site model/rendering modes

[ray isaacs]

i am having difficulty rendering with a site model. in the fast and final renderworks modes it works, but i prefer the outline/cartoon look of the final polygon mode. unfortunately, the site model renders as unfilled triangles in the polygon modes and as triangles with fill in artistic renderworks cartoon mode. (images attached)

is there a rendering mode that does not show the triangles, or can the site model settings be changed so that the triangles do not show? or is there another way to model the terrain? i'm open for suggestions.

thanks,

ray isaacs

[CipesDesign]

Unfortunately, that's what a Site Model is made of - it's a triangulated surface. The only reasonable way I have found to do this is to use multiple ("stacked") Viewports as follows: the underlying (lowest in stacking order) VP contains only the Site Model, and is rendered in Open GL (or any of the Render Modes that do not show the triangulated lines. You can still give it a color. The overlayed VP contains everything else and can be rendered in the Artistic Mode that you prefer.

In order to successfully pull this off you will need a separate Design Layer (or Class) for the Site Model so that its visibility can be controlled in each VP.

[Dave Donley]

Polygon mode might hide the edges if you set the Line style to None (through the site's class attributes). I don't think that technique will work for ArtRW mode though.

[ray isaacs]

peter, overlying viewports is an interesting idea for a lot of reasons. i've been doing it in photoshop, without realizing that it would be a lot easier in vw itself. the problem in this case is that many objects in my model that sit on the ground actually sit IN the ground. so there would be a problem with the hidden portions...unless you know of a solution for that.

dave, i experimented with turning off lines in the both the site model settings and the class attributes. doing it in the class attributes was more successful. however, with texture beds as roads, etc, the triangles are still a problem. strangely, in the polygon render mode, vw renders the edges and not the fill of the site triangles. so i either get a mess of triangles, or i get nothing.

hopefully, there is a solution somewhere, or--failing that--there will be one in the near future.

thanks for you input.

ray

[Dieter @ DWorks]

When using final polygon, just set the line smoothing to a higher value. This can be set in the hidden line rendering options.

[ray isaacs]

dworks,

thanks for pointing that out.

the smoothing angle in line render options seems to be set to 0. when i change it--to 1, 10 or 90 for example--my vw promptly crashes upon re-rendering. any thoughts?

ray