Rendering with ArtLantis!!!! but which ArtLantis?

[Anonymous]

can anyone tell me which version of artlantis should i use
i dont know which one does what and which should i buy?
i have ARTLANTIS 4.5 and Im waiting for v. 5.0
but i heard that there are versions like ArtLantis R and ArtLantis classic
what are all these and which one should i use?
is there a version that compines all these?

thank you

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote:

Miguel,
those words of yours sold me ArtR.

Great! Now I am off to collect my commission...

Thomas wrote:
I got interior results far beyond the usual dead, crypt-like feeling I've been getting

I am currently doing a movie, so I have to use Art 4.5, and boy do those images feel fake

Thomas wrote:
Below is a work in progress: An internal rendering with only the Heliodon, and a little dark blue ambience to add some blue tint to the shadows.

Looks very good. I see you are still to discover the joys of object placing in Art R.
One of the things you almost always get with radiosity in interiors, when you want to illuminate the dark corners, is a glare where the light hits. this, imho, is not a handicap. The image gets a real feeling, as if it was a photograph taken with your 4 mp canon Digital pocket camera, and not by some professional photographer, with all those lights and stuff. For my job (architect who wants some quick and good looking renderings) it is the right feeling.

Thomas wrote:
I find it a lot more difficult to handle the radiosity in the exteriors

Usual setup:
Sun 40%
Sky illumination 50%
Rad 100
You take it from there
Try to keep at least one facade in the shadow, because Art R gives you very rich shadows (In Art 4.5 you ran away from shadows like if they where the devil).

Thomas wrote:
Where can I find more info about how to handle the Neon glass, and the Atmospheric light you mention?

Neon glass is great for interiors with little openings.
You use the neon glass form the library, and fiddle around with the settings. Anything between 1 and 5 in lighting power, as this is a glass with its own light. Still, the image you made is better without neon glass, because you have this very big window. Neon glass would spoil it.
Atmospheric: wrong translation, sorry. This is of course sky illumination, which is VERY important on the exterior. Use with some color, of course (blue for sky, yellow for sun, basic one on one)

Thomas wrote:
I have the whole Art4 extra Shader package. Do I have to buy new shaders now, or can they be used with Art R?

Nope, you just drag the folder into the catalog shader window, and Bob's your uncle.

have fun

[Rakela Raul]

i liked ur rendering thomas,

did u use archistar ??

[Thomas Holm]

OK Thanks for answering!
(I'm afraid the commission won't be much, but you could always try contacting Robert Priller at Lasercad... he's a nice guy...)

As my family tends to crowd every space at home with numerous crap that I stumble on every day, I like empty rooms...

I guess you mean the neon glass works like the "window light" in Lightworks. Let me ask where you placed it in your restaurant interior "restT3.jpg"? Was it just the window panes?

(And my uncle's dead, so I could use another one...) I'll just take care not to overwrite any similar materials from artR, should Abvent have changed anything.

And Rakela, the stair was made using Archicad's ordinarly Stairmaker. I seldom have stairs that can't be done there. The one problem is that railings don't show in the floor plan. And that's probably the cause for the piece of lumber that floats mid-air in the interior view. I simply forgot to turn the left railing of the lower stair off.

But. I still have problems with the exterior.Example:
I've got an image that's fairly OK to my standards below (called View3norad.jpg). It's done with radiosity turned off using a four-light setup (Dwight taught me, see his book): A shadow-casting yellowish Heliodon sun and three non-shadow-casting parallell lights of different colors to complete: A bluish fill light to the left of the camera for the shadowed facade and to emphasize the kichen wall cabinets, a Dwightish "undersun" to light up ceilings, soffits and the underside of the balcony, and an "oversun" of my own to give little light to the shadowed floors inside - it's too weak (ca5) to influence the exterior lawn etc. This one renders faster in ArtR than the radiosity experiment.
(cont. below)

[Thomas Holm]

(cont. from above)
Now I'm trying to match or better the one above using radiosity (a fast way to learn, I thought). here is the same (almost) view rendered with 100% radiosity. Your settings were too dark for this image. The plaster facade is supposed to look white, so I increased the heliodon sun to 50% and sky illumination to 74%. All other lights are turned off. Rad is 100.
I still think the light fall-off in the uppermost corner of the facade (above the balcony roof) is to high. The plaster simply looks dirty there, despite that the rest of the facade is really too white or washed out. To get even lighting when the facade plane is composed of different objects seems to be a little problematic. (This can bee seen in my interior image before too).

