IMAGINiT Visualization Solutions Blog

LIghts On! Lights Off!

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Mark Gerhard) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:51:04 EDT

Revit Global Light Utility for 3ds Max Design 2009 is now available for free download..

With FBX import you can now bring photometric lights directly into Max from Revit. Unfortunately they come in with the lights turned off. You can see them in the Light Lister, but you can't turn them all on with a single click. Got hundreds of lights? That's hundreds of clicks… Ow my wrist..

Thank goodness, Glen Whelden of IMAGINiT has written a utility that will solve this problem. It turns all lights on or all lights off with the press of one button. It also lets you turn on and off selected lights, sky portals and the daylight system, and separates the Photometric lights from any Standard lights you’ve added to the scene.

Check it out, this free download is availble for a limited time only.

Service Pack 1 Available for Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Mark Gerhard) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:01:45 EDT

You can download a service pack now for Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009.
This service pack addresses these issues:

FBX/Revit - Older AMD processors that don't support SSE2 now will render ProMaterials
Materials and Mapping - Files with Arch & Design Materials from earlier versions now load properly. Spline Mapping and Manual Seams crashbug is fixed
Opacity/Transparency fixed in OpenGL
Double-sided materials fixed in cached D3DXMeshes
Biped bugs fixed - Xtra bones use the animation segment time now, and saves keys correctly.
- No more "Disappearing" bipeds (when using Layer plus Zoom Extents)
- no more crash when combining XRefs and Motion Flow
CER reports set correct Production INformation Name now
New Custom Attributes work without Max reset.
Daylight System - Perez weather now calculates correctly
Edit Normal Modifier - edge selection crash fixed
Hair - some motion blur problems have been addressed
IK - When using HI IK, you can now link a bone-chain to an object
IPv6 Maintenance Update
Now you can submit jobs to an IPv6 only Backburner network. You have to have the Backburner 2008.2 update for this to work. Warning: This is only for IPv6 only networks. If that's not you, don't install Backburner 2008.2 update
ViewCube - Crashing and Performance issues have been addressed, especially related to network rendering.Keep Scene Upright is now on by default.
SteeringWheels - Crash bug fixed related to drawing over geometry.
Network Rendering - running two command-line jobs at the same time has been fixed.
mental ray - Shadows and render elements now work again.
Flipped UVW's and Forced Two-Sided behaves properly when rendering to texture.
Revit Import - LIghts with (") double quotes in their names now are available inside LightLister.
Viewports - some directx errors addressed. Problems with viewport initialization and workstation locking are fixed. Viewport display is no longer scrambled by drag and drop of modifiers onto viewport objects. The Top View stays correct when changing to Orthographic (U). And Paint and Circular selection marquee now draw properly.

As usual, you have to have administrator priveleges to install the update. This service pack includes all the previous HotFixes, so this is all you need to install.

Click here to get the download now.

Nothing Like a Good Book

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Mark Gerhard) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:16:16 EDT

People learn in different ways. Some folks like to poke at the software. Others like to follow a DVD, or online tutorial. Often in my classes people will request a reading list, or recommendation for books.

Here are some books from my bookshelf.

Disclaimer: I was technical editor on all of these books, so I'm biased.

Title: Learning Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Foundation
Focal Press
Author: Remi Breton
Contributing Author: Mark Gerhard

This book is an attempt to teach you a lot of max fast. It's unique in that it blends some design visualization workflow with a lot of character modeling/materials/mapping. Written by longtime Max user Remi Breton, you make both a building (some sort of Miami condo) and a character (a Chinese KungFu looking fellow) and animate the character walking into the building. This book is an "official" Autodesk training Guide.

Attention High School Kids - Use this book to teach yourself max if you don't know if you're headed for games/film or design viz. Disadvantage: This book has not been updated for 3ds Max 2009.

Title: Essential cG Lighting Techniques with 3ds Max
Focal Press
Author: Darren Brooker
Technical Editor: Mark Gerhard

This book is a gem. It slows you down to see what lighting is all about, both theoretical and practical technique. This book has the recipes to get your lighting just the way you need it. Currently being updated for 3ds Max 2009. Every max user should own this book.

Title: 3D Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max 2009
3DATS
Author: Brian Smith

This is a great book. Brian Smith has been using Max to make architectural visualizations for a good long time now, and he teaches you the techniques he's used when you have to get it right and get it done on time. Uses AutoCAD a lot, not for the faint of heart. Should be available in about a month. Really topquality, full-color, college textbook quality. Know AutoCAD, want to learn 3ds Max? Buy this one!

Title: Mastering Autodesk VIZ 2008
SYBEX
Author: Jon McFarland

I know, the title says VIZ, but this book is too good to pass by. At almost 1000 pages, this is a book that weighs a ton and covers a lot of ground. No one is more thorough in their technical explanation than Jon, who's been teaching this and doing this for one very longtime now.
Currently being revised for 3ds Max 2009. Look for it!

CG Society Review Posted

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Mark Gerhard) — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:00:54 EDT

A random conversation at the Game Developers conference with Ivon Smith, Autodesk AE, lead me to a chance meeting with the editor of CGSociety, Paul Hellard. Paul invited me to write a review of Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009 at that time. My inner journalist took over my mouth and agreed, so now (at last) here it is.

Many thanks to Jennifer O'Connor of 4D Artists, Travis Schmiesing of HOK, and Paul Schuyler for providing images to go along with the review.

Read it here.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009 Hot Fix 3

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Mark Gerhard) — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:24:22 EDT

You can go to the Autodesk Product support webpage and now download Hot Fix 3 for Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009. This hotfix corrects a number of problems that surfaced shortly after the shipment of the new product. First it corrects the issues associated with the Viewcube. This handy new navigation device was responsible for various viewport issues, and some crashes in both Windows XP and Vista. In addition the Viewcube was the cause of some Backburner and command line rendering crashes. This has been addressed as well. Lastly there was a compatibility issue with older Athlon processors and the new ProMaterials libraries, which would prevent installation and launching of the software on these systems.

Note that there are indivdual fixes for 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max Design 2009, make sure you get the one that matches your software choice.