LW & Revit

[tbarnesarc]

Anyone use those two together? I use Revit on a daily bases and just won a copy of Lightwave. Never used it before and was wondering what the best way was for me to bring the Revit model into LW. I can export DWG, DXF, & SAT but that's about it. The material defs are maintained if I bring into VIz via DWG. Just was curious how to do the same with LW. Any help would be great.

 

Thanks

Taylor

[IC]

There isn't a very happy answer to this one I'm afraid. Your best bet for getting an exported model into LW with assigned materials is using a 3ds file.

 

DXF works almost as well but the results are never totally predicatable.

I find no matter how I do it, I end up messing around with faces and materials.

[tbarnesarc]

That's disapointing news. Maybe I'll just stick to what I know then. It was free so it doesn't matter anyway.

[tbarnesarc]

I got a 3ds file into LW. It does mantain mat defs. I need to buy a book to learn it. I will only being using LW for rendering. Any recomendations on what book to purchase? Thanks for the help.

 

Taylor

[IC]

I said it would as long as it was a 3ds but you said you couldn't export 3ds.

 

Anyway, if all you're doing is rendering, all you probably need is a bit of research. You won't get a lot here but search the LightWave and Lighting forums on CGTalk.

And look for lighting-specific tutorials.

 

You will probably want to add to/enhance your models after export however and LightWave's modeller is one of the best so I would recommend Inside LightWave by Dan Ablan. It covers the basics of everything and makes it all very easy to pick up.

 

Oh and the LW renderer is very good but it's slow for radiosity so you really want to buy FPrime, a plug-in render engine which is faster than just about anything else-it costs buttons for what you get.

 

You can also post any specific questions or PM me or one of the other LW users (if you can find them).

[tbarnesarc]

I should have clarified. I put a DWG into Viz and then exported to 3ds and it worked that way.

 

Thanks for the info on the book. Quite a few people have recommended that book so it must be the best one out there.

 

As far as Fprime I will wait and see if I like LW before I spend money on it. I have been looking at other renderering packages like Modo (once 201 comes out).

 

I appreciate the help and will defenitely PM you if I have any questions.

 

Thanks again,

Taylor

[IC]

 

As far as Fprime I will wait and see if I like LW before I spend money on it. I have been looking at other renderering packages like Modo (once 201 comes out).

 

 

Good idea.

You can also use Maxwell with LW which I'm about to start experimenting with.

 

There is another book by Timothy Albee which is supposedly good for beginners but I've not seen that one.

[tbarnesarc]

Good idea.

You can also use Maxwell with LW which I'm about to start experimenting with.

 

There is another book by Timothy Albee which is supposedly good for beginners but I've not seen that one.

Maxwell is also coming out with a plugin for Revit as well from what I have heard. I am just reluctant to learn GI because of the rendering times. Maxwell is very impressive though. Thanks for the info. I am sure i will see you on the LW forums in the future.

 

Taylor,

PS

Isn't the rendering supposed to be faster in LW 9?

[IC]

Isn't the rendering supposed to be faster in LW 9?

 

That's the claim but everyone has already switched to using Fprime for radiosity.