wda

Pretty Cool

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Modo is a great application. Does it work for ArchViz hell yes it does and works well in all areas you outlined. 701 is stable and a very viable version. It's real benefit is ease of modeling, however the workflow is different from Max, way different. Draw backs Learning Curve Not integrated with file exchange like AutoDesk products Not widely used in ArchViz and looked down upon as substandard. Entourage - Up hill battle in some cases. As suggested you may want to consider other options, to make money and be employable in the ArchViz world

Congrats, only problem with 12 years - is that 12 years has gone by. Crap!!!!!! Cheers

Alex I'd strap a parachute on it LOL but that's me ;P

In some cases it's a sampling issue with ray tracing. Not enough samples being taken to properly render all the lighting/reflection information to the output pixels. Blurring the HDR image in some cases, when all else fails, may help to minimize.

Increase the number of segments on the cylinder, that will help some or make the "distortions" less noticeable. Higher density of the mesh on the cylinder may help also.

From a marketing stand point 'Free' only works as part of a strategic plan...most important part is your service/performance. Is your service really worthy of be used again-in your prospective customers eyes. With most give away type marketing the clients, receiving, have by some quantifiable means been pre-qualified to ensure the greatest return on the 'Gift'. Which implies a system of going about getting leads for jobs. It's tough being a small shop trying to grow. Accumulating clients always conflicts with doing the work you love to do, lol as does just about everything 'business' related. Adam has it right-the more one understands and learns about business...

Looks Like Ernest Burden like work ..... Search the CGA forums, he had a while back discussions about some of his his techniques - very valuable stuff. Many layered and applied techniques to achieve this level of work from 3D renders in my humble experience

If you have Photoshop or CAD you can, depending upon the structures in the image, get some rough perspective lines to help close in on 'rough dimensions'. Generally finding vanish points is very helpful albeit frustrating and usally requiring lens (distortion) Corrections. You can export the image with the perspective lines as the BG image in max and change camera settings and position to match the perspective grid/s. Suggest doing what you can for the camera match and work very hard to make the lighting, GI ect "marry" the CG to the Image. Personally have not really used or seen any application that works stupid well. Image Modeler is/was good at camera matching, however you need multiple views to make it work. Basically a static version of Match Mover, created by the same company as Image Modeler Good Luck Wm

wow this thread has been going since 2004 ..... Hard to accept LOL

Sheldon, is your education in the Arch realm or in teh greater CG realm. If it's in the greater CG realm look else where to focus your efforts with a sideline in ArchViz. Reality being ArchViz is a very specialized subset of the Greater CG CGVFX industry. Much of the real trechnical specialty needed by a human has been taken up by hardware and software. The rest is really the ability to stylize images to suite Architects and Developers. It has been very competetive and changing industry. If you are going to ArchViz your focus ... Realtime interaction and Augmented reality will give you the best bang to make you stand out in an insudtry where everyone knows how to model texture and light scenes as a core basic skill.

There are ups and downs every 10 years or so with every 30+/- years a higher amplitude up and down with some increase up or down over a century. I feel for those who lost jobs, work and are having to fight an uphill battle, though I still chuckled when I first started reading this thread. Why- I've been personally & heavily effected by every down turn since the early 80's. This is normal get used to it. Even this time round being really harsh and un-fair seems to have a historical cyclical pattern. Thankfully these depression like recessions occur once in a life time... about the time the generational memory of the pain from the previous one gets lost, it happens again. It's human nature. The government and economy being filled with humans kind of makes it un-aviodable. Try to control human behavior all you want, but at the end of the day the only entity left and or that will put food on your table over the long haul best, for you ... is you.

IM requires a little finesse and/or not trying real hard for perfection. You can but it will drive you crazy. I don't know how many images you are using and how those images where taken. If at all possible get images taken with the same focal length as possible. Take them with image modeler in mind and ensure that you have as many 'basic defining cube form' points visible in 2-3 images per verticle corner. Make sure you have a clear view of the points that you know are correct to create the xyz rays of a coordinate system. Start matching points that define the basic connected 'faces' of the cube form. Keep adding points after, if needed, to get a calibration. Set the XYZ coordinate system starting at the origin then out in the appropriate direction as IM calls out to pick the next point for that ray. Create more Matching points as/if needed. Define other 90 degree angles to tighten things up. Refine the tolerance of match points.... Create the rest of the faces to be IM'd. Export to 3D program. In 3D program you have 2 options to make things better. Use camera mapping of the images and adjust the geometry to "square and Plumb" within the projection/s and tweek the camera a bit. or Use Baked UV materials and tweek the geometry to make it right. The first allows for a quicker-looser match in IM and addition of more geometry if your LOD requires it. Stuff like cornices. The second requires a good projection map fit in IM but allows you to move the geometry around without concern to how the cameras are placed in the 3D application. I started with a simple box and worked up to more complex objects. And even then I tried one of a house last year, images taken by someone else, that looked very do-able but.... it was a b!+[h and everyone who tried failed. Post up a couple images if you want and possibly find some assistance. WDA

Artisans - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan Not a strict interpretation but accurate given how most archviz is done. Very rarely does an ArchViz artisan work on their own original work for commision or sale - That would be functioning as an artist and probably not pay that well anyway. Many astists take on work that is not art but thier skills and expereince make them marketable as highly skilled tradesman. Analogy- take a metal sculptor who sells his art, good chance many people may come to him with a complex gates design and have him fabricate it. What would set him apart from a 'metal fabricator' or 'tradesman' is his ability to interpret the intent of the desgn and make the appropriate decisions on the finite details to ehnance rather than bastardize the original concept. But this artist is not functioning as an artist but rather an artisan. The term artisan is being used here and there in the greater CG and CGvfx world in the above described application. As a blanket statement ArchViz is an endevor by artisans to express the 'intent' of anothers' original design, unless you are the architect or designer of the original design. LOL Then you are an architect or desinger in the AEC fields and archiviz is a tool-media that you use to communicate the design. Lots of tools out there Wax