S. Houtzager

Comments welcomed. You might have seen this before. http://intuitionusa.com/Popups_Renderings/weightwatchers.html

That doesn't adjust the diffuse color settings. Just have to reapply materials. Would save a lot of time if EI would read the diffuse settings in the FormZ file intact.

Hey has anyone seen this? When using the brick 3d shader it just renders the object black. The shader preview goes to black when opening it the second time. Be nice to have this shader even though it is slower than maps. This is using mac os 10.9 and EI 9.1 The bricks 2d shader works but is not as good because you can only work on one face of an object. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/bricks.png

When I export from FormZ via the fact file, each material has a mask setting in the diffuse tab. Also, the color is correct in the camera window but not in the diffuse settings. Haven't found a way to globally change the mask settings. Anyone else noticed this? The texture mapping is working much better since 9.1. I will show this to FormZ as well. This is using FormZ 7.3 on a Mac using 10.9 This same thing happens with EI 7 and 8. That is as far back as I could go. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/colors.png

By the way, that is a free model at aXYZ's website. Lookin real.

Hey, Are you sure you have the camera icons on in the display elements window?

http://www.grabcad.com Lots of formats, better quality than sketch up models.

Renderama does not give a picture of the last frame rendered out (like doing an animation without renderama). It will briefly appear when it is done rendering a frame for a split second. :/

Am doing an animation on for 5 frames I get a horizontal streak across the rendering. For one frame it is thin and the other frames it is bigger. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/streak.png Don't see anything colliding with it. It is a phong rendering. Tried it with different resolutions, with and without AA.

I would post this on the FormZ forum.

Yep, Rhino on Windows imports SolidWorks native part and assembly files. No converting. Rhino Mac does not yet. I am a big fan of Rhino and like to model with it. I did this several years ago just for fun http://intuitionusa.com/Popups_Renderings/humidifier.html. Some of those are rendered with EI. The Panel Tools are cool too.

I did not create that model, I just get SolidWorks models. Haven't heard the term Uber in quite some time!! I remember when everything was getting named Uber.

Hey Brian, I use EI modeler for the organic products I sometimes get like this one http://intuitionusa.com/Popups_Renderings/femchec.html. The logotype creates issues with some modelers as polygons will stray across the text. I looked at T-splines but it is a little pricey. It is on my Christmas list.

I use Rhino a good bit myself and have it on a PC and mac. It meshes very well but there are some objects that I have to use EIM on. So I keep an old computer around just for EIM and other old programs that do not run on the latest OS.

Hey Brian, The model looks clean. This one needs EI Modeler. Export out of FZ a SAT V6. Import that into EI modeler and set the tesselation settings to U=6 and V=6 normal tolerance 2.5 degrees. Export as a fact.

Hey Brian, Are you starting with a Smooth or Facetted model in FormZ? You could convert the model in FormZ to Facetted and control the mesh in the process. Can you attach a picture of it? if it is a very curvy form then you will need to take it into Modeler and tesselate the form. I have done this many times over the years and have always been able to get every model in. Best!

Thanks!

Well I never figured out this one. I set the shadow casting object to shadow only and those objects turned off. Is there a way of making a shadow catcher floor that only renders a shadow while using Global Illumination? Like the mini cooper renderings are doing. Thanks!

I will give that a go. thanks!

Always wanted to created scene with a distant background that turns bluish. Anyone have ideas on how it is created? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/mat.png

Hope so! That pjt window materials icons could just be a simple square color chip that is linked to the the diffuse color. At that size that is all that is needed.

Been working with EI a good bit and can't help but want a few more icons. On the project window it would be killer if there were an icon showing the material icon. When you have almost 100 materials it really speeds things up. Even if the texture maps don't show up, the icon can be made to look different. If the Master materials showed a preview that would be excellent as well. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/projectwindow.png Was wondering what the material look icon would look twice its size. Really brings out the details. The added column is for blend modes. Some would need two letters as there is more than one S for example. Spelled out would be better. When there is a stack of layers it gives a good overview. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/materials.png Best!

For some reason, on this file when I set camera's cores up to 22 cores it does not render consistently. The blocks are different shades of dark. With 10 cores it is consistent. I have set the ram to optimal in camera which I have 24GB. Other files without furniture it renders 3 area lights smoothly and consistent. Any ideas? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5048027/22cores.png

Hey Nick. Expressionist 3.5 works with V9 and V8 of EI. There is a video on this page at the bottom about getting those surfaces to render. http://www.eias3d.com/category/video-tutorials/plug-ins/ You have to reimport them. This page has more info on them http://www.atlantis23.com/ei_parmsurf/parametricsurfaces_catalog.html

Hey Alex, I meant the master materials that appear only in the Project Window at the top.