Big time Renders

[Sampdoria]

I was asked to do the dreaded Aerial scenario of a housing scheme.

 

As usual I trimmed down my building block, wblocked it and placed it onto a mass modelled scene where I had done the Roads, Massing, Tonnes of Landscaping, etc the previous day.

 

With 2 building blocks, Nxt was rendering well and a very impressive Pathtracer Render look.

 

I decided to just go for all 8.

 

So I copy and pasted all which meant 8 Building Blocks (Each Block is 3 Buildings).

 

- The usual bug of many components already Blocked in the Building Block lost their Assignments.

- When I Rendered with 8 Building Blocks (Not exploded), The file has rendered amazingly well at 110 Passes in 3 Hours. (3000x2100)

- When I exploded the Blocks in order to Remove Assignments from Block (in order to get the Assignments by Layers re-enacted) - the File explodes to 180Mb. Then of course, it crashes when trying to render.

 

At the Moment Im working by rendering in Components and assembly in Pshop.

 

Any Idea if Im missing a trick on this Loss of Material issue?

 

Attached is a Works in Progress with FX, As you can see, some blocks are still in the progress of being added.

 

Most of all, Im really happy with what NXT is giving us here. Even 3DMax would not be Stable handling something like this.

 

Birdman

[Ros. Riha]

instead of inserting blocks I would use Xrefs - that way you should not lose your material assignments and also the whole scene would be easier to manage.

Remember: you have to create and assign materials in individual files and then you edit them in the final scene!

[Sampdoria]

Thanks for the invaluable tip, I havent used XREFs in ages, I will try it now.

[Sampdoria]

Could you give me a link to basic X-Ref knowledg if available. 

 

regards

[Ros. Riha]

put all files into one folder.

type "xref" - select a building.dwg and insert it into massmodel.dwg the same way as if you inserted a block.

For more info see autocad help

[Sampdoria]

Thanks buddy!

[Wayne Williamson]

Another thought here, it appears that your material definitions that are by object are in all the blocks. If so you could simply edit 1 instance of the block. Select it right click on it scroll down to block editor. A few seconds to a minute & you will be looking at that block in plan view in an editable format (you may have to tell the computer yes once to get here - just take the default responce if so). Select all go to properties and change the materials definition to by layer. Save changes and you are done.

 

This may render faster than x-refs. If you have a little time compare. A little time on the front end may save a lot of time on the back end.

 

Good Luck

[Sampdoria]

Thanks Wayne, I will check out this method after delivering the final, I decided to go the (quicker for now) Partial Render and composition method.

 

regards

 

 

[Chas / Aug Posekany]

I think the issue is simpler than everyone is making it. Just edit the block by using the block editor or opening the file that was blocked out. Open Nxt use the remove all materials buttong in the materials dialog. update the main drawing and render on,...........

Using the blocks will be benificial when the instancing kicks in at quantity 5.

[Ros. Riha]

"This may render faster than x-refs."

As discussed elsewhere, I had an opinion that it does not matter whether is it xref or block - Am I mistaken?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

You're correct.  nXt treats xrefs and blocks the same way internally.

[Sampdoria]

Hi Wayne, on another Project I faced this same problem again. XREF method did not work as updated blocks didnt have their assignments changed in the core drawing.

 

I tried the Block Editor and it worked!!!!

 

Simple and clean!

 

Thanks a lot. I think people should note this thread because it is a critical one! :D

[akinlolu olugboji]

Check the visretain variable and be sure it is set to zero and not the default 1, for the ref files to update.

When you similarly named layers but with diffrent material assignment X-ref is the way to go.