PhotoWorks through the floor

greets all. a few questions re: photoworks (2007)

  1. sometimes, when reopening a model, I lose the "floor" reference. This usually only happens once per file, oddly enough. my model is still on the Top plane (XZ axis), but when i render the shadow drops down (as if the floor has fallen). I've been doing the same routine for quite some time: tweak floor offset, render. tweak floor offset, render again. until my model meets the floor and the shadows look right.

on new parts/assemblies this doesn't happen. will only happen if i screw around with the environment settings (*properties* of floors, walls, etc, not their relative sizes/positions) enough that a subsequent rendering drops the floor. then i'm stuck in the iterative loop mentioned above to have floor meet model.

  1. changing lighting schemes sometimes leaves me with more lights than i know what to do with in the feature tree. seems like they don't all go away when i change to a new scheme.

  1. screwing with the lights also makes my model's colors shift. as if the color of the previous light left some indelible mark on the model material.

failing any sort of solution to the above problems, is there any way to "reset" all the photoworks settings? (detaching/deleting entries in the feature tree doesn't always work).

note: i am not saving photoworks info in the file.. but they stay nonetheless when i close/reopen.

i don't use photoworks very often.. and am not very good at it. the new "studios" are a god send to my untrained eye.. till the floor falls out.

thanks, tony

Reply to
post
Loading thread data ...

also, might anyone suggest a place/forum where I can post my rendered images for critique? I imagine peer review could be a pretty fast way to learn something new.

thanks again

-tony

Reply to
post

Hi Toni, I can remember your problem reaching back since PW2 was released. As you described, it only happens from time to time but it is annoying. I found out that it occurs much less, when you set up a new scene in the scene editor -> room -> mark your choices like radius, plane etc. and then uncheck the "resize automatically" option.

Easiest workaround if you need a plane: disable the floor plane in PW and create a new planar surface in SW, apply material -> render -> done.

This plane will not change as long as SW Corp does not release a service pack which screws and blows the whole geometry. ;-)) "might also happen one day"

Your lighting problem is not so familiar to me but I found out that the default part and assembly templates contain multiple light sources, from which one is coloured "blue". This preset light alsways affects the colour of the scene. I deleted all unnecessarry light sources and set up new templates for parts and assemblies. Sometimes when working with customer-data the coloured lightsources are still there. Did you already try to render with indirect illumination? If you use a nice backdrop image and activate reflective environment, you often can switch of all light sources and sometimes even disable shadows and you still get nice realistic renderings with only a fraction of the rendering time.

You want to publish your renderings in order to get feedback and to discuss the results? Why not take part at the rendering contest of Rob Rodriguez. He set up a very nice contest platform where all PW users are invited to send entries:

formatting link

HTH

Greetings from Germany

Jojo

"post" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

Reply to
JOJO

Jojo, Thanks for the feedback. I'll try that out next time.

I think some of my problem re: lighting comes from the fact that I jump around between a "Studio" and the regular PW settings. I think changes in one do not affect the other. ie the "quality" slider can be overridden via the PW options. And I think they are cummulative... though can't be sure.. yet.

More to learn...

FWIW, tried re-rendering a model with all the quality settings set to highest (tessellations, transparent shadows, high edge quality, etc)... I can't really tell much of a difference. Perhaps its my untrained eye, maybe a bad monitor? What I can tell you is that it increased my render time 20 fold.

Thanks again, Tony

Newsbeitragnews: snipped-for-privacy@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

Reply to
post

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.