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How do you get a continuous tube of light?

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello Gentleman and ladies
I have a problem that i'm sure you might roll your eyes at. Sorry I don't have Dwights book (a bit hard to convince bosses to part with cash).

What I'm trying to achieve is to have continuous tube lighting around the top of my room. None of the lighting library parts will do as they tend to have rays/globs of lights not the smooth look that i'm after. Our supplier of Archicad here in New Zealand didn't know how to achieve this without more investigation.
Does anyone out there know how to achieve this?
Regards Gareth
20 REPLIES 20
Dwight
Newcomer
TomWaltz wrote:
it's pricey for casual reading
Lately, it has been suggested that mine is a "pricey" book.

That is a correct observation. My book is pricey for casual readers but an incredible brgain for anyone making money from Archicad images.

I have studio bookshelves filled with fifty and sixty dollar books written for bozos that look great but never progress to real world solutions. [For example: the sophisticated (but primarily monochrome) "Digital Lighting and Rendering"] Sort of like the Archicad demonstration where the guy builds a little house and it all renders fast and you think it will be great. Then you try to assemble a 600 unit apartment complex with all the furniture and refractive glass.
So when it came time to write my own book [not a book purchased/subsidized for you by Graphisoft like last time where they made the illustrations too small as an economy move and ruined it] it was going to have something suitable for working Archicad users to apply in solving real problems with real complexities and address user confusions. I wanted it to be like the cigarette receptacle at the ChristChurch Train Station: No Rubbish!

That was a challenge because like for all of you, LightWorks arrived on MY desk without much warning or documentation. Even Graphisoft's own illustrations displayed incompetence (black soffits).
The solutions in the book are all from my second album - the one written quickly while on tour rather than my FIRST album, the one with the songs I wrote since I was a teenager and finally got the recording contract. That was pressure.

The other thing I wanted to avoid was waste. It costs $30. to send a book from Canada to New Zealand. But that book can weigh a kilo. SO, I wanted to make a book heavy enough to justify that usurious shipping cost. That meant correctly sized illustrations and

CONTENT.


And I needed to make some money since it meant stopping everything else for six months to figure out LightWorks and write about it. And funding the printing.
CONTENT.

The other pricing factor is the market. Any publisher looks at a project promising sales of less than 10,000 books and laughs because they can't earn costs. My first more-or-less-given-away-by-Graphisoft book has yet to sell 3000 copies, so anyone who writes for Archicad has a small market indeed. The price reflects this small market.

My decision was to deliver a comprehensive, no-nonsense book with real solutions for real illustrators. something with answers to questions like continuous directional lighting that Gareth Organ Maker needs to know. Too bad his boss is so cheap because with the cost of hardly one hour of billable time, this book pays back quickly. Makes you wonder if Gareth's boss is an idiot: he DOES do the hiring.

The other decision was that I would look after my audience - the Archicad 10 supplement being a prime example.

So that ends up being a full book for $90. not half or 1/4 of a book for sixty dollars with no ongoing support. Or a pamphlet that is full of superficiality and error. Or a wildly overpriced DVD, say.

I get fan letters about this book.
Plain cover = Fantastic content.

Even if you use only OpenGL, there's two tricks in the book for you - one for translucent glazing that you should try.
Dwight Atkinson
TomWaltz
Participant
I've said it before, it's the content you pay for.

Just like Architectural Graphic Standards ($250) or the US Steel Construction Manual ($350), any professional reference books cost a lot more than your average computer manual.
Tom Waltz
Dwight
Newcomer
But, Tom, those are grand tomes an architect cannot live without. Without them, you could have a building collapse or collide with a urinal.

Whereas, LightWorks is about getting better Archicad art.

Art is sissy.

When taste collapses, does anyone hear? Black soffit disease doesn't matter. Black could be the soffit paint color, after all.

However, thanks for your support. We sure did have a good time doing the seminar at your office last winter.
Dwight Atkinson
TomWaltz
Participant
Dwight wrote:
But, Tom, those are grand tomes an architect cannot live without..
I would say the same thing about your book.
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
I agree! I started using Archicad in October of last year. Bought Dwights book, took 2 days of archicad training, and improved my designs by 400%.

All I have to say is "Thanks Dwight for staying up really late for a year and producing this book".

cheers

Justin
Anonymous
Not applicable
I also faced a dilemma with one of the "bosses" here (me) about Dwight's book.

The justification was simple. I had expended so much aggravation and many wasted hours of billable time for each project floundering around trying to achieve even a half decent lighting solution that in the end the book and Dwight's course was cheaper.

Our office appreciates the effort and so do our clients.

If you want to render in Lightworks, in my opinion you need this book.
Dwight
Newcomer
Hello, Maurice.

I'm glad things have improved with your work.

And didn't we have a good time in Sydney? Certainly one of the best venues - a writer's retreat - and they didn't call the police when I shouted "THERE"S NO SUCH THING AS WHITE!" like they did in Washington, DC at the AIA (interpreting it as racist, or something.)

Thanks again to David Blackwell for organizing the event.
Dwight Atkinson
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi all again. I'm not doughting that Dwights book wouldn't be very useful. Its just that when the bosses are Architects who don't know how to use a computer then they don't see value in something like that. But in saying that ill keep trying to twist there arms to get them to cough up.
Oh and thanks for Stuarts help. KIWIS ROCK
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Anonymous
Not applicable
Dwight wrote:
Hello, Maurice.

I'm glad things have improved with your work.

And didn't we have a good time in Sydney? Certainly one of the best venues - a writer's retreat - and they didn't call the police when I shouted "THERE"S NO SUCH THING AS WHITE!" like they did in Washington, DC at the AIA (interpreting it as racist, or something.)

Thanks again to David Blackwell for organizing the event.
I just talked to David half an hour ago. We were discussing the possibility of a comparison session (without the company hype) between Archicad and Revit. However, because of v10s new interface we thought we should wait a while until we can be a bit more confident about the basic stuff.

Yes the Sydney event was great too at a pleasant venue.