More material options for export to Artlantis

[Anonymous]

I have recently started using artlantis to render my drawings and want to change textures in artlantis. To do this i need every object that i want a different texture on to be a different material in archicad. If it is a particularly complex model i am running out of paint colours and textures in the pop-up material selection window. I also forget when i have used one texture and then have to change it at a later date.

What i would like to do would be to choose many different colours for my surfaces with slightly different RGB settings as they will be changed in the render program. Is this possible?

Hope some1 could help as it is getting quite anoying and time consuming to keep going back and forth.

THX

Vanden

[Djordje]

Yes, you need to separate the materials in ArchiCAD. You need them separate anyway, right?

You can do this easily in Artlantis, too, but if your geometry changes often and you have to re-export, your best bet is to set the materials in ArchiCAD. What do they actually have as a material or a texture is best set in Artlantis.

You should ask the same question in Artlantis forums, whose moderator is also here - Sjaak.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Vanden,

I think you're looking at this incorrectly.

First, if your intent is to assign shaders in Artlantis, do NOT use any textures at all with your materials in ArchiCAD - as you will then have to delete the textures one by one in Artlantis. Just use a color.

Create your 'materials' (basically surface identifiers) by duplicating one of the paint materials, which is a color-only thing. If you're not going to deal with Lightworks, then as you change colors, don't worry about the 'match to internal' button for lightworks.

Give your materials names that refer to how they are used. For example, "Main Roof", "Fascia", "Soffit", "Interior Casings", etc.

Even if you use all imaginable shades from white through pastels, garish colors to black, I cannot imagine that you will 'run out' of colors. You can use the same colors multiple times - it is the NAME that Artlantis uses to distinguish one surface from another. So, if you use red for 'Interior Casing" and also for "Kitchen Countertops" there is no issue with Artlantis, and you can easily check which red is which in ArchiCAD via a properly expanded (and possibly re-ordered-via the Work Environment) Info Box.

Once everything is re-assigned to reasonable shaders in Artlantis visually, you'll just use that file as a 'reference file' to substitute all AC materials for Artlantis shaders with each subsequent export.

Cheers,
Karl

[Dwight]

Furthermore, since individual elements, materials, surfaces and planes can now be selected in Artlantis, material re-assignment is simplified.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dwight wrote:
Furthermore, since individual elements, materials, surfaces and planes can now be selected in Artlantis, material re-assignment is simplified.

Thanks for expanding, Dwight. True...but surface reassignment still takes more clicks/steps. Getting it close to begin with makes drag and drop faster and I think makes the reference file usage more reliable. There used to be bugs with using a reference file when you had 'reapplied' materials to some individual surfaces. Maybe (hopefully) that is fixed now.

And, of course, you're right in suggesting that this surface selection is still required, particularly with wood grains (e.g.) since GS still has not given us separate material options for vertical vs horizontal casing, etc., in the lib parts...

Cheers,
Karl

[Dwight]

Yes. It is way more efficient to make categorical design decisions in Archicad to avoid finicky messing around in Artlantis - but an error is NOT a disaster like it used to be.

In the workflow part of my book, I recommend strict note taking to ensure that any material changes made in Artlantis are incorporated in the Archicad model if the model is re-imported.

I recently worked on a large development with colored wall panels. After a preliminary rendering the uberarchitect decided to alter the wall panels in Artlantis, but when we re-imported the updated Archicad model, my stooge forgot to make the retroactive changes. Voom - lost!

Glad i could blame that on someone else.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the introduction Djordje,

You, Karl and Dwight allready gave the answers. I can only add one little thing to it. If you need to reassign materials in ArtLantis and you don't want to go back to Archicad you can do that easily. Follow the tutorial about reassigning materials via this link: http://www.artlantis.com/community/tutorials/Tutorial_14/Tutorial14_eng.swf

This tutorial is not available anymore on the ArtLantis website. It was written for ArtLantis 1. The procedure still works in ArtLantis 2.

I hope this helps you.

Sjaak

[Dwight]

But don't think that it is all fun and games.

A serious drawback to using Artlantis in design development has been that surfaces changed in Artlantis get changed back when the Archicad model is re-imported if they aren't changed in the model. This is why it is important to keep track of capricious boss-initiated changes made in Artlantis during design development.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to you all, i did ask a similar question on the artlantis forum which Sjaak replied to, so thxs twice for you.

Thx Karl, don't know if i am being stupid but i can't figure out how to 'create' more materials and rename them? I think this would make my life loads easier as i have become a bit of a victim of the final point that Dwight made. I will be taking notes from now on and then go back and change the model in archicad

Thanks all for you informative replies
))

[Karl Ottenstein]

vanden wrote:
i can't figure out how to 'create' more materials and rename them?

Screenshot.

You create new materials by duplicating existing ones. Then change parameters. Least work if the thing you duplicate is close to what you want.

Karl