Take a look

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I created this little scene and rendered it lastnight, I can't believe that a Lightworks novice like me can create such real life images so quickly.

Graphisoft has done an incredible job with 9.0 and lightworks.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

[stefan]

fuzzytnth3 wrote:
Thanks for the link, I will take a look at that. I actually have an older version of Cinema CE6+ or something like that.

I got a bit annoyed with it (most likely due to my incompentance) as I use a two monitor setup and found the Cinema interface a bit of a swine to get it configured the way I wanted it. Also I found defining materials and the like not as straight forward as Strata or ArchiCAD for that matter.

I should give it another try and if I remember right, somewhere on the forum Mark B posted a tutorial for a workflow from AC to Cinema which I obviously should give a go to do Cinema justice.

Thanks again

I have used the older CE6+ for this image.

And I also made a workflow tutorial, don't know if that was the one you are mentioning:
http://www2.asro.kuleuven.ac.be/asro/English/HOME/SBs/tutorial/tips/ac2c4d.htm

[Steve Jepson]

"fuzzytnth3The Artlantis render certainly looks very harsh to me. It sounds like Artlantis 5 may well address these issues but at the moment it certainly seems to be lagging behind the current market.[/quote wrote:


Not for long.

Check this out.

http://homepage.mac.com/nicolasrivera/My%20Artlantis%20R/index.html

[Dwight]

Since this is new for all of us, I do have one observation based in what gets posted here and in my own explorations - sort of an advance on my take on this as will be published:

You must think about lighting the scene separately from populating the scene with lamps and light sources and expecting these "real" things to model the light.

The better LightWorks renderings use general lights with high falloff positioned to shine through walls, the windowlight tilted to provide soft planar light where it is needed - not just at windows. These things begin to make up Photofakiosity™ and are quite reliable once you get a system.

When you think of yourself as a photographer in a poorly-lit space having brought your own light kit, then you can be more quickly effective than trying to beat the existing lamps into service as space modelers rather than as just the glowing props that they are.

[kevin b]

You must think about lighting the scene separately from populating the scene with lamps and light sources and expecting these "real" things to model the light.

So Dwight, do you bother modelling the actual lights in the space, to use in conjunction with the added lights or just rely on your added lights.

And what/when is this thing that is going to be published, you have mentioned and posted pieces of? Are there any other resources out there now available, specific to lighting an ArchiCAD model using Lightworks. And use/creation of decent materials.

Many times I have heard the think like a photographer line, which I understand intellectually, but as I am not a trained photographer I have no clue how to "properly" light a poorly lit room and I didn't see the cube flashbulb setting in Lightworks anywhere.

I'd also like to add to everyone that this discussion has been most helpful already. Never even knew there were those three Lightworks light objects available (window, sun, sky), been trying to add lighting to scenes using only the AC light objects, with limited success.

And as a PS to the rendering times issue, the original sample scene took about 8 minutes on my machine without making any changes to the file whatsoever, just opened it and rendered, yielding the almost exact result as the original.

[kevin b]

I guess the cube flashbulb would be the camera light seting, but anyway...


in the "wonderful" ArchiCAD help guide section about lightworks, it says

"Note: all shaders are described in detail in help files located in the Library Examples/Documentation/LightWorksIntegration folder of your ArchiCAD 9 folder"

I do not have this folder, and we did a full install. Anyone have this? And what elese am I missing as far as documentation?

[Dwight]

When lamps are necessary as a part of the design of a space, they must be modeled and should emanate light. But for the purposes of illustration, it is decorative - they do not light the space - just like in real ife where if you stand to the side in any space, you see hw real light is for taks on work surfaces and the rest gets dark.

My book, "LightWorks In ArchiCAD" should be finished around the end of this month [printed in May] and will be available through a variety of channels, but specially directly through me for US$90. shipping included. paypal. PM me for my email address. Many pre-orders already. Those guys get it first.

This 200 page, 8.5 x 11" full color, wire bound to lay flat to read things best in spreads book is crammed with eveything you'll need to know about manipulating Lightworks for ArchiCAD. And how to bake a cake. joke.

Existing resources are the Graphisoft manual. Yay. Or go to work for six months and figure it out like I did and still need a thousand (sing) workwork workarounds. (end song)

Thinking like a photographer is essential because architectural lighting is so poor. Many illustrators become frustrated that the actual room lights can't light the room. No surprise when you see what professional photogs bring to an interior shoot.

All studio photography has three "types" of light.

Key: to light the subject - to an upper side
Model: a close, weaker light to compensate for the key light - usually at the side where the key casts shadow.
Fill: to raise general light levels for shadow detail.

