Apply photo rendering settings to a group of viewpoints

[Anonymous]

I have several (30+) open GL views saved. I'd like to convert them to lightworks. Is there a way to convert all of them with some setting, or to I have to individually re-save each view with the lightworks settings? This takes for ever as you have to let each view render twice - before & after saving it

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Select the views in the Navigator or Organizer, open the settings, and change the "Generate in..." setting from 3D Window to Photo Rendering Window.

You should probably also check the "Redefine Image Settings" option in case you have changed the rendering settings since you created the views.

[Anonymous]

When I check "redefine Image settings" it makes them all the same view

[Anonymous]

svenl wrote:
When I check "redefine Image settings" it makes them all the same view

ACHH! I'm sorry. Your views must not be linked to fixed cameras. I have been doing it with cameras for so long I forgot that there was another way. I hope this hasn't caused you too much trouble (was it possible to undo?). Perhaps learning a better way will be worth it.

As a standard practice you should always define your 3D views with cameras. You can either place the cameras in plan view or navigate to the desired view in 3D and insert a camera with that view into the path by right clicking on the camera path name in the Project Map (in the Navigator or Organizer).

Views that are defined by cameras retain all their view point settings when "Redefine Image Settings" is used and only change the render settings.

Another advantage to using cameras is that you can drag them from the Project Map to the View Map to quickly create as many views as you like. I have used this approach to make OpenGL, Sketch and LightWorks renders of the same views. This makes it easy to create sketch renders to overlay on matching colored views in Photoshop.

[Karl Ottenstein]

If you have a copy of the file from before the views got changed - you can open each view and View > 3D Navigation Extras > Put a camera into the path to place a camera that corresponds to the viewpoint. With all cameras placed, you can then move forward with Matthew's workflow.

(If the views are photorendering views, then temporarily change their settings to be OpenGl views just for purposes of placing cameras quickly.)

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Always a prompt and accurate solution here. I'll give it a try. Luckily, I duplicated all the views into a new folder before redefining them, so I still have them.

[Stig Bengtsson]

Another advantage with saving cameras is when you export your model to another rendering program the cameras are also exported. The cameras can also be copied through copy/paste between different ArchiCAD files if you have two alternative schemes and need the same cameras in both files.

Stig

[Chazz]

In my experience, the whole workflow of saving and generating 3D views and getting them to update and save properly (in layouts or as separate files) was pretty buggy and inconsistent in AC 13. Things got much better in 14 (though no features specifically were added) and this was one of the most important "features" of the upgrade for me. I never go the Lightworks route though, as the generation time is long and the correction workflow awkward. Stig is correct though that adding cameras allows their use in programs like Artlantis which, for me, is a much nicer place to work. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot for the help. It seems to be working. It's a plus that the cameras will show up in 3rd party rendering programs. I use artlantis and maxwell, but in this case, I want to generate 3D images that will be part of pricing/construction drawings, and will update automatically with changes.

Thanks again