AutoCAD Architecture Visualization

[#1]

Hi,

I'm confused here. I am working in ACA 2012 within a project with a master drawing. I then want to render my architecture 2012 model and have materials assigned to my wall styles. Under the wall style/materials/ surface rendering/ render material I have chosen a render material.

Where the heck are those render material definitions kept?

If I go to the materials browser in the file I cannot find the chosen render material hence cannot edit it.

Generally I strugggle to standardise surface rendering materials across parts of the project.

Is the render material file specific or can this be part of the syncronisation of the project with a master file?

Working with other colleagues it seems, the render material library is installation specific and stored locally on each machine. This doesn't seem helpful for teamwork and different people working on different machines.

Thanks for your help,

Peter

[#2]

Update:

There must be a bug in the materials browser. I chose a different render material, purged unused, then synchronised with the standards drawing which re-introduced the render material and suddenly it DOES show up. So why not before? I definitely displayed "all" materials, no search criteria.

Odd!

[#3 · Accepted solution]

http://archidigm.com/lounge/architectural_desktop/rendering/AutoCAD_Architecture_Render_Materials_Xr...

I think this will answer your confusion.  The render mat used is the one in the rendering file not it's original in an x-ref.  Unless it's deleted and reimported through reloading.

I work on residential and keep everything in the one file as I render all the time. Much easier but not always possible with larger projects.  I hope you are on 64bit and have plenty of RAM.  Acad is not very efficient with memory and you may need to get close, save and close and reopen before final render to have a chance of rendering without a crash. 

[#4]

...ish. Overriding external settings and only using a local setting is no excuse for applied materials not showing in the materials browser. It looks like Autodesk need to do some homework here. It's no good promoting standard files and projects and then creating a mess with render materials.

A colleague advised to create a custom library of materials and using them to override all that comes in.

[#5]

I guess although the Autocad rendering engine has been significantly upgraded to come in line with Max process (it's a scaled down version of the max renderer) it's not used lots out in the field so is not as solid as it should be.  I am just upgrading from 2009 and before rendering I have to open the materials browser, wait ir open each material and the bitmap and allow it time to reset itself and update to the new material definitions.  Once that is done and I can see all the correct maps in the browser (all my own custom ones - I don't use OOTB) then I am confident they will appear in the rendering.  However on occassion a crash wrecks things and I constantly loose the materials and it renders flat colour. TO fix this I have to change to medium detail and back to presentation where all my mats are attached. This seems to goad it into remembering itself.  There is some other good info on Archidigm site too. There is a command something like updateoldmaterials (not quite correct) but it doesn't seem to do much.  Still have to go in and update each one.  I only have less than 20 mats so it's not a disaster.  Still not good.

Yes rendering and materials is still not rock solid.