Microstation

[Kurt]

 

I didn't mean to suggest to animate in MS and bring though as a method, I wasn't sure if Kurt was talking about bringing through an existing animation from MS. I've never tried it anyway.

 

No, I did not mean to export animations from MS, I was just describing the only method I have found working to export a "saved view" from MS to MAX. When I use the tool "Create Animation Camera From View" (not animated!) in Microstation, this show up as a camera in MAX when the dwg is linked, and can be picked for rendering the view. I know its not difficult to create cameras in MAX, and move them around to find the right point of view for rendering stills, but I still do this a lot faster in Microstation.

[Parker1]

Richard #2...two Richards, both from the UK, to try and remember your last names...Ha ha ha. You both need to create some cool avatar images so we can recognize your posts easier.

 

As far as Bentley is concerned, I too have had threads pulled on their forums and have been asked privately to keep them "Bentley" specific. There is no room for open debate on the Bentley site so encourage more folks to come over here to CGA where we can all say what we want, and shed some real light on things (no pun intended).

 

I have used Microstation for over 10 years and to this day I still think that it is truly the best modeling software out there for architects (of which I am one). Is it the best rendering software? NO WAY! I still love Bentley and just returned from the BE conference where I was a visualization award nominee, so I clearly continue to support them as a company. In fact, our new workflow includes them so they still receive revenue from us. I can't say this new method is cheap...having to buy Microstation, Max, V-Ray, and a ton of libraries is a costly measure. But we just could not sit around any longer and wait for the rendering engine to improve at a snails pace. We had to do something to improve our product, and this method was the way.

 

Speaking of the new 'XM' animation tools...I sat in a class taught by Joe G. and Pete S. at the conference that was all about the new animator. It is very cool and is so much better then it's predecessor. In fact, it is very similar to MAX now. Having a nice new animator is one thing...having sub-par renderings to animate is another.

 

Good-Day

[walianboy]

Your wish is my command Brian.... see avitar.

 

I fully agree that we should get other from the Bentley Newsgroup over here to discuss without rules and regs how to properly intergrate Microstation into the Vis workflow. As I said before it is a shame to have to do that but its the nature of the beast.

 

Anyway, I look forward to a steep learnign curve with regards to MAX 8 and Microstation intergration along with other rendering engines.... perhaps Maxwell.... not sure yet.

 

I'm in Mexico at the moment but will be moving back (in 2 weeks) to the UK after a year here. Then, after getting a job, I'll be really able to get my teeth into this beast. I can't wait.

 

Regards

 

Richard Beatson

[walianboy]

Kurt, just to be sure.... are you actually placing your lights in MAX then or importing them from Microstation?

 

Richard

[Kurt]

I have placed lights in MAX. I have not tried to export lights from MicroStation.

 

Kurt

[Parker1]

You would not want too because they have completely differant settings then in MAX. With V-Ray you want to use only V-Ray lights and IES lights primarily. It is very easy to learn the lighting tools in MAX, give it a go.

[Kurt]

I find it a bit hard to create new materials in VRay, basically because I still don't understand how the different settings work. I have done som tut's, and learned som basic settings, but its still a long way to go.

Is there anywhere I can download (or buy) good VRay materials.? If I onlyhad a library with 100 predifined material (I have many more in Microstation), it would be a great start...

[Parker1]

Kurt,

 

I feel your pain. The MAX material editor is so much more robust and complex then in MS (and that is a good thing). The things that can be done in MAX with materials is amazing but you are right in saying that is it difficult to learn all the new settings. Have you got the Vismasters tutorial on V-Ray materials? There is one other good one that I will send you as well. You also need to buy the SIMIAN textures since they are all premade V-Ray shaders. There is a set of free materials from EGZ which are for V-Ray as well. The best way to get good materials is to steal them from prerendered scenes. Buy the Evermotion Interiors volume-1 for $99. Then you can use the eye-dropper tool in the MAX material editor to sample a material from stuff in thier pre-textured V-Ray scenes. You can then edit these materials a little and in short order you will have a decent set of V-Ray shaders to play with. I too have hundreds of great materials that I have made over the years in MS but we just have to all start over again.

 

As for one big pre-made library of V-Ray shaders...none that I have found yet....BUT I WISH! Hey all you guys out there...stop modeling more couches and chairs, we have enough! Start building us a large V-Ray shader set and sell it...we will buy it.

[RyanSpaulding]

Richard, good to see you finally leave the dark side.

 

I dont like how those Bentley folk operate very much. I like how Vue has worked out for the most part. Lookin into Max though.

[Parker1]

Hey RYAN, Great to hear from you! I know you from the Bentley Forums as well. So now we have You, Tom, Richard, Richard, Kurt, and myself all pushing for a new VIZ direction out of MS. If we could only get Peter, Patrik, and Cobus to join us; what a force to reckon with.

 

Hope to hear more from you.

[walianboy]

So Brian, are you going to email them (off group) or am I? I emailed John Finkell who said he was a little busy right now to join in discussion.

 

What I would like to know though is.... are we the only ones visualising with MS in the world? Surely not. Where is everyone else? You look on the internet and seek out discussion on 3d MAX and you are spoilt for choice as to where to look. (By the way, this was the question that I asked on the Newsgroup and was deleted pretty rapidly by Bentley staff)

 

Richard Beatson

[ktm07]

Are any of you guys planning on attending SIGGRAPH/Vizmasters in Boston? Brian and I will be there Wednesday-Saturday.

 

Tom

[RyanSpaulding]

Hey RYAN, Great to hear from you! I know you from the Bentley Forums as well. So now we have You, Tom, Richard, Richard, Kurt, and myself all pushing for a new VIZ direction out of MS. If we could only get Peter, Patrik, and Cobus to join us; what a force to reckon with.

