CineRender Surface Specification

[Aaron Bourgoin]

If CineRender Surface Definitions are stored as GDL objects, where is the GDL Reference Material that lists all the proper structure and syntax for a "create from scratch" Surface? As the surfaces themselves are defined and stored as a Master Script, there is no way to know what the complete list of parameters (Additional Data) might be.

Is this specification published somewhere?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Here it is:

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/gdl-guide-for-archicad-18/cinerender-gdl-programming-example...

Unfortunately at this point the example code snippets have a lot of formatting problems, images are missing, etc. These are issues I have already communicated to Graphisoft so hopefully there will be improvement in this regard soon.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Thanks Lazlo,

The formatting of snippets exists inside the shader objects themselves is similarly sloppy, which suggests there was a batch processing tool at work. Or some really sloppy GDL writing. (David Nicholson-Cole - where are you?).

Here's the thing. I have bought some third party shaders which need to be migrated as AC can't read a C4Dlib directly.

If we had a specification, properly outlined and documented as per all the other GDL Commands in the Guide, then we might be able to begin to do some work on adding properly shaders to our libraries.

I'm trying to work with the folks at Greyscale Gorilla to see if there's a way to import or add their library of textures to mine. I found them in a list published on this forum, didn't read the fine print about the library migration, but want to try and find a decent workflow to let this happen more easily.

Greyscale Gorilla make proper tools for C4D and back this up with excellent training manuals. They're good folk and seem genuinely interested in our plight.

https://store.greyscalegorilla.com/products/texture-kit-pro

Do we need a text file of these C4D textures and then build them, one-by-one, in empty GDL files, or is there a tool available to do this for entire libraries?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Aaron wrote:
Do we need a text file of these C4D textures and then build them, one-by-one, in empty GDL files, or is there a tool available to do this for entire libraries?

Unfortunately, I don't know.
I just know where that info is in the Help Center, but have not dabbled at this part of GDL to any degree.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Thanks Lazlo, I will have a chat with the Greyscale Gorilla people as well and then report back on this thread.

[rocorona]

The page content has been restored.
There are issues still, but it is a good starting point.

Unfortunately there is no full list of all possible parameter, only a good number of examples (with very few explanation).
On the help page is said "The complete parameter list, their descriptions, unit types and default values are available in the CineRender Reference Manual", but in my installation (ITA version)there is no such manual. It can be downloaded from somewhere?

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Roberto, I haven't found one either. I went looking in the GDL Reference Manual as the CineRender Textures are stored in ArchiCAD as .GDL files.

If these files were created via an XML transfer or some such, then the specification should exist somewhere as an import protocol.

I sat in on an excellent webinar for North American SSA holders this week. I asked the question there as well and will keep asking the question until something shows up.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

time to ask this question again. see the previous post.

Any update on this GSHQ?

[Laszlo Nagy]

It seems GDL-related stuff is being moved over to the GDL site.
There I found this link:

http://gdl.graphisoft.com/gdl-docs/cinerender-docs/

But there is no content in it yet. So I suppose it is coming at some point in the future.

Aaron, you may ask this same question on the forums of that new GDL site. They may be able to give you a better answer than mine.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Thanks Lazlo, will do.