Each month there are one or more coaching calls; this is a recording of the session on May 23, 2013January – June 2013
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – May 23, 2013
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ArchiCAD Training Session Notes
| QUESTION | ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES | START TIME |
| Special Coaching Call Topic – Rendering and Presentations (entire coaching call devoted to this topic) | ||
| What options are there for sharing and presenting your model | Eric, starts by showing the shortcuts for the orbit and pan tools, which is hold down the center mouse button for pan, and hold down the center mouse button and simultaneously press shift for the orbit command. | 0:01:57 |
| Eric opens the 3d window settings go to – view>3d view options>3d window settings. Here Eric goes through and describes the various engines (OpenGL, internal engine etc.) | ||
| Eric, gives a tip of temporary turning your model to wireframe when you have a large model and want to set up camera positions (it allows you to see things better) go to – view>3d view options>3d window settings>mode>wireframe | 0:03:55 | |
| If you want to simplify your model you can turn off textures. You may want to do this if your client hasn’t yet chosen the materials and you may want to do this to get a clean look at the buildings shape and design – go to – view>3d view options>3d window settings>options>textures. There are also other options here for things for you to turn on/off for presentation purposes. Another option for looking at the building in a clean way is “hidden line” – go to – view>3d view options>3d window settings>3d engine>hidden line – this is a good way of presenting just a concept to a client. | 0:04:30 | |
| 3d documents | In ArchiCAD 12 upwards it is possible to create 3d documents. This is where a 3d view is saved and you are able to add text and dimensions to it – to create a 3d document – right click in the 3d window>capture window for 3d document. One feature available in 3d documents is to show new elements in a color/colour to make them stand out. | 0:07:27 |
| Exporting your model to other programs | Eric goes through the options and programs ArchiCAD can export to. | 0:12:39 |
| Making animations | Eric shows how to create camera positions. When creating a camera path some people can end up with a wavy, jerky path, it is possible to automatically smooth out your path by opening the camera settings, selecting a camera path and clicking on “smooth path at cameras”. When you have created your path you can then export it as a movie file – go to – document>creative imaging>create fly through. | 0:15:08 |
| BIMx and Virtual Reality | Eric explains what BIMx is. | 0:18:10 |
| Quick overview on workflow strategies | Eric briefly talks about issues such as geometry, textures, lighting, rendering settings, smart testing etc. | 0:25:20 |
| Quick overview on materials | Eric briefly talks about materials. Eric gives some good advice about the importance of controling materials independently (think of materials as similar to layers). To find materials go to – options>element attributes>materials – here you can create new materials, or tweak existing materials. | 0:28:07 |
| Quick overview on lighting and rendering settings | Eric quickly goes thorugh all things concerned with lighting your ArchiCAD projects. | 0:34:54 |
| What is the way to go for preliminary interactive meetings with a client? | Obviously everyone has their own specific preferences here. Eric’s personal suggestion is to work in the 3d window, and maybe turn textures off (to avoid distractions) | 0:42:31 |
| On the sketch engine the vectorial sun shadows have a hard edge line around them – is there a way to get rid of them? And how to make 3d documents look more like sketches. | Unfortunately, Eric couldn’t find a setting that enables this. A caller says he uses 3d documents to partly get around this. He says it creates a half-way house between a hidden line and a full rendering, and it is also very fast and enables you to present a lot of drawings together in a pdf document. Eric and an experienced caller give some good tips on how to best use 3d documents to achieve drawings that look more like sketches. | 0:46:24 |
| Editing existing fills | Eric shows how to edit an existing fill. By editing existing fills you can get an effect that is more sketchy and perhaps more appropriate for your needs (it is also probably faster than creating a new fill from scratch). Don’t forget to copy the existing fill first, otherwise you are writing over the existing fill. Eric takes you through the process of what to do. | 0:54:35 |
| When caller uses lightworks his renderings always come out black. | Eric suggests maybe the caller hasn’t got any lights turned on (by lights this means the sun etc. not just lights inside the building). | 1:12:48 |
| What is antialiasing? | It is about smoothing the image and getting rid of jagged edges. When testing turn antialiasing down to speed up rendering times. | 1:14:13 |
| Quick overview on some of lightworks rendering engine settings | Eric giving a few tips and descriptions of functions on lightworks | 1:12:38 |
| How to alter the paper roughness | This is an effect in the photorendering settings – go to photorendering settings>enhancement>paper roughness | 1:21:30 |
| How to reset the photorendering settings to the default position | If you have mucked around with the settings and are finding that your renderings are terrible, just click on “factory settings” in the photorendering settings to set everything back to the default position. | |
| How to create a sketchy line effect for presentation purposes | 1:25:29 | |
| Be careful when using plants and trees in rendering | These can really slow your rendering time down. This is because a typical tree may have hundereds of individual leaves to render. So turn these off during testing. | 1:29:25 |
| Explanation of some of the internal engine settings (rendering) | Eric also discusses the internal engine settings again a little later on at time 1:57:00. And at around time 2:00:00 Eric describes the function “match with internal engine”. | 1:31:45 |
| How to save sketch settings | 1:37:19 | |
| A quick tip on how to combine two renderings of the same building in the same position – one a black and white sketch and one a full colour rendering to enhance the renderings quality | See link on right for full tutorial. You will also need either photoshop or gimp. | 1:38:36 |
| Can you simulate the shadow of a cloud in ArchiCAD | No, not in ArchiCAD, but you can in artlantis. | |
| How would you show a swarm of bees and bringing in your own images (as png files) to put in the 3d window for rendering purposes. | (Eric doesn’t actually show how to show a swarm of bees, but this segment is still worth watching) Eric talks about entourage – he discusses people as both 3d models and bitmaps, and he explains how to bring in your own custom made png files into ArchiCAD (of course you would also need a photo editing program to prepare and edit your image before bringing it into ArchiCAD). | 1:41:57 |
| Image transparency | Eric talks about the alpha channel and transparency in general. | 2:03:35 |
| Bringing a custom photo into ArchiCAD | First you really need a photo editing program to edit (cut out what you want from) the photo and add an alpha channel. Eric shows how to do this in photoshop. Eric then brings in the image into ArchiCAD go to – file>libraries and objects>library manager>add the image. Once the image is in ArchiCAD library you can now bring it into ArchiCAD through the custom feature in objects>people models>pictures>custom | 2:05:30 |
| Material settings and creating new materials | Bringing a custom material into ArchiCAD. | 2:12:52 |
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – May 23, 2013
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