Archicad Rendering engine

[Anonymous]

being a student thats fairly new to archicad I am limited to doing my rendering in archicad 8.1. Heres my problem: the Archicad Rendering Engine does not seem to allow me to render images that are larger in pixel size than the screen resolution and the imac im using for it (my pc was too low in memory) doesnt let me adjust the resolution to anymore than 1024x768. I then changed the rendering settings to use the Z-Buffer Rendering Engine and this allowed me to produce images where i could scroll across past the width of the screen; however this rendering engine does not seem to render transperencies in shadows. Can anyone please explain if there is anything to do to solve these problems with the rendering engines or even make the resolution of this mac higher (i cant see why it won't let me make it higher, but it only had 3 settings to chose from and 1024x768 was the highest) oh and suggesting I use artlantis or simlar is no help because a) i am a student and therefore i am too poor to buy it and b) i have 3 more days until i have to have my renderings complete!!!

[Anonymous]

Unless there is some limitation to the student version you should be able to set the rendering size quite large (I forget the limits as I have never needed to exceed them).

The setting is in Image > Rendering Settings > Image Size and Background. Remember to keep the proportions of the rendering the same as the 3D window or you will have blank stripes on the sides or top & bottom.

[Djordje]

The max horizontal pixel count of a rendering is 4096 or so pixels; should you need more, turn your camera sideways.

What you see in the rendering window does not matter; the image will be saved at the pixel count as Matthew explained.

As the standard ArchiCAD engine is not so great, maybe you can try to do the Sketch renderings - much more "architectural"

[Anonymous]

it is set to use the proportions of the 3d window but its does just as you say it shouldnt; have blank strips at the right and bottom once saved the strips go the rest of the image still isnt there. is there something wrong with the settings in my 3d window or is it a limit to the student version? im sure i managed to make a large rendering on my pc but thats got student version 8 (not 8.1). Have not played around with the sketch rendering engine, but i might just do that. thanks for the help

[Anonymous]

oh and just another thing, how can i stop a rendering? for example i forgot to turn some lights on and dont want to wait half an hour for it to finish knowing im just going to delete it. on the pc i had to resort to ctrl+alt+del but then i had to close archicad completley

[Djordje]

neil wrote:
oh and just another thing, how can i stop a rendering?

Don't you have a progress dialog box with a big STOP button?

As for the proportion - yes, it should be to 3D window. Make sure that you set the pixel size in one box only, the other should resize according to the 3D window proportions.

[Anonymous]

After doing some testing i think i've isolated my problem to being that the student version of AC 8.1 seems to limit rendering size to a ridicuously small size while the student version of AC 8 does not. I thought the student versions only limits were that the commercial version cant open student version files, and student version prints with watermark around the edges. is it just a setting i can change? i looked around and found "partial photorendering" but changing that didnt solve it. I think im going to have to install the student version of AC8 to get my renderings finished. im pretty sure i cant open a file made in AC 8.1 in AC8 but can anyone tell me if i can save as an AC8 file or if an archive file saved in 8.1 will open in 8. Thanks for the help
neil