topic Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!] in Visualization

AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

__archiben — Thu, 11 May 2023 11:01:53 GMT

i have recently been modelling and rendering one of our latest projects for the client's marketing drive.

i had downloaded and was using the AV works 2 beta for 'snapshots' as i working to give it a test drive. i have now exported the finished model into art•lantis 4.5 and was quite disappointed to find that my textures no longer retained their set origins.

i haven't really done any presentation rendering since my college days: not that long ago, but long enough that a lot has changed! what, if anything, am i missing?!

the project is currently on site and so is developed enough that the complete masonry package is resolved down to full/half block modules and windows/doors course in accurately. i have created an image of a large area of the blockwork to ensure a convincing variance in the blocks when rendered. ensuring that the blocks in the texture map properly to the detailed block setting out in the model is a subtlety that i feel gives an extra depth to computer generated images, and at this stage of the job a worthwhile exercise.

whilst i was working and trying out AV works, i was able to set the texture origin in archiCAD and got some good results: however, the final rendered output is substantially better in art•lantis but i cannot for the life of me get the textures to consistently map as i'd like throughout the entire scene.

is there a way of doing this, or is it really the case that i just have to fiddle with the scale and origin until i find the optimum compromise?

sorry for the rambling explanation, but i thought that a bit of background may help understand what i'm trying to acheive. okay: that's the question part over . . . i've also got a few comments about the AV works/art•lantis/archiCAD trilogy that follows in post two . . .

~/archiben

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

__archiben — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 21:45:13 GMT

the archiCAD/AVworks/art•lantis managé-á-trois continues:

so, as i mentioned above, i've been trying out AVworks whilst working in archiCAD and am now using art•lantis for the final images.

aside from the above question, i'd appreciate anybody's comments, feedback or corrections(!) on the following:

AV works is a fantastic add-on to archiCAD that seems let down more by archiCAD's handling of light than by it's own rendering engine (is it really the same art•lantis rendering engine?). i know that a selection of actual lamps comes with AVworks, but i'm really after daylight images and have only used a couple of brighteners to boost the ambient light in a few places without washing out the whole image. the daylight images i'm getting with art•lantis are considerably better than with AV works.
in another post, alain picard writes that the AVworks interface isn't as easy as in art•lantis. i actually prefer the consistency over the control of the archiCAD materials, particularly with the effects available in the AVworks extra tab. quite frankly, i find controlling the art•lantis materials quirky at best: sure - it's easier to globally control the materials in the file.
even after quite a bit of tweaking in both applications, i am finding that AVworks handles refraction far better than art•lantis, but art•lantis handles reflection better. i am convinced that the former is due to the separate archiCAD-like, split control over reflection and refraction, and the latter again the fault of poor quality of light in archiCAD.
with AV works, i really appreciate the material definitions being kept within the project database - this is as it should be! i know that art•lantis' reference files help to maintain a consistency when future images are required, but the idea of a globally shared materials definition appeals to my purist ideals!

maybe i'm completely wrong in these assumptions and observatiosn, and am missing some vital training, or maybe there are some things here for wishlists that could benefit both graphisoft and abvent . . . but before i start writing anymore, i would appreciate your comments . . .

thanks for listening!
~/archiben

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Rob — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 05:18:31 GMT

AV works is a fantastic add-on to archiCAD that seems let down more by archiCAD's handling of light than by it's own rendering engine

Exactly as you say. I have been asking guys in Abvent to tweak the numbers of internal artlantis light variables to a sort of lumen-wattage definition to make it easier even with existing archicad lights by simply pasting 'tweaking' routine in master script... that would be so easy then for anybody to make an 'presentable' rendering without knowing all those micky-mouse variables...
As I know so far there are attempts to make AC lights more useful in ArchiLumos application (which unfortunately I haven't had opportunity to work with...) by adding 'tweaking' routine for the wattage-lumen definition as well as importing ies files (I suppose to the degree but that's ok...)

Talking about AV works material definition I have found a bit 'dodgy' definition of glass material and the rendered results of it (yes there is something strange about refraction/reflection ratio but I did not have time to test that up properly).

I do not know why but for some reason I hate to work with Artlantis - may be it is the file exporting stuff or the UI, however, the AV-works interface is an example of perfect and seamless implementation of an add-on into Archicad. The speed of it as well as the ability to use AC materials and settings are the (revolutionary, I believe) at the field of poorly maintained AC rendering capabilities. So after all I think AVworks has got fantastic opportunity to take over the existing and unbelievable obsolete AC rendering engine.

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

stefan — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 08:19:39 GMT

About the Art*lantis texture mapping:

I tested a lot of rendering software with ArchiCAD (and devoted a part of my website to it) but the lack of reading the correct mapping from ArchiCAD was a big disadvantage in Art*lantis. Surely, it can be "tweaked", but since all of them are allready in place in ArchiCAD, there is no reason to not import them correctly.

Apart from one or two other applications, all of them could import correctly mapped geometry.

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

__archiben — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 12:36:33 GMT

thanks guys.

i was actually hoping that you would tell me i'd overlooked something and that textures could be aligned accurately in art•lantis!!!

is there anybody from abvent reading this who would care to comment? it seems like a terrible oversight . . .