Hope to hear more from you.

 

Psssh...I've been off MS for about a year now. Will NOT go back. I hated how Bentley conducts themselves.

[Kurt]

When will Microstation support displacement maps and HDRI? In 2012...?

 

Just made my first displacement tests with this chair. Texturmaps created in 15 minutes in photoshop based on a photo of a basket found on google.

Needed some more time in VRay though - I know its not perfect, but its still many times better than what I would have achieved with the same amount of time in microstation...

 

 

[Justin Hunt]

Hey RYAN, Great to hear from you! I know you from the Bentley Forums as well. So now we have You, Tom, Richard, Richard, Kurt, and myself all pushing for a new VIZ direction out of MS. If we could only get Peter, Patrik, and Cobus to join us; what a force to reckon with.

Hope to hear more from you.

 

 

Count me in as well, although I jumped ship a couple of years ago, there is still some stuff that I like to model in MS, but rendering is Max all the way. I like the choice of renderers - Scanline, MR, Vray, Brazil.

 

JHV

[Kurt]

Hi Ryan and Justin!

Its great to see the postings from so many "microstation-modellers" here! Maybe we could use a microstation forum here at CGarchitect after all?

 

And hey! - nobody deletes my posts here! (I've had 4 or 5 posts deleted over at Bentley's without any explanation...)

[woolsgrove]

What I would like to know though is.... are we the only ones visualising with MS in the world? Surely not. Where is everyone else?

 

We are definitely not the only ones, I know people who just look at the NGs, not sure if it's shyness or not wanting to 'waste' time or share stuff. I hope it's shyness. Also not everyone knows about the NG, or how useful they are. I can list half a dozen who don't contribute so there must be a whole load more out there.

Richard

[richardbeatson]

Just made my first displacement tests with this chair.

Lookin' good Kurt, well done. You can now really 'feel' the texture. It's not flat anymore. Nice.

 

As to when Microstation will support displacement mapping..... well, considering they're 5-10 years behind the rest of the field.... who knows?

[Parker1]

Justin, great to have you join in.

 

I guess if we did have Jeff add a MS forum it would just be all of us guys complaining all the time about Bentley. Since none of us are rendering with MS then most of our posts and questions end up in the forums for each rendering engine (i.e.: Vray, Mental Ray, etc…). If I ever had a serious MS question I would still post it on the news group instead of here because the Bentley guys monitor the posts over there and give you quick answers. What do you guys think? Should we ask Jeff a little more seriously for an MS forum?

[RyanSpaulding]

I would LOVE MicroStation forum. I think need one for the simple fact of how Bentley conducts themselves. We have no outlet to say anything negative there...it gets deleted immediatly by a Bentley employee so as to not shed any negative light in their multiple thousand dollar modeller.

 

We need to figure out the best workflows to port away from it. We also would benefit because we could all associate tools from MicroStation to 3DS rendering.

 

I think we shoud all ask. Have John Finkell write the draft. He likes this sort of thing.

 

I actually am porting to Vue 5 Infinite currently but was VERY interested in learning Max because I'm now reaching limts within Vue...it's time to just go to the big dog. I have a rather lenghty list of things to do and not do when porting to Vue.

[richardbeatson]

We need to figure out the best workflows to port away from it. We also would benefit because we could all associate tools from MicroStation to 3DS rendering.

 

I agree Ryan. We are all in the same boat here and though some are more advanced than others (I count myself in the latter category) it would be a good idea to have a forum where we're all coming from the same background and tackling the same problems.

 

We're all going to need to figure the best way to export.

We're all going to encounter problems during this process with solids/surfaces/normals.

We're all going to encounter problems in MAX and any render engine (V-Ray) as they're new.

 

It might be helpful to tread this path together?

 

I do agree with Brian though that it could end up with people posting here what they cannot post in the Bentley Forums. I'm not here to slag Bentley off, by no means. I just want to get my work done as quickly and effectively as possible achieving the best results. That's what all of us want. If I have to take the odd dig at the great corporation then I think I might be forgiven for that.

 

Let's try a forum here and see what we get out of it. It can always be deleted if it's not used.

[Justin Hunt]

At the moment on the MS Usergroup, especially the visualisation one, if its not a 3DPDF then you are considered to be waisting peoples time, especially from the enigineers (read the guy from Greece;)) He is producing interesting models, but has no interest in making beautiful renders out of them. There is almost a sence of giving up on waiting for an improved renderer or exploring alternitive methodes to push MS rendering to the limits.

 

So I would push for an other forum here, just to get a more visualisation/ rendering focused comments on images and workflow.

 

JHV

[ktm07]

Can you guys tell me how you convert a solid to a mesh surface in MicroStation? I have been working with only solids for so long I don't remeber how to do this.

 

Thanks!

 

Tom

[Kurt]

Hi Tom,

If you have a Smart solid, you can use the tool "Mesh from Element". It's found on the "Surface Modelling" palette.

 

The tool normally works on Feature solids aswell, but not always. You might get the message "convert element to smart solid" I am not sure if there is a tool that does this in a simple way. Maybe someone knows? I usually drop the Feature Solid to surfaces using the "Drop Element tool", and then create a Smart Solid by stitching the faces using the stitch tool (on the Surface Modeling palette). And then I can use the "Mesh from Element" tool

 

You can adjust number of polygons by adjusting the "Angle tolerance" value.

[Kurt]

I wonder if Jeff Mottle ever checks the "Suggest a New Forum"-section, or should we send him some sort of a reminder? Perhaps our thread needs at least 50 replies and 1000 views...?