Neon Shaders in Artlantis and ArchiCAD 'grouping'

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've already posted this topic in the artlantis forum and the response I was given there didn't work.

I have a few beams that are made with a custom profile. They are all separate however they share the same height and circumference (it's a round beam). When I go to place a neon shader in artlantis, it applies it to all the beams, when I one it to apply to only one at a time (they need to be different colours)

I've changed the colour material in beam settings in ArchiCAD but they still 'group' together in artlantis...

Any suggestions?

Here's the link to the . Artlantis Thread

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering if it's something in ArchiCAD that is causing the problem as the smoothness slider in artlantis hasn't removed the lines...

I've checked the setting and it all appears 'correct'. (see attachment)

Thanks for your help, deadline is approaching!

Nathan

Image

[Anonymous]

I've taken the AR model into Artlantis and there is definitely a problem with the mesh.

I've re-drawn the ground mesh in ArchiCAD and it works fine, ( attatchment shows the comparison) but I want to subtract the road mesh to add depth... It appears that the road mesh is causing problems, not sure why though or how I can resolve it without re-drawing it...

Thank You

Image

[Karl Ottenstein]

Can you select just the ground and road meshes and use File > External Content > Save Selection as Module, zip the resulting mod file, and post the zip here? Should be small enough to post I think.

Thx,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
Can you select just the ground and road meshes and use File > External Content > Save Selection as Module, zip the resulting mod file, and post the zip here? Should be small enough to post I think.

Thx,
Karl

I've just this minute finally fixed it. The problem was that several meshes were overlapping and weren't correctly subtracted from each other

I didn't think that would cause issues though...

Time for Artlantis once I've placed the beams for the light sources!

[Anonymous]

OK things are going good!

I've created a 'test' render and would your opinion on "What to do next"

The white strip running across the image is actually a river. It has the 'Water Fresnel' applied but I guess on a parallel view it isn't visible? Can I make it visible? (I know it's applied because I looked at it from a perspective...

The green lights are small beams, there is around 100, they represent movement of people. I would like to keep the amount of beams but reduce the radius of the light... How can I do that? I found that reducing the power didn't do a great deal. The green beams go right to the bottom of the screen, so they mix with the red beam... it there any way to reduce how much they 'mix' i.e green and red = orange.

Also the red beams don't appear to have the neon light all the way across, how can I fix that?

Thank you very much.

[Dwight]

Experiment with the 'Neon' Slider.

[Karl Ottenstein]

NStocks wrote:
The white strip running across the image is actually a river. It has the 'Water Fresnel' applied but I guess on a parallel view it isn't visible? Can I make it visible? (I know it's applied because I looked at it from a perspective...

The water (and glass) fresnel shaders require a lot of computation time because of the complex reflections obtained with them, as well as the (optionally animated) surface of the water.

It makes no sense to use them when your camera is in the sky. Bump maps are invisible at that altitude, too. Consider just using a good water texture with no bump map.

The way the river (canal?) looks pure white suggests that a neon or constant shader is applied to it - is it supposed to emit light and/or look that bright?

The green lights are small beams, there is around 100, they represent movement of people. I would like to keep the amount of beams but reduce the radius of the light... How can I do that? I found that reducing the power didn't do a great deal.

I wonder if you have selected a light style which has a very diffuse spread pattern? See the attached - pick a more hard-edged cone - maybe not the fully hard edge one that my red arrow points, to, but another in the bottom row? Then, adjust the cone angle slider to make the beam more concentrated.

Again, at this altitude, the view is so schematic as to not even appear 3D and so I wonder if all of this is overkill, unless you are generating views closer to the ground and/or some kind of fly through?

Interesting project!

Karl

[Anonymous]

I've looked at the Neon shader and tried to edit the light as suggested but I don't see the options under the light setting... they seem to be 'inactivate' and greyed out...



Thank You

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1055166/neon%20lights.jpg

[Dwight]

There's plenty of neon information in "The Artlantis Attitude" book that can solve your problem.

Instant delivery available.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dwights, I've looked at your online preview (with the beer glass) and it looks like a very well presented and clear guide... Perhaps I should purchase it at a later date (after Payday!)(Do you sell single chapters )

Right now I'm just having trouble with the neon light settings... I have turned On the light but I don't see if it's global light or attached to the neon (plus I have a lightbulb icon flashing at the bottom of the render preview)