Thomo

Yes no problem. You could just use it as a rendering slave too.

Sounds good Tomas, don't keep us in suspense.....we can model badly with no light leaks! Sounds to good to be true? Can't wait.

"The modelling program issue is bugging me. I want something that can do the precision of ArchiCAD for building the walls, cabinets etc as well as the organic work of couches, seat cushions etc. I have see plenty of FormZ stuff over the years but I thought it only did hard modelling (like ArchiCAD)? I'll have a better look at it!" Form Z has very good drafting / documentation built in. I know quite a few companies that use it exclusively for Architectural documentation. Archicad and Revit which is similar, a great for large companies for collaborative teamwork. I find both of them lack any real "free form" modelling at all. FormZ will model anything very easily and intuitively. If price is a barrier (Archicad has to one of the most expensive around isn't it?) you could try Bonzai, FormZ's little brother or even Sketchup, it's free. All of these are much better 3D modellers than Archicad. I haven't tried it but you could even try exporting you Archicad models through sketchup. There's always okino polytrans as well.

Thanks for the comments. Yes the dining table is wrong in scale and the stone wall is a work in progress as it is a particular laser cut, acid etched stone and is proving a bit tricky to get right. Leather is not right yet either, thanks for the link. Coffee table is a particular piece and has that thin look. I'll put the door frame material up on the link if you want to have a look. The light leaks were mainly coming from walls and floors running through intersections and not being snapped to faces, so not actually gaps. Using the re-shape tool in FormZ has solved most problems. Lights are usually 'on' in Architectural photography regardless, as per the client brief photo. Helps with the over / under exposure of shooting inside to outside and gives a warmer feel to the interiors.

Yeah sorry, I should have explained. No it is what the client sent as an example photo. I was trying to emulate the style of those "client brief" images for the initial bathroom and living room images. Still a way to go yet though. It was also about using photons and getting control over the lighting in EIAS. These take a minute or so to render once the photons are setup. Comes back to the modelling being very important, which I never fully appreciated. Apologies for any confusion.

Thought I'd post some fairly recent interior work with EIAS V9.1. I steered away from photons for a while due to light leaks driving me crazy. Now using FormZ V7 with smooth modelling and proper snapping and the new re-shape tool, light leaks are a thing of the past! These are still in progress but any opinions or tips would be appreciated. Thanks https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ak5jzvzqfg10clv/AAA9hMBA6e14WNhV9Kf5HryPa

Yep, that's very impressive!

Nice work! I like the bright white on white effect, suits the images well.

Renderamma doesn't seem to pick-up where it left off after a crash as it used to. It also states in the manual that it does and I remeber it always did before. Is this no longer a feature of Rama or am I missing something? Thanks

I don't know about Oren Nayer but I would normally use a reflection map (then add reflection blur as well) and slight bump map, maybe a specular map. All greyscale maps. Fine noise and motion blurred noise maps usually. "overlay" with strength slider adjustments work well. I'm really not sure if the spec map only controls the "amount" slider or everything. I often just use a falloff of 0.4 - 0.6, make a big specular with "size" and adjust amount accordingly, to skip the map. Playing with diffuse with the other things mentioned can help a bit. I've got quite a few aluminium / anodized materials setup if you email me I'll send 'em over. Hope that helps.

Hi Tomas, Ok thanks. FYI is says in the manual that is does change the path, i'm sure it used to. :-) Would be a good feature. Thanks again.

When I "collect files" shouldn't the new project file be mapped to the collected folders? Currently when I open the new collected project it is still mapped to the old folder locations. I have tried removing and changing the path in EIAS preferences, doesn't seem to do anything to help. I want to change a whole bunch of textures but don't want to change them for each group manually in Animator. I could re-name the original texture folder temporarily to another name which will "force" EIAS to find the new collected folders but I can't because I have a whole bunch of renders accessing the folder. What do I do please?

