you can turn on/off the appropriate sun.

Good luck,

[JoeF]

The problem with painting on hatches (beside the obvious fact that it is time consuming) is that it does not account for objects that are not parallel to the view. Every plane of your roof looks the same. Siding on bay windows look wrong. Etc.

Does it actually work on building elevations? I can't seem to get any results with this technique at all. Must be missing a page in the manual.

[JoeF]

Okay, I got it to work, but only in a viewport. It is just another 2d solution. Doesn't really paint the wall.

[Jeffrey W Ouellette]

One of our legacy users (I mean "legacy" in the fondest of terms) showed me an interesting method of 3D hatching of surfaces, in design layers, for hidden line rendering. He actually created a set of 3D polylines on a plane parallel to the objects/walls he wished to "hatch", positioning the plane a fraction of an inch away from the surface of the object to be "hatched". The work is a bit intense, at first, but the results are pretty cool. The "hatching", in this case, brick coursing, was then properly displayed in either orthogonal or perspective views of a hidden line rendering of the model.

Worth a try?

[Fairfax]

Sorry, where exactly do I find "Roof Tiles?" In the resoruce browser under exterior finishes, I find many colors of roof tile, but not one that looks b&w.

Thanks,

Graham

[Dieter @ DWorks]

But it is not possible to add hatches to a 3D plane?

[Ray Libby]

The Roof Tiles Michael is referring to is a shader color in the edit texture dialog box. You would want to create a new RenderWorks texture, then use Roof Tiles under color. Do a search in the online help menu of "shader".

[Petri]

He actually created a set of 3D polylines on a plane parallel to the objects/walls he wished to "hatch", positioning the plane a fraction of an inch away from the surface of the object to be "hatched". The work is a bit intense, at first, but the results are pretty cool.

Another option is a variant of my "that can't be done" -ceiling grid method.

Create polygons for the walls, hatch them with the Hatch command ("bucket"), then extrude the resulting lines by a millimetre or two and move the extrusions to appropriate locations outside the walls.

Relatively painless.

[Fairfax]

Okay,

I made new textures for walls and roof using "Roof Tiles" (which had to be scaled up quite a bit) set both colors to white, and put a sun facing straight at each wall @ 0 degrees of elevation with brightness @ 100% and set ambient brightness on each layer concerned at 100%. I then used Artistic Renderworks Rendering on Cartoon setting (with another viewport set to Hidden Line Rendering pasted directly on top of it to fill in the lines omitted by Artistic Renderworks). Things look reasonably good, but the body of the elevations are still grey! What next?

I do appreciate all the help and input on this, but can VW add making this very common requirement EASIER to the wish list???!!!

Thanks,

Graham

[MKingsley]

Instead of Artistic Renderworks, try using one of the "regular" Renderworks options - Fast, Final, or Custom. And then add the HL on top.

[JoeF]

Just listening to how much work this is makes me tired. I wish our office could afford Revit because this is all done automatically in Revit.(I know this because I own(?) Revit).I don't look forward to trying to get a decent looking set of plans out the door with VW. It's almost a total waste of time working in 3d because everything has to be dumped to 2d. Sections, elevations, plans. All 2d. Where is the advantage of the 3d? Once you dump everything to 2d you are back to the old routine of changing things in plan, elevation and section, round and round.

[Petri]

An interesting point of view! Now, don't get me wrong, but...

Your frustration seems to focus on VW's inability to produce 2D drawings - blueprints, that is.

Obviously, the key shortcoming of VW (which you seem to consider a 2D-drafting program) is that it does not do 2D-drafting quite as well as Revit. Interesting...

The advantage of 3D is that you can actually see what your design is like. In addition, you have - in due course - a full product model. I don't know where you live, but in Europe, in a couple of years, no-one gives a large rodent's posterior about "hidden line renderings showing brickwork". What is needed is a digital model. Hopefully what we know as "texture" will be translated into IFC as an associated property of class Wall.

