Need serious help with renderings please!

[BigDan]

Hi All,

First off I really appreciate this community. Very helpful, and has been a key component for me as I stumble through this program! Vw2010 spotlight is the first CAD I?ve ever worked with, and you guys have really helped me come a long way!

On to the problem I?m having right now. I?m trying to render something I consider an extremely simple room. I have two screens some drape a stage and a bunch of tables/chairs along with some truss and lighting.

The problem I?m having is I?m completely unable to render my shots with the tables and chairs visible. To get the seating I needed I used the table layout with 72? rounds. I then added 1 chair and made a crescent ? round with 8 chairs. I converted those 8 chairs into a symbol and I reapplied that symbol to all of the rounds.

Now I know I?m dealing with a lot of surfaces and things like that, but I?m just not understanding why this isn?t working! At first I thought maybe my computer I?m on now (win xp, Intel core duo 2.5ghz, 4 gig ram, ati HD 2400xt) was the problem, so I took it home and tried it there on my bigger beast (win 7 64bit, I5 960 OC?d to 4.1 ghz quad core, 12 gig ram, nvidia 480X2 SLI) and was having the same problem.

So what the HECK is going on? Why??? Is the software really not able to handle such a simple drawing?

I couldn?t even get it to do fast renderworks on my work comp, and at home I got it to do the fast one once then I tried final and it just died.

I need massive help/advice on this. I look through the gallery and I see AMAZING beautiful pictures of renderings done by vectorworks and I cant even get my simple drawing to render?? By the way I had NO lighting effects in the render.. no lights were turned on. The only thing I had was I set the background to one of the HDMI pictures.

Here?s a breakdown of files:

Chairs.jpg ? example of the symbol I made

topdownChboards.jpg ? this is the top down view with the chairs

wireframeboards.jpb ? this is the wireframe of the chairs and everything from the rear

Rear Render Boards.jpg ? this is the render from the rear w/out the chairs

TopSideRenderBoards.jpg ? this is a render from up high off to the side without the chairs

Thanks guys, I really need to figure this out.. Tricks? TipS? How are people rendering out these AMAZING renders with all this detail? I mean the computer I took it to.. it doesn?t get much better or faster than that and it wouldn?t even do this? I know there?s render farms, but is that what people usually do now? Send files out to render farms?

[michaelk]

Dan

Is the problem that when you render the tables are not in the rendering? But they are there in wireframe?

Are you rendering in a sheet layer viewport or in the design layer?

Are all the classes visible?

Do you have the latest 2010 SP?

Your machine(s) should be up it.

There may be some tips/tricks that can speed up the rendering of the tables and chairs. But the non appearance of the symbols in the rendering is probably something else..

mk

[BigDan]

No, The problem is when I make the class visible that has the tables and chairs and try to render it simply doesnt render .. it freezes after a while and shows as "not working" and I have to kill the program. A couple of times it simply renders out white.. no picture at all... if I remove the class that has it it renders fine.

I've tried doing a render from both the design layer and a viewpoint.. neither worked.

I do have the latest 2010 SP

[klinzey]

Odds are that there is some problem with the geometry in the chair.

First try placing the table and chairs in a new drawing and seeing how long it takes to render one. (or 10)

In general you want to eliminate unnecessary curves. Try using a different chair.

Also just to make sure your symbol of the 8 chairs should contain 8 single chair symbols.

I did 3100 chairs and 310 tables with textures in 2011 in about 4 seconds in OpenGL and about 30 seconds in Final Renderworks.

[BigDan]

Odds are that there is some problem with the geometry in the chair.

First try placing the table and chairs in a new drawing and seeing how long it takes to render one. (or 10)

In general you want to eliminate unnecessary curves. Try using a different chair.

Also just to make sure your symbol of the 8 chairs should contain 8 single chair symbols.

I did 3100 chairs and 310 tables with textures in 2011 in about 4 seconds in OpenGL and about 30 seconds in Final Renderworks.

Klinzey,

Could you explain a bit more? what I did was I took one of the chair symbols, and laid out 8 of them in the fasion I wanted them. I then highlighted them all and did a convert to symbol. Was this not the right way to do it?

Then I just used the symbol and placed it in front of each chair.

Thanks!

[klinzey]

That's the correct way to make the symbol.

Look at the original chair symbol geometry. It looks as if the top of the chair has a curve to it that may be taking some time to render.

I know we fixed some chair symbols for 2011 that were taking a long time to render. If you are using one of our stock chair symbol let me know which one and from which library and I'll take a look at it.

[BigDan]

That's the correct way to make the symbol.

Look at the original chair symbol geometry. It looks as if the top of the chair has a curve to it that may be taking some time to render.

I know we fixed some chair symbols for 2011 that were taking a long time to render. If you are using one of our stock chair symbol let me know which one and from which library and I'll take a look at it.

It is from the stock, but i'm on VW 2010 not 11 yet (working with company to try and upgrade soon!)

I used Chair 3 from the resource. is that enough information? or do you need more?

I could include my VW file as well if you'd like just let me know!

[klinzey]

Try using this symbol to replace the chair symbol and see if it speeds up the rendering.

[michaelk]

Dan

I think Kevin is right. There was an issue with the stacking chair in 2010 and 2011. If you replace the EAP that makes up the legs with an extrude, life gets good in a hurry.

mk

[BigDan]

Try using this symbol to replace the chair symbol and see if it speeds up the rendering.

Sorry Klinzey, but I see nothing in this file.. is it one of the default chairs? if so is there an easy way to replace all the chairs I did?

[BigDan]

actually I see the chair in the resource.. sorry..

is there a simple way to replace everything? or do I need to do it manually like I built it originally?

Thanks for the help i'll do it manually for now and let you know!

[klinzey]

You should just be able to replace your chair 3 with this chair 3 and regenerate the seating layout. (Just change a value then change it back.) Because the symbols are nested everything should update.

If that does not fix the problem you may need to edit your other symbols to get them to update. Just edit the symbol and exit then regenerate the seating layout.

[BigDan]

I am trying to render now, but reading your statement again i'm realising I didn't do this right.

From your statement of "regenerate seating layout" I wanted to say something here. I didn't do this via the automated one because there's no option to do this with my seating layout.

would be better option be for me to take one of the 72" rounds and take 8 of your chairs you sent me, and make that one big symbol, then use the automated feature to place in that symbol?

Would that help with the overall rendering? I'd imagine not, just help with keeping my sanity of laying out each one

I'll try to rebuild if this render doesnt work.. as of now it looks like its frozen, but i'm not convinced that it replaced the chairs just by me replacing your chair with the chair I used.

[BigDan]

Just FYI,

I redid the diagram using the chair you provided and it made ALL the difference in the WORLD!

You guys rock as always!

I've included a picture (just a screen shot of it) with some random logo's and pictures.. looking to do 2 17.5X40' screens with 2 pip's inside it.. do you have suggestions to my drawing?

I feel like i'm to the point now here I can do most of the fundamental things, but the artistic portion is still lacking. What is that "next step" to really take my drawings from an average quick sketch up to something that will really set it apart?

I know one comment a while back to really get nice looks is using "lit fog" but I havent played with it much.

Thanks again for the help and the new chair!

Edited March 2, 2011 by BigDan

[grant_PD]

You could take it all to the next step with lighting, people, dressing, etc. From the point of view of the rendering, you're trying to sell the excitement of your event with a single snapshot. The more alive it looks, the more people respond to it.