AR3 to Nxt

[Sampdoria]

Hello, dont know how many of the old guard from the AR3 NG are here but around 10 years back I started my professional life in a firm with Ar3.

 

Now post recession, I would like to see if Nxt can fill the void in a new firm.

 

So here are my first questions

 

1) I dloaded the trial version but I cant get it to work both on the office PC (Win 7 64 Bit Acad 2007) or home pc (Vista 64 Bit Acad 2008). I tried even the manual add but I get the message (Ünable to load XXX file). Any idea whats up?

 

2) Migrating Ar3 Libraries

The only way I was able to make reasonably nice looking renders was primarily by creating my own libraries and textures. Is it easy to migrate the years of effort into Nxt?

 

Thats it for now.

 

Cheers

 

Birdman

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

My best guess is that you're trying to run the 64 bit version w/ 32 bit AutoCAD.  These two versions must match, regardless of whether the machine is 64 bit or not.  

AutoCAD 2007 is certainly 32 bit.  AutoCAD 2008 was the last 32 bit version that is officially permitted to run on 64 bit Windows-- so it's likely you've got a 32 bit version of that as well.  To see if you're, in fact, running 32 bit AutoCAD, start AutoCAD and run Task Manager.  In the Processes tab, look for Acad.exe.  If it's got a *32 after the name it's 32 bit and you'll need the 32 bit version of nXt.  In this scenario AutoCAD and nXt will not benefit from the 64 bit Windows-- you'll need to upgrade AutoCAD for that.

Here's an article on converting legacy material libraries.  Pay careful attention to the Additional Notes.

[Sampdoria]

Thanks for the prompt reply Roy. Unfortunately there is no 32 Bit Nxt for Dload. Is there some other link where the 32 Bit demo version might be available apart from the official page where Ive been?

 

cheers

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It should be pretty straightforward:

1. From the download page select either the stable or "experimental" version (it doesn't really matter).  
2. Enter your email address and select Next.
3. On the next screen select "32 bit Windows" and click Next
4. If your download doesn't start automatically, click on the download link.

Let me know if you're experiencing something different.  We've got plenty of users with a setup similar to yours.

 

[Sampdoria]

Hi Roy

I was able to install and play around a bit with Nxt. Seems neat so far. As a technical question, would I be getting more concise and detailed documentation on the Software usage like in AR3? (Remember that neat booklet)

 

Cheers

[George Ioannidis]

Welcome back Kamal, nice to see you here.

[Kevin Lockwood]

Welcome back for sure!!

Can't wait to see your stuff using nXt!

[Sampdoria]

Hello George and Keving, even saw Milner around. Is funny man Jeff "Abscissa" around too? :)

 

Thanks Roy, its a mistake on my side, I should have remembered the 32/64 option bit while dloading.

 

Cheers

[Kevin Lockwood]

Jeff lurks here, but is still active on the ar3 ng. Getting lonely over there.

[George Ioannidis]

It's obvious many professional renderers are still doing their job using AR3 well and fast. It would be nice to see how many of the former AR3 users are now on nXt and how many of them are still ver. 3 loyal.

[akinlolu olugboji]

AR4 I did not dwell on but spend many a years with Ar3 started with it about ten years ago and was with for about more than half of that.

[Aleksander Nowacki]

I started with AR1 in 1993, then 2, 3 and 4. I'm very familiar with 4 and I would still work on it, but I'm forced to switch to nXt due to the incompatibility of Ar4 with Win7.

I still got big expectations about nXt and there's some great funcions in it (especially Path Tracer), but it also has a lot of annoying things Roy doesn't want to fix!!!

[Chas / Aug Posekany]

Keep your head down Birdman.

 

Chas/Aug