V15 Indoor render to verify type and quantity of lights - feasable?

[dBminus]

Hi Robert and Allan,

Thanks for clarifying the colors/textures issue.  I reached into my Benjamin Moore cans of paint and painted over the moldy PVC rails and they're all good now in V16... and like Allan said, paint is cheaper than PVC anyways

I've been wrapped up in simplifying my custom light fixtures, etc.  When I created them, I guess the default # of facets was too high and I wasted a lot of memory on little details that you can't really see.   Its been a learning experience... Just don't know how many more lessons I need before I get done!

The tapered columns look like fun.  A bunch more possibilites.

Dave

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Dave,

I have actually nearly completed your light fitting in TFP, just for the challenge of doing it. All the curly bits are done so it just a matter of assembling it but the negative, in the way I have done it, is that there are dozens of materials to set. No problem in that you can just select them all and make them the one texture but to change the 'candles' for example to a different colour is hard because you do not know which of the numbered materials are the ones to change. I trying to see if there is a way t do it without so many material settings to do.

I will post it when it is done, (even if it is the present multi-materials version, just to see if it makes any difference to your project size. Have just got a few other things on at the moment so may be a day or two.

Allan

[dBminus]

Hi Allan,

Thanks for working the light fixture.  Thats a lot of work.   I had gotten the 'max 65000 points exceeded' for some of the components the tcad dxf import had created.  Turns out the 3ds export from tcad worked for sketchup import and I've been trying to learn that tool.  I tried building some of the fixtures features within TFP first but I kept stumbling.

I'd be glad to try your model in my project when you're finished.!

Thanks,
Dave

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Dave,

The hard bit is done - creating the main 'scrolls'. Just thought I would show you how it looks so far. Will finish it shortly.

Allan.

[dBminus]

Hi Allan,

Wow, Looks nice!  Are they 'walls' textured with metal?

Dave

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Dave,

I did it with walls originally but it ends up with too many materials. Each wall has 4 faces and avery curve of the wall means another set to 4 surfaces and textures so there are hundreds and trying to pick out the candles etc from them is almost impossible.

This model was done using a Member Profile set to that shape. This Profile shape much easier to do in Envisioneer so I did it there and it reduces the number of materials considerably.  

At present I am having a little issue adding multiple lights to the fitting - it is causing a light artifact for each bulb and they are showing in the render (white specks under the bulbs - see image), so I am trying to get rid of them. It works OK with one bulb but I will try a bit more before posting the BIM file, as it really needs the extra lights.

Whether it will help the size of your project though I don't know. It still has many fascets becasue of all the curves and the 3DS itself is 1.5mb. It does import OK though without compressing it, so presumably it is smaller than your TCAD one.

One thing it does demonstrate however is that it is quite easy to create some quite comlex objects within TFP.

Allan

[dBminus]

Hi Allan,

The light looks really good.  Regarding the light artifacts, I recall seeing them in my tcad imported model as well.  Don't know how to fix that.

Regarding the profiles, I've turned straight line segments into members for crown molding, etc, but when I tried that with arcs, my only choices were walls or retaining walls, footings and edgings, so I tried it with walls but I didn't get too far.  I've had some success taking my tcad models into sketchup and replacing some of the features with much fewer facets.   I'm learning to draw arcs with few polygons and revolve 2D figures with few polygons...

Dave

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Dave,

Sorry about the delay posting the light fitting, I have been somewhat busy lately but the BIM file is attached now if you want to play with it. If you import it through File>Catalogues>Import BIM File it should put it straight into your Interior Lighting> Ceiling Fixtures catalogue.

It is big as I mentioned before so may NOT help with your size problem.

The first try was done with walls but as I said it caused too many surfaces. For this one I created a new Custom Profile. The curly 'S' shape is just a cross section of the profile just 10mm long as is the curve.

The second image shows the two profiles I created and these are in the second BIM along with a few other useful shapes you may be able to use at some time. In fact the whole firring was made with these shapes: The 'candles' are the cylinder with an extened Sphere on top for the 'flame', the 'saucer' under them is a squashed Dome and the chair is the Chain (obviously) done with 'squashed' bits of the hollow Cylinder strung together. All the curves in these make it memory intensive of course! Once assembled it was exported as a 3DS and imported again as one fitting into Interior Lighting.

The added lights artefacts mentioned before are still in this (as all lights with added bulbs) - the programmers are investigating it

I will get around to splitting this topic sometime too as it has become quite divergent!!

Allan

[dBminus]

Hi Allan,

Thanks very much for creating the light fixture.  It looks really good.  I've downloaded it and the useful shapes as well.  I'll be experimenting with it over the next week or so.

We've been a bit distracted lately with Hurricanes along the east coast, USA.  (had to evacuate for a bit, but everything survived   The house in the model is being built in North Carolina, a magnet for Hurricane strikes... (What were we thinking

Thanks again,

Dave

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Dave,

I tried to review all comments but may have missed some on the long rendering time discussion.

I don't have your file but do note that your original interior posts had a number of doors and windows. The Dining room images.

I would check all the windows in the house for Specular setting (shine). Most likely you have them set higher than 10.  With high shine settings you can expect rendering time easily double those using settings between 5 and 8.

On exteriors, high Specular settings must calculate reflections of any and all trees / plants etc + thier shadows. Even if you don't see the reflections because the camera is distant your computer is still calculating them.

If you haven't try lowering shine yet, I'd do that and see what happens. Maybe you can set them to 7 and still get a tad bit of reflection you want.

Jack

[dBminus]

Hi Jack,

My windows had a default specular setting of 41.  I'll try setting it to 7 and check the render times.

Thanks for the tip,

Dave

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Dave,

That lower setting should help, but I did read where you had interior lights ON and that was your biggest problem for the speed issue.

Say, you mentioned your building location and high wind situations. Have you considered an ICF solution. I am currently working with a local distributor of Amvic ICF. He also has whole house solutions for heating and cooling that are fantasitc. And, a patent on a Trikin Floor system that increases spans up to 28'.  The homes result in a 60% reduction in energy. If you have any wind above 2 mph, you can get up to 85% with the new Honeywell Wind Generator Turbine (only 6' high/ 195 lbs)

Drop me an email if you want to look into it. I'd be happy to share what I know.

Jack