kris McIsaac

maybe too saturated or too much contrast compared to the landscaping. Also the transition from wall to grass on the right side is too sharp. A bit of photoshop to roughen up (grass brush is awesome for this). Personally not a huge fan of birds flying through renders but that is just me

I think it looks pretty good. Maybe add a bit of A/O between those wing walls and the back wall and also where the columns hit the underside of the floor above. Personally I feel the floor is a bit glossy, possibly blur the reflection or add some fall off. As a small detail, would there be a skirting of any sort around the walls and possibly columns? It may help ground everything which can get lost on glossy floors. And one final thought, the empty bay on the right unbalances the image a bit.

a few things that help me decide will be: The size of the final render, intended use of the final image, amount of post work required, time allocated for completion and past experience. If the final render is just going to be printed in house or used in a digital presentation the samples can be a bit lower. If I am using an alpha to cut out the background or need to Photoshop a lot of details I will go higher. If I have 30 minutes until a deadline....lower! Also if the final image is big then the samples don't have to be as high to still get smooth edges. For detailed renders like yours then 4/64 is possibly what you need but for a basic architectural exterior 4/16 is usually fine

Can you fake the DOF in Pshop? I have only used DOF a couple of times as most of my rendering is architectural exterior but with MR it renders in passes so it will depend on how many passes it needs. If your render without takes an hour and you have 12 passes...12 hours. Did you save the FG map? it may have been recreating that for each pass. I have found that using the switch to or maxamise options in task manager will usually get Max back in Win 7. With memory a scene of this size should not be a problem with 4gb unless you wanted a billboard sized output but more is usually better. I tend to keep working while my renders are going and will go over 7gb often. P.S. it looks pretty good so far.

The 3 basics for render time are lighting, materials and render settings. As you have provided the third one and it does not seem too extreme except maybe depth of field you may want to look at the other two. Lighting: What light sources are you using is it internal or external, daylight, Portals, artificial etc. how many lights and what sampling do they have? Materials: are they reflective? how many glossy samples? any translucent? I usually do some tests using a matte white override applied to everything (except glazing) i will start with a sun and sky then start adding artificial lights. I will also start with lower render settings say 800x600, AA - 1/4, 1, FG low, FG bounces 1. Once I get the lighting working ok I start to apply the materials then do more low quality tests to check colour bleed and reflections then will start to up the quality. I generally wont go above AA 4, 16 and tend to keep the FG bounces at 1. How far through was it after 10 hours? I am guessing this is a laptop? That processor is not a super powerful one but should work ok. I would think it is the scene that is causing the long render times. Can you share your scene or provide more details about it?

assuming you are using 2011: go to the manage tab and look for the project units button. 7th from the left on mine but it may be different on yours. This opens a dialog box where you can set units for length, area, volume, angle and a couple of others. There are decimal feet and decimal inch options.

I wonder if they are sorry they asked this question in the first place. They must be getting sick of the getting alerts to new posts to just find a school yard fight going on. But I guess I am not helping by posting this now. Sorry Abby!

yes we have to pay, but this then gives them money to spend on development and support. If there products were not good we would not use them. Besides, we are all out to make money. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Some people act like they are forced to use Autodesk (and Microsoft) so the resent them but you can always try something else like Turbocad. Revit is a tool that allows me to do things I could not do before or with anything else. I still use other software for some tasks. I don't think there will ever be a program that does everything and I don't think we need one. The more they put in the more it will cost which will hurt the smaller guys who may not even need all the extras. for those who do they just buy the extras separately. The fact that Autodesk have opened the API for Revit shows they are not so bad or maybe just very smart as now they are getting their programming done for free by the users. I am sure when they see a good add on they will buy it (with the money we gave them for development)and integrate it for the rest of us.

positive attitude, embrace technology. Some people struggle with change and new technology but as you are still learning you will be fine. As I mentioned previously we are winning jobs on Our BIM capabilities using Revit. We just won another and we were the highest fee so clients can see the benefits.

should there be several Revit materials assigned or just one for everything? Have you used the eye dropper in the material editor to select the material and see what it is? Make sure you set a render material in revit not just the display properties. Which FBX import preset did you use? Have you tried a DWG from Revit also?

I say yes. Revit is a parametric 3D modeling tool. You create a 3D model and pull all your architectural documents out of it. Not sure if you have also heard the term BIM (building information modelling) but you cant do much of that with autocad. I am not sure about your part of the world but in Australia there are clients asking for BIM in their brief and some even requesting it be done in Revit. I also teach Revit at a university and many of my students are recent graduates who can't get work without Revit. Being a second year student they may not have told you that 90% of your work will be producing documents and 10% making pretty pictures but in saying that there is a good workflow from Revit to Max as you have already created a 3D model.

I have not tried yet but I thought 2012 had a proper point cloud import option. Maybe it is a different point cloud file type. I hate to ask but did you try the help file

It can depend on your linking settings. I use FBX now but with DWG in 2011 there are import settings for Revit exported DWG which should recognise materials. In 2010 it did not have the auto setting for Revit DWG's but you could choose combine by layer, blocks as node hierarchy, split by material or something similar You have to assign the different materials in Revit. It does not matter what they are as long as they are different. make sure they have different render appearence materials not just display properties. If you are still having trouble you can apply an edit mesh and assign different material chanels and use a multi sub material on the object. It is a painful process but it will work.

what Dave said... it must be a drafting pattern which will be the same size when printed (changes on the model at different scales) where as model patterns are to scale in the model so will always measure off the right size no matter what scale it is at but will print differently depending on the scale of the view. Always use a model pattern if it is representing a surface material (brick, sheet joints etc) Drafting pattern are there for use in cut pattens or generic hatched areas.

I am starting to see more and more Requests from clients, especially in the health sector asking for Revit. I also teach Revit part time at a University and many of my students are finding it hard to get work without Revit knowledge. I know in Australia there is a lot of momentum and the government is starting to take notice. There is work being done on official standards for Revit content creation and I am sure standards for collaboration will follow. The company I work for has been developing our Revit systems for nearly 4 years. I think the ones waiting until it is a request will then have to play catch up and possibly miss out on a lot of work