Meanwhile, I do share your frustration. My salvation is that I'm not in the business of preparing drawings.

[JoeF]

You misunderstand. When I use Revit I am able to produce a set of plans with very little 2d drafting. My elevations are a view of the 3d model. If I move a window I don't have to go around and change the elevation. If I have to lay 2d drafting lines on my elevations I can lock them to the 3d elements so if the 3d changes, so does the 2d. The difference with REvit is that I don't have to lay a hidden line view over a rendered view and set up four different lights on different classes in order to get patterns and shadows on my elevations. I don't have to update and wait, update and wait.

VW is an excellent 2d drafting program. It is a terrible 3d program. Just try and view your model. Layer linking, stack layers and model view. Why are there so many different and confusing ways to view what should be a simple exercise. Just show the model! View - Model.

Use the polygon paint bucket on an elevation then move a window in plan. It moves in elevation but the polygon didn't. Where is the advantage in that? You may as well be working in 2d.

Oh well, I gotta use it (VW) but I don't gotta like it.

[P Retondo]

Joe, VectorWorks (MiniCAD) was doing hybrid 2d/3d in plan view before there was a Revit. It's a shame that the program hasn't come along faster and made it possible to easily generate elevations and sections directly from the 3d model. But consider that if it were possible to sell the equivalent of Revit for VW $, we would surely have seen faster progress on these fronts.

Software engineering costs money. On the other hand, given that NNA was presumably given a financial shot in the arm a few years back when Nemetshek bought out Diehl Graphsoft, one has to wonder whether the recent acquisition of ArchiCAD doesn't convey a message of frustration from the corporate parent company that echoes your complaints. Our hope is that VW will continue to develop towards the capabilities you would like to see, and that they will catch up in some areas where they are not the current leader.

I'd be curious to know what, on the flip side, you consider better about VW when compared to Revit. For example, does Revit support NURBS objects?

[CipesDesign]

Joe, It is actually totally possible to do as long as you're willing to model everything from the outset. Here's an example of elevations produced from directly from a model using VW's and RW's. The only thing that's added is the hard edge around the outside perimeter. Hope that will cheer you up a bit. EXAMPLE

Edited March 25, 2007 by CipesDesign

[JoeF]

There are a lot of things I like about VW. The modeling tools are superior, and the site tools are great (I think) :-). You are correct, Revit don't NURB. I like the flow of polygons to rooms to walls and the ability to import PDF files. The ability to do a sketchy view is good too. It is a fairly long list really. VW could be a really killer application if it could work efficiently in 3d. I understand it is an inexpensive program (that is why I am using it) and is actually good value for the money. But... VW gives me all these 3d tools that are frustrating because they only get me part way to my goal. Right near the end I have to hop off the train and start walking.

By contrast working with Revit is a dream. Truly parametric. If you want to move something just click on the dimension and change it. If something moves so does the dimension. Back and forth to 3d with no waiting. No wondering where the hell the roof went.

Personally, I think VW is near a dead end. I suspect the underpinnings of the program will never lend it to becoming a true 3d architectural program. If it were possible for VW to produce a hidden line view at the same speed as Sketchup (for instance), it would have happened by now. I hope I am wrong, but it is 2007 and VW in 3d should be up to speed by now. I think ArchiCAD might be some insurance for the future when it becomes apparent that VW won't really do BIM.

This forum is a good part of VW, but the hoops you have to jump through to post an image leaves it at the lame end of the spectrum. I'll try and keep a positive attitude about VW but please forgive me when my frustration surfaces.

[Biplab]

"I am using VW 11.5, so I guess I have to suffer for the time being. Increasing my suffering is the fact that selecting "Save Viewport Cache" in "Document Preferences" does not seem to stop the viewport from reverting to wireframe when I edit the annotations - any advice? "

Answer:

You can keep the rendered look in the edit modes if you check the "Display Viewport Cache" check box in the Edit Viewport dialog.

