Piranesi

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thought I'd start a new thread just for Piranesi ... another thread has Sketchup included, and it should be its own thread as well.

It would be useful to hear other people's reasons for purchasing Piranesi and any tips and tricks that they have discovered.

I've convinced myself to make the purchase after several days with the demo and will write more about that later. Neither the Piranesi web site nor comments on archicad-talk were specific enough to explain to me (a hard-sell) why I would want this tool. Now that I've played with all of the tutorials as well as images from ArchiCAD and Artlantis, I understand just how revolutionary a product this is ... very eye opening (just as is Sketchup ... but keep that in a different thread please).

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karl-

I'll give these a shot today. Just trying to get my model as close to the tutorial models as possible while I'm learning the program (which may be the wrong approach).

I'm also considering attempting to use Artlantis (which I'm also not very experienced in...) to get the colors and materials as accurate as possible before going to Piranesi, so minimal material/color/texture work would need to be done in Piranesi.

Out of curiosity, what is your preferred approach?

Thanks again-

[Karl Ottenstein]

Sorry for the delay in responding - was on vacation.

Dale wrote:
I'll give these a shot today. Just trying to get my model as close to the tutorial models as possible while I'm learning the program (which may be the wrong approach).

Ah. Ignore my earlier tricks. IMHO this is not the right approach to learning the program. The flat images in the tutorial files are (AFAIK) merely to dazzle you with how spiffy the resulting images look compared to the flat/boring originals. There is no reason to dumb-down your images before working on them.

Do work through each tutorial completely, as each illustrates unique aspects of Pir.

I'm also considering attempting to use Artlantis (which I'm also not very experienced in...) to get the colors and materials as accurate as possible before going to Piranesi, so minimal material/color/texture work would need to be done in Piranesi.

It all depends on what your goal is. The full answer could fill a book. The short answer is that - photorealistic or non-photorealistic - one goal is minimize the amount of work to produce the desired result. So, if you are going to have several views of the same scene, or will need to modify the model many times to get the final result, then you probably want to get as much work as possible done in LightWorks in ArchiCAD or in Art*lantis so that you don't have to repeat material applications in Piranesi. (However, creating your own custom Piranesi styles, as in the tutorials, makes it easy to reapply settings to a future version of the same or different image.)

If you are going for a non-photorealistic look, then there may not be a point in spending time in Art*lantis first unless there are essential lighting effects, shadows, reflections, etc. that are generated in the photorendering process.

If you're just using Piranesi to insert entourage cutouts - people, vegetation, rugs, art - and do minor cleanup and enhancement to a photorealistic image, then of course, get the image as perfect as possible in AC or Art*lantis first. Be sure to save your cutouts before burning them in, so that they can be re-inserted into subsequent images.

HTH,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl-

Thanks for all the good ideas. So much to learn and so little time...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dale wrote:
Karl-

Thanks for all the good ideas. So much to learn and so little time...

You're welcome. 😉

One way - very oversimplified - to think of Piranesi is that is is like Photoshop with 2 layers and the ability to (1) automatically mask any material or plane [and various combinations] and (2) to paint and insert content with automatic perspective due to depth awareness.

Sometimes you'll want more layers or effects ... don't be bashful about (a) exporting to Photoshop, doing some stuff there, and re-importing into Pir, (b) combining the AC Sketch engine output with other imagery via the import process, (c) hand-painting using real media [or Corel Painter, e.g.] and scanning elements (cutouts) for placement with Pir - perhaps even hand painting textures to serve as backgrounds (sky) or surfaces (source for paint brushes).

It is a remarkable program that I confess not to have mastered either - like you, so many interests, so little time. 😉

Have fun!

Karl

[David Pacifico]

Also know that you can paint one whole image over another. It's not layers, but it can give a similar end result... or Fade one image over another.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I posted an example QT VR generated in Piranesi in another thread (on embedding QT in PDF documents). Anyone reading this thread might be interested in looking at the VR since it is apparently not common knowledge here that you can paint VR's in Piranesi.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=45948#45948

Nothing fancy ... just a tutorial file from the Piranesi package with an edge effect and then a spherical faded restore.

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl,

Wow I didn't know you could do that with VR's in Piranesi....Do you know how to get an output file from either ArchiCAD or Artlantis in VR format to Piranesi??

Rod
Calgary, AB, Canada

[Karl Ottenstein]

Rodrigo wrote:
Karl,

Wow I didn't know you could do that with VR's in Piranesi....Do you know how to get an output file from either ArchiCAD or Artlantis in VR format to Piranesi??

The VR's have to be generated by Vedute, the 'helper' application that ships with Piranesi. You import a few common 3D model formats and set up your panorama view, then export to a panorama epix file for painting in Piranesi.

No texture/color information is read by Vedute, as far as I can tell. You end up with a foam-board model that has to be painted in Piranesi.

Exporting as DXF from the AC 3D window worked for me, but the 3DS file created by AC couldn't be read by Vedute. (SketchUp read the 3DS fine, though, and the saved SU file opened fine in Vedute.)

Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karl,

I will definitely be trying this.

[Anonymous]

Yes !!
Karl,

Thanks for your information about piranesi.