.lwa?????

[Anonymous]

dear friends iam a new user , and iam very happy cos i found this great community ,i tried to go to ACUE but unfortunantly i couldnt get a visa cos i live in iraq and iam kurd , my Q is how can I use a file with .lwa extention in archicad ?????? i mean light work application
thanks dwight for your great lessons and i hope i had a way to buy your book but you know ?!?!?!
assitant prof. architect
hana farhadi

[Anonymous]

Hellow Vian

Welcome to this great site.

I did not clearly understand what you wanted to know but let me assist you with this:

1. If you mean 'how to install .lwa files (probably downloaded from Lightworks user site): just copy the files to the "...\Program Files\Graphisoft\ArchiCAD 9\Add-Ons\Visualisation\smdata\archives" folder and you are done.

2. If you mean 'how to apply/use .lwa materials in your models: you have to make sure that you are using the lightworks rendering engine, change materials characteristics by going to 'Options (menu)'- 'Attribute settings' and select 'materials'. In the 'Material settings' dialog select material you want to edit its properties and click 'Load settings from archives..'button. In the 'Load settings' dialog click the button below the 'Choose archive' text - if you installed your .lwa as explained in no. 1 above you will see all the archives you have and therefore you can choose .lwa archive file as required

Hope this is clear and will help you, if not just say

All the best and may God bring peace to your beloved country soon - Amen

[Dwight]

To use these files, a new ArchiCAD material must be created.

.lwa files are material descriptions and scenery descriptions provided by LightWorks on their web site and through preloaded .lwa files.

The LightWorks web site has many archive files, only a small number of which are active in ArchiCAD for varied reasons.

Downloaded .lwa must be placed with the other .lwa files on your drive.

With the Material dialog open, duplicate a likely material and click "Load Settings from Archive."

Select a new material description.

Or am I missing your larger question?

[Anonymous]

thanks to both of you it was really useful i hope to get replies every time , as i think thank you verrrrry much
yours
hana

[Anonymous]

Good to hear that it helped you.

Actually we are all here to learn and help each other

Ciao

[toofuerte]

This post is great it showed me how to use the .lwa files from Lightworks. but I am not able to use like the paint downloads from Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore. I put them in the folder and then go to add to a material but nothing comes up to allow me to choose a material type..... I would like to be able to use these paint materials to get the colors right and be able to choose them correctly for clients.

Is this one of the files that are not available in Archicad?

[Dwight]

1: Most proprietary .lwa files are not enabled in LightWorks within ArchiCAD because of a licensing issue. We can edit lwa files - there is no way to lock the data.

2: It's a sham to expect that these colors would give you accurate results in any event. The main reason for using the proprietary .lwa for, say, a paint surface is its sheen - a subtle effect that typical ArchiCAD renderings really don't address.

[toofuerte]

1: Most proprietary .lwa files are not enabled in LightWorks within ArchiCAD because of a licensing issue. We can edit lwa files - there is no way to lock the data.

SO WE CAN EDIT THEM AND THEN USE THEM? HOW DO WE DO THAT?
I KNOW THE COLORS ARE RELATIVE TO MONITOR AND COMPUTER CAPABILITIES AND SETTINGS BUT THE SHEEN AND SO FORTH WOULD BE GREAT TO BE ABLE TO USE RATHER THAN TRIAL AND ERROR FOR HOURS TO GET A GREAT MATERIAL.

THANKS

[TomWaltz]

You edit them through the Archicad Materials Settings menu, (Options > Attribute Settings >Materials.)

You cannot globally edit the file, only the settings within your current project.

[Anonymous]

But this is what is so frustating. You can only edit them if they are a file that is "legal" to use with AC. If they are not, you can not select them to edit them. Or...... am I missing something. Even further, I don't remember how, or if, we know that they are "legal" to use.