But the real problem is the glass. In this image, I increased raytracing to 4 and transparency (refraction) to 6 passes. Still, the glass in the balustrade (which is the same material as the window glass) reflects too much, and it gets opaque. And in the uppermost part of the window panes under the balcony roof, and in the ground floor to the left, you can see a white horizontal stripe. I guess that is reflections from the aluminium window frame, emphasized by reflecting back and forth between two glass surfaces? I want to get rid of that, but still I want the sky reflections... You just can't have it all, I guess.

What are the right settings for ordinary glass? Do you usually exchange the glass exported from archicad with some kind of Artlantis glass?

I know I'm pushing you, I hope not too far.... Perhaps one of you other artlantis experts shoould have a say here?

[Anonymous]

Wow. lets see if I can answer everything Tom

- neon glass ArtR = windowlight AC9, more or less.

- restaurant: all the windows, at about 5 intensity.

- Plaster facade white: there is no such thing as white (not my words). You need some color to the sun, which is a box you tick somewhere at the bottom . Also put some more color (blue) to sky illumination. The factory blue is too white.

- First advice: give the sun a soft shadow (as soft as it gets). This will improve the image.

- Give some bumpmap texture to your facade. As you have a right to left sun, this will nicely pick up some minor bumps and turn the walls much less plastic looking.

- Glass. I would never use the same glass for the balcony and the windows, for the reasons you just found out. You can´t get a good result with two so different situations. Just modify the material in AC and open with reference, or reapply material in Art R.

- For the balcony, i would use normal glass. For the window I always use fresnel glass. This takes up a chunk of rendering time, but improves enormously the final image. You get all those glass distortions, which make your rendering look far superior to those cheap engines (for instance, Art 4.5 or Light works in AC 9...).
Unzip the postcard attached into the postcard album of Art R, and use that glass as a starter.

- The white stripes on the glass are really a bummer. I don´t know any solution, but if you find out please tell me

Thats it, I guess. Feel free to ank, because as an Artlants teacher, it allways helps to know where are the beginners difficulties.

have fun

[Thomas Holm]

thanks again, Miguel. Now I've spent two unpaid days with this program, so I gues I'll have to calm down a little. Thanks for all help. Just one more question: Where the f**k is the manual? Is there a complete pdf somewhere? I'd for example like to know how to handle the postcards.

Edited:

That is, how do I extract a shader from your postcard into my model/alt. my shader library?

[Anonymous]

Thomas

Manual is the current running joke.

One school of thought has it that Abvent is so busy making money, they can not be bothered with such a minor detail as a manual (or bugless software).

Another states that the software is SO simple, you don't need a manual anyway.

Imho, you just can not blame them, they are french after all...

maybe there is a book publishing opportunity here

This is copied from http://www.abvent.com/support/forum/read.php?fid=atl_shaders_us&mes=192 , a good source of knowledge for manualless users:
On windows computers you need to paste the file in the following directory:
Documents and settings/Username/My documents/Abvent/Album
In ArtLantis you need to open the album by checking it in the windows menu. There you will see the postcard. Clicking the thumbnail will open the postcard. From that postcard you can drag and drop the textures that where used in that image onto your current model.
Sjaak

[Thomas Holm]

"Manual is the current running joke."

Grrr. I knew it. There had to be a catch. Abvent has pulled my leg once more. (OK I knew something would happen, I'm prepared). I've been complaining about Abvent before (look in this forum). Sh*tty company, unreliable support, unintelligible documents - if existing, irregular updates if at all, or if they don't screw you by releasing it under a new name instead. BUT-fantastic programmers and software!

This time I went ahead with my eyes open. The help files and the tutorials will have to do, even if far from complete. And I do think I'm getting value for my money anyway.

But their policies hurt them. Actually, I've heard that it was this unreliablility that made Graphisoft go for Lightworks instead of Artlantis. Abvent already had a quite usable Archicad plug-in (I've forgotten its name), but Graphisoft in effect killed it.

[Anonymous]

Look at it this way:
When you buy a vcr (or a cell phone), do you read the manual?
When you start playing the last Grand Theft Auto, do you go for the manual?

You have to engage in Art R as if it where a game. That way, every small victory will taste wonderfull. And you will NEVER forget something that took you half of a working day to figure out.

Otherwise, you might just go beserk and buy the next ticket to Paris, armed with a Frag grenade...

[Thomas Holm]

Krippahl wrote:
Otherwise, you might just go beserk and buy the next ticket to Paris, armed with a Frag grenade...

I've already considered that a couple of times. I think 1986 was the first. Remember MacSpace? SpaceEdit? SpaceEdit2? "New" program, same bugs. You get the picture.

That aside, i find it useful to reach for a manual when the program doesn't do what I want when I just click all over the screen. Or when it refuses to read my thoughts. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO A MANUAL! EQUAL MANUALS TO ALL!