Thank you for visiting the Best Practices Course website. The video lessons are available for members only. If you are an active member and would like to watch the ArchiCAD training video on this page, please login to the website. If you are not currently a member, please visit the following pages for more information and to sign up for the Best Practices Course, the QuickStart Course or for the Best Practices ArchiCAD Coaching Program. Eric Bobrow, Creator of the Best Practices Course

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ArchiCAD Training Session Notes

QUESTION	ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES	START TIME
Introduction	Eric says he will be doing tutorials on energy valuation as part of the best practices course. Eric also talks about what the new morph tool can do for you.	0:00:00
Rendering tip (Creating a rendering that has the appearance of a pencil drawing)	If you are at an early design stage and you want to show a client a drawing that conveys the shape without too much detail, then set the photorendering setting to sketch and from here you can tweak the settings to make the rendering look like a pencil drawing. The caller who was giving this tip says he selects “tech pencil”, (which is in the photorendering settings>basic settings>line style) and “custom” for the sketch style (this too is found in basic settings). You can then tweak the other settings to get the effects that you want. Continued below.	0:04:30
Rendering tip cont’d	One procedure that the caller does is change the custom line colour (in basic settings) to grey and this makes the drawing look like it was done in a soft graphite pencil. You could also create an elevation from the 3d window (see description on how to do this on the right), although there would be a problem getting it to scale. The caller gets it to scale by saving the view as a jpeg or pdf and then import it onto one of the layout sheets and then resize it (this is easy to do because you will know how long your building is) and then you work out your scale of the building on the layout sheet. When you have done that as long as you keep saving it in the same view settings it will keep coming back at the same scale.
Problem with ArchiCAD doing unpredictable things	The start of the coaching call was beset with ArchiCAD not doing what it was supposed to be doing. Eric goes through some troubleshooting techniques.	0:19:30
Navigator disappearing	Caller wants to know why the navigator keeps disappearing on him. Sometimes people inadvertently click on the setting auto-hide navigator (this happens when you right mouse click in the title bar, and accidently click on auto-hide navigator). Auto-hide navigator can sometimes be a useful feature, say for example you are meeting clients and you want to have your screen clear.	0:37:50
Door schedules	Basically the caller was asking if there was a short cut for listing items (found in parameters under listing items in the door and window tool). Eric says that there is a little short cut and that it is found in the schedule scheme settings under add object parameters instead of going through the entire library switch from folder view to folder view of used objects only or favourite objects.	0:43:00
Is there a way to link ArchiCAD and its Artlantis file?	The caller wants to know when she is rendering an ArchiCAD model in Artlantis, and notices a change that needs to be made to the ArchiCAD model, can she make the change in ArchiCAD, and then update it with the ArchiCAD model already in Artlantis. To do this you would use a reference file which is a hybrid of the revised design in ArchiCAD and the Artlantis rendering settings.	0:52:20
How to convert a 3ds model to gdl with its materials	To do this you need to first download “3d studio in” from the Graphisoft website (it’s in the goodies section). Eric didn’t have time in this tutorial to install the download and do a demonstration, but promised to come back to it at a later date (Archicadwiki has some tips on exchanging models, see link on near right). Eric comments that ArchiCAD 16 has the ability to bring in objects without triangulation (see article link on Archicadwiki far right)	0:56:00
	Eric warns about bringing in too many detailed 3ds models because they contain so many polygons they will slow your project down.
Drawing an Hexagonal floor plan and roof	The caller was creating plans for an historic intricate dovecote (bird house). Eric demonstrates creating elevations for the six sides, and shows how to draw the roof. Eric creates the walls by tracing a circle with the magicwand (Eric shows how to set up the magicwand in the settings). To get six elevations, Eric first rotates one of the elevations to the correct angle, and then he selects multiply followed by rotate multiple copies (distribute -1). Eric creates the roof system with the magicwand and then adds more levels. Eric then decides because of the roofs intricate shape it might be easier to draw it with the shell tool. Eric thinks the best way to create the roof with the shell tool may be to create each individual side and then join them together. Eric does a demonstration on how to use the shell tool to create roofs, but unfortunately because the video isn’t working properly it is difficult to follow.	1:07:00
	A caller suggests profile manager could be used to make a roof profile. Eric agrees but warns that you can’t trim a profile to a required shape, and sometimes a roof needs to be trimmed (you could use solid element operations, but it could get tricky).

ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – July 31, 2012

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Let us know how you feel... (3 comments so far)

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DamianTrostinetzky
11 years ago

Eric,

It seems that the sound and the movie go at different times. I may need to download it, and that should fix it. I just wanted to let you know.
- Eric Bobrow
  11 years ago
  
  Hi Damian –
  I have reprocessed the video for this coaching call to correct the issue with the sound and visual being out of sync. Check it out now – it should work OK. Thanks for pointing this out!
  Eric
PatrickBrookes
12 years ago

Dear Eric,
I have only been able to download the Coaching Calls of March 21, April 12, April 30 and May 30am not able to get any of the others.
Thanks,
Patrick
PS. POSSIBLE FUTURE TOPIC
How to project Shadows on Elevations of adjacent buildings.