Any photo magazine will have this info - it is old stuff - but get this for better info:

 Photographing Architecture and Interiors:
Updated and Expanded American Venus
Abbild Swiss Furniture and Interiors in the 20th Century
artprojects_riem Impressions of New York

Julius Shulman

ISBN 1890449075
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm), Hardcover binding, 180 pages
200 b/w illus, 4 four-color plates,

Also anything by Eric Roth [thanks Aaron]

Recognising this principle lets you model the shape of a space - particularly with general light sources having high falloff - used as key and model with ambient as fill - or a huge windowlite turned to face downward hung from the ceiling.

When the sun is your "key" the skyobject is your model and ambient light is your fill.

You make a joke - the flashbulb setting is the camera light. Hahaha. What crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
suitable for those pictures where they have to put the black bars over people's eyes and are often printed in black and white. Hahaha.

And in using the SkySunWindo objects - remember to turn off the Built-In Sun in the Photorendering dialog - lamps only - on - and a little ambient for fill.

[Dwight]

shader descriptions a cryptic waste of time:

Example:

"chrome"

Shader
Colour

"chrome"(
"base colour"
LtColour
(1.0, 1.0, 1.0)


"vector"
LtVector
(0.0, 1.0, 0.5)


"mix"
LtFloat
0.5


)


Synopsis
Chrome-like reflections.


Location
lishlite


Description
A colour source providing simple chrome-like reflections. The source has a base colour, specified by argument "base colour", which is mixed with bands of colours based on the orientation of the surface relative to a direction specified by argument "vector". A "mix" argument is used to specify the ratio of mixing of base colour with the reflection colours. This value should lie in the range 0 to 1, where a value of 1 indicates all base colour and no reflection colours.

[fuzzytnth3]

kevin wrote:
"Note: all shaders are described in detail in help files located in the Library Examples/Documentation/LightWorksIntegration folder of your ArchiCAD 9 folder"

I do not have this folder, and we did a full install. Anyone have this? And what elese am I missing as far as documentation?

I had a look and can't see it either

[Steve Jepson]

fuzzytnth3 wrote:
Here's an AC+LW render, took 127 seconds. Fakosity shadows and the lighting to the ceiling is a bit obvious but useable

Usable for what fuzzy? I suppose if you had it printed it on a nice 3-ply quilted tissue paper it could be used for something.

...oh come on, thats got to make you laugh!

Seriously though, I would like to see this test model rendered as well as it can be done with ArchiCAD Lightworks only. I want to see what the best it can do is. So far all I have seen is results from a bunch of people struggling to figure out how to generate even a "usable" rendering. If the best it can do is nice, I will learn how to use it and compare what the best I can do with it is vs. the best I can do with Art*lantis. Then I can make a decision about what is best for me.
If I can't be proud to sell it to my clients, it's not usable.

There are some (no doubt) who can do a better job with one than the other.

There must be someone out there who is willing to show us how well ArchiCAD Lightworks can render this scene.

The reason I want to see this scene is because I have this model. If you want to use a different model, fine, but post it too so we can all use the same model for a good test.

[fuzzytnth3]

Steve wrote:

fuzzytnth3 wrote:
Here's an AC+LW render, took 127 seconds. Fakosity shadows and the lighting to the ceiling is a bit obvious but useable

Usable for what fuzzy? I suppose if you had it printed it on a nice 3-ply quilted tissue paper it could be used for something.

...oh come on, thats got to make you laugh!

Steve wrote:
Seriously though, I would like to see this test model rendered as well as it can be done with ArchiCAD Lightworks only. I want to see what the best it can do is. So far all I have seen is results from a bunch of people struggling to figure out how to generate even a "usable" rendering. If the best it can do is nice, I will learn how to use it and compare what the best I can do with it is vs. the best I can do with Art*lantis. Then I can make a decision about what is best for me.
If I can't be proud to sell it to my clients, it's not usable.
There are some (no doubt) who can do a better job with one than the other.
There must be someone out there who is willing to show us how well ArchiCAD Lightworks can render this scene.
The reason I want to see this scene is because I have this model. If you want to use a different model, fine, but post it too so we can all use the same model for a good test.

I agree, that's the point I'm trying to get to. I do think the way my straight ArchiCAD LW render is looking isn't bad except for the reflected light at the junction of the ceiling and walls. I have attached another rendering but this time without the "fill" ceiling light. It appears that the white material for the walls has perhaps got a bit to much "reflectivity" in it which is making it look a bit artifical.

So I will continue to fiddle

As for the model I'm quite happy to use yours as it is simple but to get a good image obviously is proving a bit harder! But I'm sure it can be done its just taking a while and at this rate Dwight's book will be published which will tell how to do it before I ever get it sussed!

I also suspect that your standards of what you would be proud to show a client are higher than mine. For me working with ArchiCAD only (rather than using a say Artlantis etal) is a great time saver as my boss wants a reasonable image for him to make decisions about his design. A lot of my images actually never make it to the client as the boss will either get a professional illustrator in to do a watercolour or computer rendering. My images will get used for competitions as there isn't usually enough time to get a pro involved.