AutoCAD Architecture Visualization

[#1]

I have spent the last 5 years building a custom material library. I have collected textures from many sites.  I organized all of my materials into folders such as Stone- rustic; Stone Smooth; siding; roofing; carpeting etc etc.  I set up folder locations on my C drive and reference them directly from the Texture maps search path under Options/Files.  (I have to log in over thirty folder locations every upgrade, but it is worth it.)  Whenever I need to find a texture it is right were I want it.

  Now ACA 2011 has a whole new system.  I tried the old method of logging in all my folders in the Texture Map Search Path under c:\program files\common files\autodesk shared\materials2011\assetlibrary_base.fbm\1\mats and it resulted in crashing.  What should I do now?

 How do I get the new material brouser to find the legacy materials?

What about all of the custom styles I created? walls, slabs ect.   Everytime I insert one of these styles, will I need to manually search for the texture? 

How will the style know where the origianl material is located?

Are the new material styles better? More realistic? easier to use?

Why does each new material have an associate .png file.  I believe this is the file used on the display and the .jpg file is the one printed for higher performance.   Do I need to create a .png  file for every imported texture?

This is going to kill my productivity.  I can't find simple instructions to make this an easy transition.  Any help on this out there?

[#2]

I'm with you archbaech.  I have rendered inside ADT/ACA since 2005 and since the change in 07 the continued changes make the whole product upgrade unusable waste of time.  I went from 06 to 09 and am waiting for them to sort out all the issues with memory running out in 10/11.

Odin Cary did some review of the new system.  read it here

http://www.archidigm.com/lounge/architectural_desktop/rendering/AutoCAD_Architecture_2011_Rendering_...

Yes your productivity is dead !! I hope you are using 64bit !

Some of the basic pathing issues are woefully handled. The upgrade path is... well... what upgrade path?

That they just expect us to start again each time they change everything!!  Bottom line is that I don't believe you can follow their system and not bring your system (memory) to it's knees.  

Look out for the "Sorry I've (autocad) run out of memory.  Can I just shut down and loose all your work"

Make sure you have autosave set to low mins.

If it's helpful I've been blogging on my experience with keeping material numbers low so it doesn't crash (this is in 2009) and it's working really well (and it's not the OOTB system !!)

http://ausaca.blogspot.com/search/label/materials

Sorr I can't help much, only commiserate.

cheers

[#3]

    I too am having blue screen of death incidents. And unfortunately , I am not at 64 bit. (regrets, probably to my demise, no bucks for new hardware and operating systems. Money doesn't grow on trees in 2010.  

    It has taken me years to get a comfortable, customized set-up and ACA 2009 is finally running very well.  I have been working for two weeks just to get ACA 2011 loaded and operating properly and have been told it is my operating system that is not up to snuff,  even though it is within specs.  I went back to using ACA 2009.  I just don't have the time to mess with all of these inconsiderate changes. Who is doing this to us?

  I read the article from Odin Cary, Thank you for the links!  They were very enlightening.  I am convinced now that ACA 2011 is the kiss of death to my business and is not worth the risk to run it. Obviously the goal is to make us all so frustrated that we will just abandon ACA and buy Revit.  I plan on asking for my money back and I will just run ACA2009 until it dies.  I can't use this new program and I'm not convinced there are any outstanding advantages to make it worth my while. I have no desire to spend all my precious time trouble shooting it, because, in essence, we then become Autodesks unpaid software designers and I've yet to receive my stipend.  

Thanks for sharing your frustrations ntwllery.