Nxt - Opinions so far :)

[Sampdoria]

Hello team

 

Wanted to first of all thank everyone for responding quickly to my queries especially Roy and Peter.

 

I started out working on Exteriors on an experimental basis with Ar3 in my other hand for finallized work but I had not expected to generate final work from Nxt so soon, and I have!

 

I must admit I like a lot of new things in Nxt

- The loading model situation is gone! Now the model is there on demand

- I must admit the non-stop render engine seems bizarre but its actually really good!

- I love the save Tif with Alpha option

- I like the environmental settings and options

- The Material Editor is tricky and it will take some work to get the imported AR3 materials to run smoothly but seems positive

 

Some tricky things which will take some getting used

- Setting a Cam in CAD and using that in Nxt was tricky but it a quick learn

- Moving around  with invisible arrows (mouse pointer) is tricky in Walkabout but I think I got the hang of it

- The Plants editor is really tricky and Im still trying to figure out how to resize the plants.

 

Attached is a raw render image.

 

Cheers

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Yes it does-- the sun angles are different.

[Peter Milner]

Yes, reduce the reflectivity. This is particularly noticeable on the doors.

[Sampdoria]

Noted.

[Sampdoria]

Ive noticed, that in the Pathtracer image, and I havent been able to solve it, the mullions/frames for the doors are metallic as per the material designation. The rest of the frames for the fixed panes are also the same material - so why is there a reflection anomaly between the 2? The only thing different is that the door mullions are inset more than the fixed panes.

 

image attached.

 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

There's a couple of possibilities-- you can send the model if you want me to take a look at it.  If you want to try to debug it yourself here are a couple of possibilities:

 

1. You've got coincident surfaces.
2. There's a material assignment by object either to the main object or the sub-objects and the ByLayer assignment doesn't show as a consequence (we see this a lot).  Use the Remove Material from Object button and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Chas / Aug Posekany]

Usually I select the whole model and tell it to remove all materials from within nXt before the rendering process.

If you use a lot of Boolean operations in your modeling. Occasionally objects get tagged as by object for some reason.

Using the remove materials button in nXt takes care of these errors.

 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you haven't figured this out already-- you can use the arrow keys in WalkAbout.  They work similar to the buttons.  Plants can be crudely resized in AutoCAD using the scale command.  They can also be resized within the editor by various means.

[Sampdoria]

Hi Roy, yep noticed that recently. About the Re-Scaling, yes, I've been doing it via ACAD but as you pointed out, its a bit crude, I miss the nice Visual Library with Bark Thicknesses. When I try to rescale Legacy Trees - they appear correct size in CAD but dont increase in Size in the Render. I use a MM Metric scale. Any ideas?

 

Cheers

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

There's an Edit Legacy Plant item under Widgets->Plants.  I believe these cannot be scaled using the AutoCAD command-- you must change the diameter.  (I could be wrong here.)

[Sampdoria]

I must add, where credit is due, that Ive noticed further nice things

 

- I love the fact that I can work on my CAD drawing while its being rendered!

- Im not missing those ar3 artefacts we used to work so hard in modelling stage to avoid!

- Ive run Nxt on my 4GB RAM/Quad Core & the 12GB RAM/6CPU Xeon at office and results are really good on both PCS. Im just wondering how the heck they have got a 32 Bit ACAD 2007 installed on a 64 Bit machine at office. I was wondering if I install the 64 Bit Version of Nxt on a 64 Bit AutoCad 2008 at office, I will need to install the 64 Bit Nxt. Will this render the original 32 Bit Nxt for the existing Autocad 2007 useless?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I haven't tried maintaining both a 32 bit and 64 bit install of nXt on the same machine-- it's an interesting question.  In theory, it should work-- nXt will install to different folders and (I think) registry settings will also be kept separate-- like  I said, I haven't tried it.

 

BTW, Acad 2007 was 32 bit only-- it was always installable as 32 bit software on a 64 bit OS.  2008 was the first year they introduced a 64 bit version-- but most 32-bit  2008 can also be installed on 64 bit OSs.  2009 was the first year they officially required your AutoCAD to match your platform-- although this requirement can be defeated if absolutely necessary.

[Sampdoria]

Lights vs Real World Units.

 

Hi guys, I have been playing with the lights and am wondering, why my Lighting Units are not illuminating according to the stated Wattage.

 

For example : A 100 Watt Spot Light should not splash the a large room with extreme light. After I kept reducing it, I realized 1W setting was enough! I use MM in the metric units as a setup for my CAD.

 

Regards