tree and people billboards

[Anonymous]

I'm relatively new to archicad, using the AC 8 student version, and I have pretty much no knowledge of gdl. Heres my problem: I need trees and people in my renderings. I followed the tutorial on the archicad online help for using the alpha channel with the picture command and found that although i could get the transperency, the shadow was just a rectangle. I then looked at the tutorial to do it by using a rectangle 'cutout' but i got confused when it said "We need to adapt the Master Script from the Cutout object" and then it had a whole lot of script. i also skimmed over the tutorial for doing it as a cutout but i couldnt work out how to do that seeing as i have already cutout the background in my images in photoshop. Can someone please help me? the deadline for my work is in 10days!!!

[Anonymous]

that problem have been talked already here in the forum, well for me that's a bug, a really bug never solved by graphisoft, like a simple "rotate 3d" never included in archiCAD and i don't know why.....it's so needed.

regards

[Anonymous]

The answer is here, from David Nicholson-cole
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=16620&highlight=tree+shadow#16620
Great tip.

[Karl Ottenstein]

More recently from David, take a look at Chapter 9 in Introduction with Object Making:
http://download.graphisoft.com/ftp/publishing/ac9_help/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

Even though this is part of the 9.0 documentation, you will find it useful in 8.... and you can see our very own Matthew Lohden get masked and manipulated! 😉

Karl

[Anonymous]

thanks a lot for the help, its most appreciated. This is a little off topic, but can anyone here tell me how to make my billboard objects turn to face cameras? i know its in the gdl cookbook but i really am running out of time

[Anonymous]

Hi Neil, try this in the 3D Script;
dx = GLOB_EYEPOS_X - SYMB_POS_X : IF dx = 0 THEN dx = 0.001
dy = GLOB_EYEPOS_Y - SYMB_POS_Y
azi = ATN(dy/dx) ! azimuth

ROTz (-90 + azi - SYMB_ROTANGLE) ! place face to camera
ROTx 90 ! stand up
ADDx -A/2 ! axis rotation

POLY_ 5, ! facette
...
DEL 3
Good luck for the deadline.

[Anonymous]

In addition, better to put "dx, dy and azi" definitions in the Master Script.
Then you can use the same routine for 2D Script.

ROT2 (-90 + azi - SYMB_ROTANGLE)
LINE2 -A/2, 0, A/2, 0
CIRCLE2 0, 0, A/2
DEL 1

[Anonymous]

hi olivier, i dont really know anything about gdl, (im going to learn soon) but i keep getting an error with that script. im assuming im supposed to just paste it below the script i got from your link for the shadows you posted earlier. It seems to have a problem with the line above 'DEL 3'
Thanks a lot for your help, i know im probably trying to do something a little bit beyond me, but im going to have to know these sort of things sooner or later

[Anonymous]

Hi Neil, seems you have less than three transformations of coordonates in your script.
I just made an example for French users, look at it, i hope you will understand.
Replace the image's names by your own, and adjust the pixel's dimensions for each image.
Be sure that your images are loaded with your library.