~/archiben

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 16:04:11 GMT

"I do not know why but for some reason I hate to work with Artlantis -
may be it is the file exporting stuff or the UI,"

Those French. They have a different interface for everything!

[with thanks to Steve Martin]

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Ignacio Azpiazu — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 04:54:29 GMT

Is there anything in Artlantis as a standalone program I will miss if I go the way of AV-Works?

[I have been working for about two years on Artlantis 4 and I am very happy with the interface and the speed and the shader/texture tweaking it allows. I am quite happy with my results themselves and the speed at which I can produce them. I may be needing something like C4D especially for interiors and will try a demo, but I feel I might end up missing the ease and flexibility of the shader/texture tools.]

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 06:58:42 GMT

AV Works, relative to Artlantis, lacks:

1: the absolute number of reflections and ray tracing

2: real-time material and lighting preview

3: finesse of shader adjustment

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 07:18:00 GMT

Reasons for moving to a full-featured application like C4D include:

1: Total sophistication in material creation and mapping
2: Model adjustment after import !!!!
3: Ease of animating model elements [door moves, for instance] instead of mere [and lame] "fly-through"
4: faster rendering and multiple processor capability
5: More capacity for subtlety - truly pro - Artlantis is only about 2/3 of the way there.
6: stability and predictability.
7: Higher polygon capability means real trees, etc - C4D has okay volumetric trees.....

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 07:21:58 GMT

Please post some results of your Artlantis work.

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Ignacio Azpiazu — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:18:31 GMT

Thank you very much Dwight for the AV-Works/Artlantis and C4D/Artlantis comments.

Samples follow. Only the last one is a typical interior with gypsum board walls etc.--I could never get beyond that level of cartoonishness in typical interiors (which is about OK for what I need, but perhaps with C4D and its radiosity module that type of things might look far better and require less effort). But then I am no illustrator and also C4D with radiosity is not cheap.

I am also needing some flooring shaders that will not show the pattern as brutally as in that last sample. Maybe the Artlantis Shaders CDs.

http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr150-0013fro.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr190-0013dec.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr160-0013bac.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr180-0013kit.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr280-0014ais.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr250-0014ga2.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr220-0014bal.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr050-0009wa2.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr080-0009sno.jpg
http://www.ar-in.com/samples/gr060-0009voi.jpg

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:03:06 GMT

These seem to have too much grey in the shadows - have you tried making sunlight softer and more yellow, and amibient light mauve or dark blue?

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Dwight — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:04:29 GMT

Stretching the troublesome floor texture to about five times its present length will hide the pulsing and make the floor finer.

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

__archiben — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:56:25 GMT

going back to the original texture issue for a second, (sorry chaps - and you were having so much fun! 😞

i have discovered that it is possible to change the texture origin in art•lantis by holding down the 'ctrl' button and click/dragging whilst you have the texture dialogue active from the 'edit shaders' window.

i feel slightly better, however setting the origin this way is purely by eye as there are obviously no snap points in art•lantis. i'm also assuming that the write-up in the manual on this feature was done by the same people who wrote the archiCAD manual.

i would still like to hear abvent's reasoning behind this whole texture issue . . . so if you're reading this guys? maybe this is fixed in the rumoured-to-be-released-soon next version of art•lantis?

keeping on art•lantis problems for a wee while longer, (back to those renderings in minute dwight!), i have one more question:

having just upgraded to art•lantis 4.5 from 3.5(?), and no-longer having OS9 installed on my machine, how do i get the 7 extra shader volumes we own installed into my shaders folder? simply copying doesn't seem to work, and rather disappointingly there is no 'import shaders' tool as you would expect from an application that relies on families of shaders to do its business. the 'install shaders' utility that comes on each disk volume is an OS9 only app. so how do i do it?

thanks all
~/archiben

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

stefan — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 07:29:21 GMT

I played with the last rendering and came up with this:

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

Djordje — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 09:26:29 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
having just upgraded to art•lantis 4.5 from 3.5(?), and no-longer having OS9 installed on my machine, how do i get the 7 extra shader volumes we own installed into my shaders folder? simply copying doesn't seem to work

Hm? It does for Windows - simply copy the folders across as they were, and reload the Shaders library. 4.5 in my case even did the automatic conversion of anything that needed converting. Be sure to update to 4.5.6, the updater is free from the Abvent site.

Re: AVworks/art•lantis -- align texture? [and more!]

__archiben — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 13:52:51 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Hm? It does for Windows - simply copy the folders across as they were, and reload the Shaders library. 4.5 in my case even did the automatic conversion of anything that needed converting. Be sure to update to 4.5.6, the updater is free from the Abvent site.

djordje

thanks. the trouble was that i was trying to copy the shaders straight from the disks. i'm guessing that the installer that comes with them activates them or something as it installs. we still have machines in the office with OS9, so we were able to install them with an OS9 machine and then copy the installed shaders across to my shaders folder.

all is fine with shaders now, but i'm still less than impressed with the texture alignment capabilities . . .

~/archiben