topic Re: Problems with Piranesi plugin in Archicad 12 in Collaboration with other software

shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:30:02 GMT

I cannot get shadows to cast properly when doing a Save As .epx (Piranesi) option from the 3d window, in AC12. Rather than slanted shadows coming from the sun location, shadows are cast more or less straight down, as though the sun were directly overhead.

I went back and tried it in AC11, which had no trouble producing .epx files with slanted shadows.

I've tried experimenting with the different AC rendering engines (which are selected first before saving as the epix format), and they all produce the same weird shadow casting when saving as an .epx Piranesi file.

(However, all the engines create normal, slanted shadows when just producing a photo render of the model.)

It took me two hours just to isolate this problem to perhaps being an AC12 bug(!?). Any help out there please?
I need to punch out a Piranesi render pretty dern quick.

Re: shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Thomas Holm — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:57:24 GMT

Report the bug through your reseller.

Re: shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:49:10 GMT

I'll do that pronto.

Encountering a new bug always come at the expense of thinking it's me who's crazy...

Problems with Piranesi plugin in Archicad 12

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:01:26 GMT

I would like to know if anybody knows how to fix this problem in Archicad 12:
when I execute the command SAVE AS, Piranesi format .epx, the result of the shadows are wrong, always perform in the same way, near 12 o´clock directions. I changed the sun position but the result is always the same.

Re: Problems with Piranesi plugin in Archicad 12

Thomas Holm — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:17:01 GMT

See http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=24404&highlight=

Please report the bug through your reseller.

Re: Problems with Piranesi plugin in Archicad 12

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:54:23 GMT

I have the same problem.

Do you have an answer yet??? I tried saving my file back to Archicad 11 but then my materials are all messed up.........

this is really annoying....!!!

Re: shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:16:04 GMT

I've merged these identical topics.

No time to reproduce the bug at the moment - the export is supposed to generate a normal render with the current rendering settings, so it sure sounds like a bug.

The work around is to generate a normal render after creating the epix file - should be exactly the same pixel size of course.

Open the epix file in Piranesi.

Then, File > Import the rendered image. The image will replace the RGB channel.

Finally, File > Re-Render to replace the Restore RGB channel with the new RGB channel (correctly rendered-with-shadows image).

Save the file - now the correct epix file.

Before working on the file - verify that indeed you have perfect pixel alignment by test painting with material locks and then plane locks and verifying that the edges of surfaces match exactly. Even one pixel off and your 'real' results will be a mess.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:12:51 GMT

Karl, thanks for the workaround tips!! I'll try them next time.

NOTE: Graphisoft has officially recognized this as a bug.
GSBUD 2008.09.17 09:13 "[to be fixed in future release]"

According to Eric Bobrow and GS North America, it isn't clear whether it'll be fixed by the next hot fix, or by AC13. Since it's a bug and not a missing feature, let's hope that'll be asap.

Re: shadow casting problem when saving as Piranesi epix file

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:46:32 GMT

TNX Carl......that should work, i didn't think of that myself.

Let's hope the bug will be fixed soon........