[Petri]

It just occurred to me (in fact, I remembered something I have in my tool kit!):

Textures don't need to be those immensely ugly ones that come with VW. I have used simple lines for things like siding and paneling. No need for "hidden line": just use Renderworks.

I'm pretty sure someone cleverer than myself could come up with a similar brickwork texture. No tacky colours, no dreadful "linework" - just the geometry in black & white.

[P Retondo]

Petri, great idea. Joe, this will solve the problem you initially complained about. What Petri is saying is to just make a tile-able image of lines in the pattern you want, then apply it as a texture to walls. You could even superimpose that over any of the standard images or textures using Photoshop, or some other graphics program capable of creating an image file.

Joe, your view on the current limitations of VW is well-stated. I have hope, based on following their progress since version 4.0, that there will be constant improvement and that NNA will take heed regarding perceived shortcomings.

I don't think there is a core problem with the 2d / 3d aspects of the program. I'll bet they haven't touched the hidden line view algorithm for years, and, BTW, hardware progress has taken a big chunk out of the time to generate that rarely-used view mode. But with respect to catching up on a database structure and teamwork, that might be a different story.

[Fairfax]

Peter,

That's a beautiful drawing! Care to outline your techniques for posterity?

Thanks,

Graham

[JoeF]

Thank you Peter for posting your work. It looks great! It does give me hope!! I'm pretty sure I know how you created it. I'll post one of my own as soon as I get one worth sharing.

[CipesDesign]

Hi Joe & Graham, I am on the road, but will try to write up a brief how-to as time permits. Thanks for the compliments ;-) Stay tuned...

[Guest]

One of the tricks to getting a hard edge around parts of a model is using the handy dandy polygon fill mode of the Polygon tool.

Simply "fill" the area with a polygon, set the fill to none, then crank up the pen weight. If you want to hatch inside the fill, create a second polygon with a less prominent pen weight, then hatch that polygon.

As Petri suggests, you can use line work as a texture in some more simple, yet impressive, models.

One trick to this is to create a square (the size of the repeat) and then hatch the square. Use Export Image to save an image of the hatched square, making sure to use the Marquee selection mode and highlight just the perimeter of the square. Once the image is saved, use this image to create a texture. Apply the texture to the surface of any 3D object, just as you would any other texture.

This allows you to use a line-based hatch in conjunction with shaders and colors to achieve the right mix of material finish and line textures.

From there, you can still accentuate parts of a model with the heavy lines by using the polygon fill mode in the annotations part of the model, as described above. (Simply leave out the second step of duplicating the polygon and hatching the dupe)

I recently worked on an elevation model where I gave the entire outside of the house a very heavy pen weight, the lines making up each components, wall faces, roof faces, outside line of windows/doors, etc. with a less heavy pen weight, then details such as mullions/muntins, were left with their respective pen weights.

I'll see if I can get a post of that image up here sometime tonight.

Click to see image -- Once loaded, click on image to see it full size (it's reduced for web usage)

(This is quite simple, maybe a little "hokey" for some people...I apologize in advance - it's the best I have right now)

Edited March 27, 2007 by Katie

[Fairfax]

Okay,

I tried using other options in Renderworks besides "Artistic" (which gave me a grey background) and in all other modes, the rendering is just a few lines, you basically see nothing. Here is my "best" ouput so far, with two viewports layered, "Hidden Line" above "Artistic Renderworks": http://www.remodelguidance.com/clients/111calumet/testrendering.JPG

Why is this so elusive and difficult to achieve? Thanks, though, for all your generous assistance.

Graham

[P Retondo]

Graham, looks like you lack a "sun" (a directional light that casts shadows) - or else you are looking at the shadow side of the building. Use "Final Renderworks" rendering, be sure you have you layer general lighting turned on (View->Lighting->Set Layer Lighting), and that you have created a sun which is properly positioned and can cast shadows. I often set other non-shadowing lights to give subtle lighting effects.

The reason I advise using "Final Renderworks" is that it often gives the best effect for the least effort. Also, it will use the greatest % of processor power if you have multiple processors and hyperthreading.