AccuRender Studio for AutoCAD

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

We're up to Build 0082.  This new major release of the AccuRender and nXt product line now includes a plugin that works entirely within AutoCAD just like previous versions. It's got a ton of new features and is available for free for a while.  Take a look and let me know what you think.

See the Download->AccuRender Studio menu items for more details.

[Peter Milner]

Is there going to be the option of using ies files?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I think so-- that would also work for this.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I posted 0086, which changes the light distribution somewhat-- so that 25% of the light is distributed diffusely (beam angle = 120) and the rest at the specified beam angle.  The results seem to be pretty good-- I'll make this user configurable if I can figure out how to explain it to people.

[Peter Milner]

Call it "Diffuse Glow" and make it a tick box on the light setup dialog box.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I forgot to mention window glass properties that will negatively impact performance--

• Not using the Thin checkbox and modeling glass as a solid
• Using a bump map of any kind
• Using surface roughness

It's fine to do all of the above when you need to.  They all work, they just take a little longer to converge.

[Peter Milner]

The Farm is now working.

This one ran for 40 minutes (80 cores).

Will there be an option for running renderings for a certain number of passes rather than by time?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Nice. 

I can certainly add passes as a constraint.  I did this to keep it consistent with the cloud stuff, where I won't be adding passes since everyone is billed by time. Passes, BTW, are called Samples per Pixel in the Image Editor.  You can check that number to see what's reasonable (which may be significantly different than past engines.)

Check out a product called Neat Image when you get a chance.  It does a really nice job removing residual noise. 

[Peter Milner]

Something has gone wrong with the direction of lights.

I set it to 0,0,-1 and it keeps reverting to 0,0,0 and no light is being emitted from the source.

[Peter Milner]

Okay, I've changed it to "Down" which seems to work.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I'll check into this. I may ask for additional steps to recreate.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

0087 should take care of this.

[Peter Milner]

Here's a direct comparison between nXt and Studio with all the correct settings.

nXt ran for just over 22 minutes with 2000 passes.

Studio ran for 23 minutes with 6443 samples.

My two concerns are: the graininess of the image and the jagged outline round the lights.