Nup, it is not a Mac PC issue. I have just changed to PC recently and I ran EC2 no problem from a Mac for a long time. It is a network setting on your side if it does not even connect. IE "waiting". However RDC from your Mac can see the EC2! So then it comes down to RAMA and your network settings to send. Try setting to Auto everything in system settings / network on your Mac. IP (auto detect, etc.) instead of manual config. I reckon it is the IP address you are inputting to RAMA master. I used 4 of these today one IP was 54.187.220.247:1616 that I input into RAMA Master. The "script" is the "download RDC file" you are prompted for when you "connect" to your running instance. Always close and relaunch RAMA master after changes. I use this on EC2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Base I understand frustration. Nice hardware I have found gets outdated really quickly and also heavy to carry!! EC2 does work, I hope I can help but I have limited knowledge. Keep in touch

It should just work right away, none of that needed. I assume you are using RDC to control the slave. Are you seeing "aquired by a master" on the slave on the EC2? Or does it just say "waiting". Are you just getting the network error on your master with no response at the slave? This is important to solve. I will also assume you are downloading the "script" to launch the RDC client from EC2 (Amazon). Also. If the RAMA slave is launced and displaying on the top bar, 217.123.45.16 (for example), that is not the IP for RAMA to connect. You must use the IP from the EDC public list in your instance list for input into the RAMA master. It is also the same IP for and on the RDC top bar of the window. The IP to connect via RAMA will be completely different than that displayed on the slave itself, maybe something like 154.125.13.54 (for example). It confused me at first (easily done) since I had always output to my local network slaves and set their IP's myself. (Sorry if this is obvious, I'm just not a network person) Make sure you are using Rama master (9.1) on your computer and Slave (9.1) on the EC2. they must be the same. Perhaps even go to the point of re-dowloading to both master and slave a re-installing. And then of course installing the ALL 4 files inside the https://dl.dropboxus..._Package_91.zip Having said that I have no idea if Win server 2012 or 2008 will work. Tomas suggested that it must be 64 bit Win 7 Ultimate (I use this). Outside of that I just don't know. Never tried. My set up Win7 Ultimate on Master 64 bit. Slaves on EC2 64 bit as well. Sorry but never used Win server. Let's know how you go. Best

Hi Paul, Yes I use Amazon EC2 regularly with great success. As Tom said You need to install all 4 files inside the https://dl.dropboxus..._Package_91.zip otherwise it will not run and you will need Windows 7 64 Ultimate at least. I have also had trouble if quicktime is not installed but I think this is a different error. Turn off windows firewall as well. Good luck

Yep that combined with object doctor in FormZ!

In V9.1 there is an option to export as a "validated fac". So if you were modelling in FormZ and had exported your model as .fac to EIAS, you could then make changes in FormZ and export a new .fac file with the same name (ie: overwrite the old one). Then from EIAS you export your old model as validated .fac and it will replace it with the new one (and keep a copy of the old one on file) with textures and material in place. Hope that helps.

BTW. FMZ V7(?) as of 2014 solved fac export. Even great for "validated fac". Settings are particular but it is fixed!

Hi Does anyone else run RAMA from a windows based EIAS. I can run slaves without fault from a Mac to any Win machine. But I have specific problems with a Win master machine to Win slaves. (crashing and loss of connections to name just 2) Please let me know if for V9.1 anyone else is having success / problems. Thanks

And if it persists. Turn off Windows Update.

Download and install BOTH 32 and 64 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x86_x64)_EIAS 9.1 From the download area. All should be good after.

Ahh, well that will make a big difference for your trees. So set the diffuse maps to be rgb only, copy paste intot he clip tab and set as alpha only. Go to transparency tab and set raytrace and raytrace option then drop down tab from layers to irradiance. Post a link to the collected project after you set all these up if you like, I can then have a look at lighting the scene for very fast rendering. All the best,

Hi Vic, I wasn't refrering to transparency. Just that if you have a clip map on an object, set within the transparency tab, raytrace and irradiance. This will speed up the clipping of your tree leaves etc. I'm not sure if this is what you did or not but if you followed Tom's tutorial I assume you did. Not sure what your lighting set up is now, but that could probably be changed to render very fast, trees and all. Good luck!

Yes just now actually!. First thing is to setup your clip maps on the pergola and trees, well all clip maps. Use RGB only in the diffuse channel and alpha only in the clip channel. But you then should set in the "transparency tab" your transparency to raytrace and then in raytrace options set the GI cache to irradiance, not layers. I'll leave the tech reasons up to others. But this will speed up clipping enormously! See how that goes and let us know. I have another idea but this is the first thing that should speed up frame render. If you could do that and then re-send/post the file with those changes I am happy to look further to speed up the renders. If you start to get black fringes around leaves etc. "turn up" the raytrace recursion in the render tab. It is set as 10 by default. I always try 5 first with sometimes no noticeable difference, that will also speed things up. But if you get black fringes to your clip maps happening up it to 10, 15, 20. After that it gets into long renders so maybe change the model. More about that later if need be. Best to you,

Thanks Tomas. I know you are busy. Thanks again.