Materials colors

[Tom Krowka]

I am trying to render a project in the 3d window. I am using the siding.tif material in the textures, wall finishes library. The color I assign it (from preview at the top of the dialogue box) has no apparent effect on the color in the preview or the 3d window. I can change the color slightly using the emission part of the dialogue box.
If I use one of the other sidings, (light,medium, or dark) it will show up in the window as one of those colors, and again, the color I select at the top of the dialogue box has no effect on the siding in the window. (Using OPEN GL setting).

What is up with that. My dealer says to use open GL for the 3d window, it gives a truer color. I am tired of adjusting all the settings, to have no impact on the 3d window.

The open GL setting has all four items checked on, texture, emission, highlights, and smooth. I'm sure some combination of all these setting will give me the color I'm looking for, but that combo is nearly impossible to find.

What follows here is loud cussing and throwing of objects around the room.

[Anonymous]

Rendering quality in the live 3D window is not very good, whether using the ArchiCAD shader or OpenGL. I have known some people to make some effective use of it, but that is very much the exception. For reliable quality you will need to use the other built-in renderers or export for rendering in another program.

[Tom Krowka]

Pardon my ignorance, but what other renderers? Would that be a frame from a VR object or camera?

Thanks.

[MMontgomery]

have you tried editing the color of the reference TIF image in photoshop? Use the edited image in the material and see if you get the result your looking for

And I think the other renderers he is mentioning are the ArchiCAD rendering engine and the Sketchup renderer

[Tom Krowka]

That sounds like it would work just right based on the trial and error I just went through. However, I don't own any other rendering program, and find it hard to believe that the whole materials dialogue box will not influence the color. I'd like to figure out a way to do it in ARchicad.

Isn't that what the materials colors is for?

[MMontgomery]

It should - like in ArtLantis you can 'add color' to the reference image which changes the overall color of the material in the scene.

But when your using a reference image for a material in ArchiCAD, the color of the reference image supercedes the color chosen at the top of the material dialogue box. I've never really considered it as much of a problem, since I first create my textures in Photoshop the way I want them to look in AC. If changes are necessary, I just make changes to the adjustment layer in photoshop and save out the new texture.

[Tom Krowka]

OK

I can probably change the reference image color in Paint, since I don't have any other rendering program. However, I have to copy the reference file, and I can't get to it in the ArchiCad library to copy it through Explorer. I can't get to it through the paint "open" file either.
The library won't open except in AC.

Any idea how I can access it to copy it, manipulate it, and save it as a different .tif name?

[MMontgomery]

can you search for 'siding.tif' ? That should find it and show you where it is. Edit it, then rename it and save it.

[Anonymous]

I, too, would try to change the texture (.tif) in some "photoshop" like program. But good results aren´t always expected - probably due to the nature of archiCAD rendering machine.

[Anonymous]

Tom wrote:
I am trying to render a project in the 3d window. (Using OPEN GL setting).

What follows here is loud cussing and throwing of objects around the room.

I re-post this here because it might help, or hurt.



I have a file at:

http://www.Burginger.com/ARCHICAD_TALK/COLOR_TEXTURES.sit

WARNING - 17 MB

Now here are my observations:

#1 - I use color textures like these to color my projects in ArchiCAD because it allows me to control the exact colored appearence of an object in the ArchiCAD OpenGL window. (Good for Presentations of work in progress)

#2 - The 7+3 character format [Object = Group Name] fits the import/export options for 3ds.

#3 - The texture name stays legible in C4D after import allowing the drag and drop of textures onto objects to go quicker.

#3 - The central folder for textures allows me to point C4D at the same folder and the imported model retains the same look that it had in ArchiCAD.

Questions:

#1 - Is there a way to automate the creation on MATERIALS in ArchiCAD. I currently clone a material, rename, add texture image. - Move - on to the next. Very slow and boring.

#2 - Is there a way to automatically have the textures attach to the objects after import in C4D. This I haven't played with this too much. Eh, Stefen ?

#3 - Can the solid color textures be smaller in ArchiCAD than 124 x 124 ? Like perhaps, 1 pixel x 1 pixel? Again I have not tested this yet.

This whole thing is a work in progress and I offer it here for improvement because it takes so darn long to perfect such a systematic method of texturing. A helping hand would really boost my efforts.