topic Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition in Visualization

AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:51:01 GMT

Thanks Karl...Topic moved from AC+.

AC18 installed successfully! But I can't find 800 high-quality surfaces for SSA subscribers nor locate OGL surface Match Button with C4D!

Also what system are you using, or suggestion to organize surface and building material attributes (myself decided for Master Format Numbering System so that list with number prefix is organized in relevant groups regardless the name)

Thanks, Andy

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:48:16 GMT

Location is within the Materials palette. Though by some reason I am unauthorized.

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:49:34 GMT

and in the same place check…

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Jere — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 18:33:46 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
Location is within the Materials palette. Though by some reason I am unauthorized.

Same here and I'm using the email/sign-in that's registered with Graphisoft.

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 19:44:19 GMT

Thanks Eduardo, but...

- Matching is only between internal engine (I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT ENGINE IS KEPT FOR ) and C4D, not between OGL and C4D. The reason for me is to WYSIWYG when render what I was experiencing while designing in AC 3D window (driven by OGL), although it will be matching material image-texture only.

- and the same issue as for others, despite being subscriber (just renewed) I got NOT AUTHORIZED message.

Regards, Andy

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 19:52:16 GMT

Karl might be able to give you a better/specific answer but matching to Internal should update OGL since both have common settings.
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The other recommended setting is to use "Replaces Settings from Catalog" which should update both Internal and OpenGL.

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 20:05:45 GMT

Thanks Eduardo,

I'll try,
(sorry for double post ,I need new mouse)
Andy

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 20:20:34 GMT

Eduardo,

I did what suggested, and yes it affects OGL setting, but no texture only colour definition. There could be two reasons i don't have that extended 800 items library or more likely the texture (common brick surface) is procedural and not easy to translate to OGL; certainly did not work !?

Thanks anyway,
Andy

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:54:24 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
The other recommended setting is to use "Replaces Settings from Catalog" which should update both Internal and OpenGL.

Yes, this is the recommended method from the CineRender dev team especially for people updating existing templates. Let's say you have the 'old' Grass-Green in your project / template... and you want to see real 3D CineRender grass.

The workflow is weird, to say the least, to me... as you would be looking at your current Grass Surface Settings... and not see any button for 'replace'. Instead you click "New" (even though you are not creating a new attribute!) - and then select "Replace Settings from Catalog" as shown in the attached screenshot. This completely replaces the OGL/Internal/CR settings... all of them in one step.

(Alternatively, New from Catalog would create a new Surface regardless of what you're presently looking at.)

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 23:09:20 GMT

As for matching CineRender (CR) to OGL/Internal... most settings approximate their way through, but the texture image will only show up if the CR settings used a single, simple texture as the "Color". If not, any existing texture for an existing surface is erased. Personally, I'd prefer that the existing not be erased, but that's the official behavior according to the dev team.

See the attached screenshot for the Brick - Common Bond in the USA library and look at all of the stuff nested under "Color" on the left! All of these things are layered and individually adjustable to fine-tune the final appearance. There is no mechanism in 18 to "bake" them into a single new texture for OGL (sort of the equivalent of Photoshop flattening of layers into a single image).

It's unfortunate, but to match backwards from CR most often ends up being more work due to having to locate and scale an appropriate texture image as you've seen.

Again, if the included surfaces are good enough... loading/replacing from the library gives usable results for all views.

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 23:11:25 GMT

Finally, yes, the additional surfaces for Subscribers = ArchiPlus = SSA (whatever that stands for) are accessed via the pop-up that Eduardo showed... but the web response is still 'unauthorized'. Word was that this site was to be working at the end of last week, but I guess we'll have to wait to see what we get.

Ditto BIMComponents does not seem to have any surfaces on it yet.

AC 18's library includes a lot of surfaces that are not defined in the attributes... accessed as seen in my screenshot for replacing Grass. Worth browsing through them.

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 23:23:53 GMT

BTW, here is the "Bark" surface in the USA template... showing where a single texture is used as the "Color". In this case, clicking the match button will transfer the texture to the OGL/Internal settings.

(Unfortunately, the other settings do not transfer in a way to get a visible / usable result... Diffuse has to go up, and Shininess down in the Internal Engine for the result to be usable.)

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 04:14:11 GMT

Thanks Karl,

Your insight is great!

I guess, I will do these OGL surface definitions as before manually, the rendered surface by CR, that I like, will save as texture to be used in OGL setting.
For my design workflow having that level of interaction in OGL 3D window is important decision making clue, so not having simple automated way of defining material surface is a bit of disappointment.

Regards, Andy

P.S. When we will be able to download the additional CR surfaces "library"?

Re: AC18 OGL Surface Definition

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 18:06:03 GMT

You're welcome!

Andy wrote:
For my design workflow having that level of interaction in OGL 3D window is important decision making clue, so not having simple automated way of defining material surface is a bit of disappointment.

Again, the simple method is to load or replace from the library...which has coordinated representations for all engines.

If you are creating a new surface with your own texture... and render quality is important... then I'd recommend finding a library surface that is close to what you're doing and edit that rather than start from scratch. Making a CR surface from a simple Internal/OGL surface will match of course... but the resulting render won't necessarily be as interesting as if additional CR features used. Still, just the global illumination features/etc of CR will generate much better renders than we could produce with LW.