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Putting the "3D" in "Civil 3D"... (rendering)

16 REPLIES 16
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Message 1 of 17
Anonymous
2728 Views, 16 Replies

Putting the "3D" in "Civil 3D"... (rendering)


Now this is what I'm talking about (see
attach)!  I finally figure out what I needed to know to get rendering to
work.  This only took about 20 minutes after that knowledge was
acquired.  That said, we have been modeling our surfaces with 3Dplines (now
called Featurelines) for years so the rest was just adding the
material masks and tree blocks.

 

I can see we need to get the multi-view block for
trees to be our standard landscaping symbols for everyday plans so when we need
to render, no problem.  Flip the drawing into 3D view, using
the appropriate commands is key
, add a distant light source, add
a big square to the background and apply my sky material; done.  While
we're at it; might as well have the PC chunk away over the weekend to make a
video.  🙂  .... nice, I like!
16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
Feckit
in reply to: Anonymous

Mark

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, however I thought I'd reply to your post so you know another side of the story.

I have attached 3 fairly basic images, in three seperate posts, rendered from a couple of C3D models that I have compiled.

The first is a demountable building. This image took 9 hours to render, teetered on the edge of my computers memory, 3gb, and for all money this render looked like crashing and left me with no finger nails.

The other 2, based on the same model was fraught with a litany of unhandled access violations, audits and drawing recoveries, I'm how down to the quick.

I used to offer rendering models as a commercial services to my clients, I now no longer do that because I can never know which one's are commercially viable and which aren't. I've found in particular that when you start applying detailed materials the time taken for the rendering process is horrendous, not to mention the running low on memory problems.

Kind Regards
Feckit

P.S. Autodesk, could you please add "unhandled" into your dictionary for the spell check, thanks.
Message 3 of 17
Feckit
in reply to: Anonymous

Here's the second
Message 4 of 17
Feckit
in reply to: Anonymous

and the third
Message 5 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


Nice work!  We will see how it goes. 
Maybe we will have less issue because I'm looking for quick and dirty to just
convey design concepts.  Nothing near as detailed as your images.  But
very nice indeed!


--
Mark Spatz, P.E.
C3D 2009, SP2.1 \ Vault 09
Dell Laptop,
2GHtz, 4Gb Ram, XP SP2

 

Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc.
 [ BUILDING
RELATIONSHIPS.
         DESIGNING
SOLUTIONS. ]
Message 6 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


Question, did you use a sphere for the sky or
a flat face wall?  I have seen presentation that folks have said make a
sphere and apply the sky materials but with a little effort I didn't get that to
work.  I'm thinking since a sphere has sold properties (fill in the center)
that is why I had an issue and I might need to look for another solid model type
(spherical with hollow center).

 

For the image I uploaded I just used a
wall.
Message 7 of 17
mike.barkasi
in reply to: Anonymous

Matt..

While I am not so familiar with C3d rendering.. It is my experience with Microstation to use a cylinder or what we call an environmental map.

If using a cylinder there is the potential for the image to show a seam area unless the sky image has been prepared to match at the ends. In such a case you can rotate the cylinder to avoid the seam when setting up the view perspective (Do you have view perspective?)

Attached is a civil example prepared using Microstation, Approximate rendering time was < 2 hrs.

Mike Barkasi
Bentley Civil
Message 8 of 17
davevoith
in reply to: Anonymous

That is why network rendering is key. Especially with 3DS Max. You can shave off a lot of time if you use empty computers in the office to help render.
Message 9 of 17
MapleWalnutIceCream
in reply to: Anonymous

I've been playing in my "free time" with one of our jobs. Sure is fun.
Message 10 of 17
MapleWalnutIceCream
in reply to: Anonymous

and one more
Message 11 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


You know, any platform joking aside, that's a
very nice rendering, Mike.

 



style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Matt..
While I am not so familiar with C3d rendering.. It is my experience with
Microstation to use a cylinder or what we call an environmental map. If using
a cylinder there is the potential for the image to show a seam area unless the
sky image has been prepared to match at the ends. In such a case you can
rotate the cylinder to avoid the seam when setting up the view perspective (Do
you have view perspective?) Attached is a civil example prepared using
Microstation, Approximate rendering time was < 2 hrs. Mike Barkasi Bentley
Civil
Message 12 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


That looks nice. I wish that the smoothing factor
(for renderings) could be bumped up. I typically have my contour smoothing set
all the way up for my render style. A couple of questions for you, if you don't
mind:

 

1. How did you put your striping on? I'm guessing
that its a polyline that is draped onto the surface and drawordered
up?

2. What render styles are you using? Maybe its
cause you have a better graphics card than me, but that looks better than what I
can get.

3. What did you do to get that screen shot? Did you
use the old AutoCAD 'Render' command, or is that a screen shot?

 

Looking to improve my renderings. I wish that
Impression would do 3D, then I'd be a 'happy camper'.



style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
I've
been playing in my "free time" with one of our jobs. Sure is fun.
Message 13 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


I would think adding the Smoothing edit to the
surface definition would help making things more
smooth.
Message 14 of 17
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous


My experience is that it does not smooth enough for
renderings. In renderings you are not really after the 'exactness' of every
triangle. I haven't played with simplfy surface to see if that might help.
Something to do when I'm bored! 🙂


--
Rick Graham
Twitter: C3D_RickGraham


style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"
dir=ltr>


I would think adding the Smoothing edit to the
surface definition would help making things more
smooth.
Message 15 of 17
MapleWalnutIceCream
in reply to: Anonymous

Rick,
You can turn on a smooth surface. 3dconfig->Manuel Tune->Click smooth faces by default. I just had it off because it tends to smooth the pond so much that I can't see the berm or shelf definitions as i would like. I usually touch up the photo with a photoshop like program to blur things or smooth.
The striping sucks. Everyone of those is a grading infill on "striping" surface I made. The polyline thing doesn't show when you render. At least I can't get it to work. Fun times, click, click, click...
I think I have set my render style to the default high. I turned the sun on and set the time to show shadows. Those aren't screen shots they are images from the render. I have an ATI Fire GL 3350 video Card if that helps any.
Maybe I can make the company some money with this someday. No takers yet. 🙂

What's with "contour smoothing set all the way up for my render style." is there a setting for this?

i attached an older image with the smoothing I was talking about before on. It has been touched up, but you can see how different the pond looks. Edited by: MapleWalnutIceCream on May 5, 2009 12:37 PM
Message 16 of 17
AllenJessup
in reply to: Anonymous

I haven't had the opportunity to play with this in C3D but from my experience with LDT I'd try using a Grided surface style with a dense grid. In LDT it gave me much better renderings than triangles.

Allen


Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 17 of 17
AllenJessup
in reply to: Anonymous

Remember to turn the grid on and the triangles off in the Model view direction.

Allen


Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

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