Each month there are one or more coaching calls; this is a recording of the session on September 6, 2012July – December 2012
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – September 6, 2012
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ArchiCAD Training Session Notes
| QUESTION | ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES | START TIME |
| How to change the colour/color of a roof | The caller needed a metal profile roof. He couldn’t find a suitable roof, so he faked it using a 16″ standing seam roof, but he didn’t know how to change the roof’s colour/color to something more suitable. | 0:03:03 |
| Eric demonstrates how to change the roofs color, by first opening up the material settings (options>element attributes>materials) and with the engine set to internal engine, Eric decides to change the texture (this is done by going into the “texture” settings and clicking on search. This opens up the ArchiCAD library, and from here you search through the textures folder (which contains many png. and jpeg. images. These images can also be resized in this dialog box, so that they are at a more appropriate size for your drawing. In regards to changing the color of these textures: if they have the word alpha before the png. file extension, then these file types can have their color changed, if the word alpha isn’t there then that particular texture image cannot have its color changed. Continued in box below. | 0:07:06 | |
| Note: during his demonstration Eric found a few problems: 1) The internal engine will update the color changes in the alpha texture images just fine, but. 2) The OpenGL engine however for some reason would not update when Eric tried to change the alpha image textures color. 3) The lightworks engine would update the change of color in the alpha image, but only when you click on “match with internal engine”. | ||
| ArchiCAD tip: if you are using a brick or stone wall texture from the ArchiCAD library it is possible to tweak the color of the brick or stone wall. The rules described in the above two boxes do apply though. | 0:14:30 | |
| Sometimes the only solution when editing a drawing is to use Adobe Photoshop or an equivalent software package. Eric does a quick demonstration of how to use Photoshop to do this. A good trick that Eric did was take one of the textures from the ArchiCAD library into Photoshop and re-colored it to his desired color, saved it as a copy and from here he could now use it back in ArchiCAD. | 0:16:43 | |
| How to make the roof show a tile profile (in this case a spanish tile profile) | The caller wanted to show a tiled roof that had a curvy profile in his drawing. Unfortunately, ArchiCAD roofs can appear a little flat, but there is a free add on called accessories that can breathe new life into a flat looking roof. Eric goes through where to find it on the Graphisoft website and how to load it into your ArchiCAD library at time 0:25:28. Eric then demonstrates how this tool works at time 0:35:23. The tile profile will also show in section, and in the 3d window you can choose your own colors and decide the spacing between the tiles, all this makes it a very useful tool. The only downside with this tool is, i do suspect that because of the detail involved it may slow your project down. | 0:25:28 |
| The 3d tile profile may not be displaying quite as you would want it to when you open it in the 2d section view. So here Eric shows how to create a patch and modify the 2d line work slightly. In this demonstrated case the tile had a vertical cut, and it needed to be perpendicular. | 0:43:00 | |
| How to use steelwork in drawings – domestic and comercial | Eric briefly demonstrates standard steel profiled walls and beams. After doing this Eric shows where to go to make your own steel profiles, design>complex profiles>profile manager. Because there are so many standard steel profiles, it would be impracticle to have them all loaded in ArchiCAD at any given time. If you find what you are looking for isn’t already in ArchiCAD, more than likely you will be able to find it and load it in by going to, options>import standard steel profile (this feature was only added to ArchiCAD around version 13). | 0:49:50 |
| Very quick demonstration of the ridge tile object | 0:59:05 | |
| Plan view in layouts is revolved from the original plan view. Is there a way for text and dimensions to re-orient? | The answer is partially yes, and you would need to go into the text selection settings to make the necessary changes. You need to be looking at the tick box options of “fixed angle” and “always readable” . What these do is when you tilt the drawing the text will appear horizontal, but be aware that if you rotate your drawing 180 degrees the text will be horizontal but upside down. As for the dimensions when Eric rotated these on the layout they disappeared (this was a glitch on this tutorial, but Eric feels that dimensions won’t re-orient). | 1:07:09 |
| Where should complex profiles begin and end | The caller wants to know how to turn on the materials in a particular composite (section view). Eric demonstrates this and talks about the importance of giving everything a name and leaving nothing custom e.g. layer combinations, custom profiles etc. Eric then creates a profile that has a composite wall below, and a complex eaves detail at the top, all come together as one piece. | 1:24:28 |
| Producing 2d shadow studies on elevations of adjoining buildings | The caller wants to show the amount of shadow his new building will cast on all the adjoining buildings (right to light issues). The caller shows Eric a past drawing on which shadows are cast on axo projections, but these dissapear on sections and elevations. Eric goes through the various options and procedures for casting shadows on elevations. Basically, what was happening was some walls were blocking the seeing of the casting of shadows in a particular 2d elevation section view. Eric tries to copy and paste the shadows in the right position from a view that wasn’t being blocked by a wall being in the way. Unfortunately this method is only partially successful and there are still times where you are going to have to look where the shadows are being cast in 3d and then draw them into the 2d elevation manually. | 1:41:16 |
| Eric also demonstrates how 3d cutaway works: view>elements in 3d view>3d cutting planes, this sets up where the model is cutaway and then go to view>elements in 3d view>3d cutaway to turn on the cutaway that you have just made. Unfortunately 3d cutaway couldn’t help in this particular question. | 1:56:51 |
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – September 6, 2012
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Pari
12 years ago
hello
I didn’t know anythings about Archicad before, I just used of AutoCAD and 3dsmax, last month I explored on net and found your training video in youtube, I saw more of them and now I can do project, I can use of this program now.
your videos help me very much.
thanks a lot.