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

[__archiben]

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

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

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

[Dwight]

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?

[Dwight]

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

[__archiben]

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

[stefan]

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

[Djordje]

~/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.

[__archiben]

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