AccuRender Studio

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Here's the latest version of the new stuff.  If you're interested, try it at your leisure and let me know what you find.  It's a work in progress, so please be kind.  We'll likely have some bugs and certainly have some missing features.

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Some highlights:

Standalone renderer which accepts input from Rhino, Sketchup, Obj and FBX.

Plugins for AutoCAD and other CAD applications.

Online material and plant libs.

Single advanced engine with fewer compromises and biases.  Similar to current hybrid engine but noisier.

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AccuRender Studio is 64 bit only and will not run on 32 bit machines.
On older machines, the installation may require updating .net versions which can be a lengthy process. Windows 10 is recommended (but not required.)

The AutoCAD plugin can be run with or without a recent version of nXtRender loaded.
If you run the plugin without nXtRender, you will get only AutoCAD information in the ArScene file. If nXtRender is loaded some conversion of nXt information will occur.

Instructions:

1. Download and install AccuRender Studio.
2. Open an AutoCAD session.
3. Load the correct .net AccuRender Studio plugin for your version of AutoCAD by typing           netload at the command prompt (not appload!) and navigating to

    c:\program files\AccuRender Studio.  The plugin versions are:

    ArStudioAcadPluginR19.dll (AutoCAD 2013-2014)

    ArStudioAcadPluginR20.dll (AutoCAD 2015-2016)
    ArStudioAcadPluginR21.dll (AutoCAD 2017)
    ArStudioAcadPluginR22.dll (AutoCAD 2018)

    You should only have to do this step once. The file will be demand loaded after that.

4. Optionally load nXtRender (by typing nxt at the command line, for example).
5. Type arstudio at the command line to run the command. It will inform you if the correct         version of nXtRender was found. If not, an update from RenderPlus may be required.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Thanks,

I'll look into mirroring...

There is a ground plane in the core product-- looks like I left it off of the UI for AutoCAD.  I'll add it.

You should be able to edit the decal in the Material Editor-- no color masking in the product.  Alpha transparency only.

[Peter Milner]

That's a shame. Colour masking is extremely useful.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It's pretty easy to turn a color to alpha in photoshop or eq.  Then you'll have a decal that works in any product.

[Peter Milner]

Yes, it's just a bit of a pain with all the legacy data I'm working with - thousands of CAD blocks that have decals with colour masking.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I'm happy to write a tool that converts those...

[Peter Milner]

That's very kind of you to offer, though it would still mean opening thousands of CAD blocks and saving them in the new format.

Just so that I understand the process, how would I convert this jpg file to contain the correct alpha channel?

and how do I set it in AR Studio to work like this?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you mean, "how would a conversion program work?", the answer is any way we like.  We could run an automatic conversion on all the legacy decals in the model and replace color with alpha masking.  We could also create an external conversion tool to read a set of files and add alpha channel based on a certain colors.  The resulting files would be pngs with alpha.

[Peter Milner]

My question was more basic than that. I don't actually know how to create and use alpha channels. So in AR Studio, how do I achieve this result using a decal?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Ah-- sorry, I didn't read your message carefully.  I downloaded your jpg and used Gimp to create a png with alpha.  I selected the white using a magic wand selection tool, added an alpha channel to the image, and used their "threshhold alpha" command to change the selection to alpha.  The process is similar in Photoshop, although you'll have to google the details of turning colors to Alpha.  In Gimp it took a few seconds.  The resulting decal is more industry standard, it should work in any product, not just ArStudio.

The ArDecal command can be used in ArStudio to attach the decal.  That's it.  If you look in the Material Editor you'll see that an Opacity map is automatically created for you, with the Alpha Usage set to Data.

The converted legacy decals are not quite working right-- I'm looking at that today.

[Peter Milner]

I tried closing down AutoCAD, restarting it, opening the drawing, loading nXt and AR Studio and it still didn't show up.

However, it did suddenly appear when I started the interactive render.

[Peter Milner]

Well, I've tried what you suggested, but I still can't get it to work. I'll send you the model and the decal. Maybe I've got something wrong.

[Peter Milner]

I've tried adding a decal using ARDECAL. It shows the mapping, but doesn't show up in the materials pallette.