Chris_A

There is a lot of fantastic work being done on a wide variety of renderers regardless of platform. Stuff has been done with POVray that kicks the lights out of some done in Max. It's how you use what you've got, but comfort is a big factor. Max has a user base with a density approaching that of a black hole. You might feel like you're doing the wrong thing because everyone else is swimming the other way. Welcome to Mac-land. I concur, FormZ is a good general modeler and like many of the renderers mentioned (basically all but Max), cross-platform. If you're convinced that you need a Windows only modeling app such as Rhino you should consider picking up a slightly used PC (usually pretty cheap) for that purpose, keeping your G5 for rendering and general purpose use. My 2cents...

Looks really nice. That's a tough match. Quick comments... To the right of the balconies, the color appears to change from the darker one (above) to something like the lightest on that side of the building. Meant to be? [same thing CRD mentions second actually] It looks like you've got glass between interior and balcony (groups of 3)??? If so, it would be nice to see a little variation from unit to unit. Maybe partially open blinds here and there. As consistant as it is it appears to be solid walls and a little too close in color to the finish on the hard surfaces. A little seam in the sky just over the building there? -- Chris_A

Things look pretty well worked in. The brick surfaces of the building look good. A little more 'grunge' on the seawall, especially at the waterline would help it match the foreground. A little gradient or added to the windows (in Photoshop would be fine) might be a nice finishing touch. In reality we'd more variation than you have and should appear darker down low. The color there is too consistant from top to bottom.

Hello STRAT, They mention on their 'Download' page you may need to update the 'Windows Installer'. They offer a link there to the MS site for 2k/XP's version. Installed fine on my XP box right away though. Hope that helps. It looks a little like Alias Sketchbook, both being simplifed 'paint' applications with tablets in mind. Pretty nifty little app but it only seems to allow images up to 1280x1024.

Welcome back! You did bring everyone T-shirts right??? Eh, didn't think so. Good to see you return safely in any case.

Garethace brings up an interesting point. Something to think about... Design engineering models (i.e. Pro/E models) are far more 'complete' that any architectural model I've seen even in the realm of BIM, but that's not who's imaging. Engineers want to prove that it works. For the purposes of patents you actually want to be a little vague. Less specific drawings allow for more liberal intrepetations of what may or may not be infringed upon. It's arguably much easier to control context and lighting for a product rendering than that of a building. It therefore would seem to be a much more straight forward process to create photo-real images. Accurate materials, texture, and color are critical and still more difficult to achieve so it's uncommon that really nice images are created. Designers would probably rather go to a physical model. They're still using sketches and marker rendering (Alias is marketing 'Sketchbook' to mimic natural media digitally) to develop ideas. A good question might be how so many Architects have come to rely so heavily on the 'realisim' thing to communicate and validate their ideas. Has the ability of the average Architect to understand and communicate their work diminished?

Developers and the like (the people who stand to make or lose the most money) seem to be the ones who make the most use of animations. The Designers and Architects are typically working on very lean margins here in the US and change things all too often to make them an efficient part of the process. Nothing like creating an anim early on that's useless after the design changes in the next weeks client meeting. One key to greater use of animations may be to explore styles that convince people these animations can have a look other than the photo-real presentation seen so much in the 'still' market. From a design standpoint, NPR techniques, massing animations, even simple daylight studies can do wonders for project understanding without so much effort. EB, was the animation project you describe one of you NPR projects?

I actually like the color intensity of the first better. The scale of the forms in the BG looks disproportionate with where the ground plane vanishes though. The BG elements need to appear further away, thus smaller and/or lower in the view, or you might bring the edge of the ground plane in closer to balance things out. The blur of the BG with the outside edges of your building mixes a little too much IMHO, which works against the detail in other areas of the building model. Is the BG rendered with the image or dropped in post?

I'm older than Jeff?!?!? I quit. How many of us said... "When I grow up I wan't to be a CGArchitect"??? Married with children at 33. First computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 with the 16k expansion pack in 1982. Apple IIe, III, an IBM/AT, Mac IIsi, 7100, G4, and the TiG4. From what I remember, at "work" it all started with a 286 and Windows 3.1. Does anybody remember the Wacom Koala Pad??? A friend had it on his Atari 800. Ohhh, the graphics he could 'draw' with that thing.

Maybe you've found the inspiration for your next short film?! It could be titled "Run-around"

Your work has turned out well Kals. As to your question...in their online information they list... "Sony Music's Designated Agent: Gail I. Edwin, Esq. Law Department Sony Music Entertainment Inc. 550 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10022" May be exclusive to online music purchasing but it's a place to start. A Yellow Pages lookup also finds... Sony Music Entertainment Inc - Sony Classical Productions Inc 460 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019 (212) 833-7373 Keep pushing your boundaries!

The G5 is a 64-bit chip and is constructed to support 32 and 64-bit apps natively. G5's are slated for delivery in August (running 10.2.7 a 64-bit enabled version of the current OS), and 'Panther' (10.3) in September and thus not currently available.

Can't find him?? Hey, how many FedEx drivers can there be in NYC?!? Maybe they should let *you* find him, and well... nevermind.

"Trade in Premiere for a Free Copy of Final Cut Express or Upgrade to Emmy-Award Winning Final Cut Pro 4 for Half Price" Apple Offers Premiere Users Easy Switch to Final Cut Pro

Market economics in action, in these tight times Adobe is backing out of a niche they don't see positive growth (or dominance) in. Apple alone blankets the user spectrum with iMovie (free), FinalCut Express ($299), and FinalCut Pro ($999) covering the cost/feature gammut. Case in point, Adobe doesn't appear to be ready to drop AfterEffects for the MacOS even though Apple offers Shake (at $4950). Adobe can still sell a couple copies of AE to the masses without feeling pressure of Shake from the highend. Now if Apple introduced a less expensive variant (ie. Shake Express) who knows, but I wouldn't expect that in the near future.