Legacy materials

[Gene Kim-Eng]

Just ran my first 64bit nxt render on an old model set up in AR4.  Some are rendering correctly and some are not.  All of the objects were assigned materials the same way (by layer), and there are no bitmaps or decals,  I don't think I ever had this issue with 32bit nxt.  Any suggestions what to look for?

Gene

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It's very likely a search path issue.  A 64bit machine is by definition a "virgin"-- it has never had legacy ar installed.  All of the paths to the bitmaps and materials need to be made defined (subdirectories are automatically searched.)

It could also be this issue-- usually not though with a drawing that used to render fine-- but I'd do the procedure anyway-- it only takes a moment.

[Gene Kim-Eng]

So do I just enter the library paths from AR4 into the paths dialog, or library and general?  Seems odd, because there aren't any bitmaps in these materials and I thought the material defs were supposed to be read out of the drawing where they were saved in AR4?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

nXt only has one search path type-- under options.  In your case, since you don't have any bitmaps, you only need to enter enough info for it to find the libraries.

Materials are embedded (by default) in nXt.  In ar4 they were always linked-- i.e. stored externally.

[Gene Kim-Eng]

Solved, I think.  It was the "usually not" issue, the old model opened with globals attached.

The other issue is that I had to explode a block insertion to get the material assignment for the inserted object to render.

[akinlolu olugboji]

Next time right click on the offending block and use the block editor, to remove material attached by objects to layers, then save the block. that way you still have your block intact and the materials assigned and rendered properly.

[Gene Kim-Eng]

Everything is rendering correctly now except for several legacy plants created in AR4 whose materials are not rendering.  Unfortunately, I can't edit the block because that causes it to lose its "plantness" and become just a collection of lines. 

[akinlolu olugboji]

For the plants ensure that the paths to the bitmaps use for the plants are included Nxt's options as in my case I use the AR3 legacy plants.

That way Nxt know where the maps are to render them, correctly.

[Gene Kim-Eng]

Oops.  Nevermind.  Apparently Roy fixed it while I wasn't keeping my builds up to date.  Installed 284 today and all the plant materials are rendering now.