PhotoWorks through the floor

greets all.
a few questions re: photoworks (2007)

1. sometimes, when reopening a model, I lose the "floor" reference.
This usually only happens once per file, oddly enough. my model
is still on the Top plane (XZ axis), but when i render the shadow
drops
down (as if the floor has fallen). I've been doing the same routine
for
quite some time: tweak floor offset, render. tweak floor offset,
render
again. until my model meets the floor and the shadows look right.

on new parts/assemblies this doesn't happen. will only happen if i
screw around with the environment settings (*properties* of floors,
walls,
etc, not their relative sizes/positions) enough that a subsequent
rendering
drops the floor. then i'm stuck in the iterative loop mentioned above
to have floor meet model.

2. changing lighting schemes sometimes leaves me with more lights
than i know what to do with in the feature tree. seems like they
don't
all go away when i change to a new scheme.

3. screwing with the lights also makes my model's colors shift.
as if the color of the previous light left some indelible mark on the
model material.

failing any sort of solution to the above problems, is there any way
to
"reset" all the photoworks settings? (detaching/deleting entries in
the feature tree doesn't always work).

note: i am not saving photoworks info in the file.. but they stay
nonetheless
when i close/reopen.

i don't use photoworks very often.. and am not very good at it.
the new "studios" are a god send to my untrained eye.. till the
floor falls out.

thanks,
tony

 

also, might anyone suggest a place/forum where I can post my rendered
images for
critique? I imagine peer review could be a pretty fast way to learn
something new.

thanks again
-tony

 

Hi Toni,
I can remember your problem reaching back since PW2 was released.
As you described, it only happens from time to time but it is annoying.
I found out that it occurs much less, when you set up a new scene in the
scene editor -> room -> mark your choices like radius, plane etc. and
then uncheck the "resize automatically" option.

Easiest workaround if you need a plane: disable the floor plane in PW
and create a new planar surface in SW, apply material -> render -> done.

This plane will not change as long as SW Corp does not release a
service pack which screws and blows the whole geometry.
;-)) "might also happen one day"

Your lighting problem is not so familiar to me but I found out that the
default part and assembly templates contain multiple light sources, from
which one is coloured "blue". This preset light alsways affects the
colour of the scene. I deleted all unnecessarry light sources and set up
new templates for parts and assemblies. Sometimes when working with
customer-data the coloured lightsources are still there.
Did you already try to render with indirect illumination? If you use a
nice backdrop image and activate reflective environment, you often
can switch of all light sources and sometimes even disable shadows
and you still get nice realistic renderings with only a fraction of the
rendering time.

You want to publish your renderings in order to get feedback and to
discuss the results? Why not take part at the rendering contest of
Rob Rodriguez. He set up a very nice contest platform where all PW
users are invited to send entries:

www.robrodriguez.com

HTH

Greetings from Germany

Jojo

 

Jojo,
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try that out next time.

I think some of my problem re: lighting comes from the fact that I
jump around
between a "Studio" and the regular PW settings. I think changes in
one do
not affect the other. ie the "quality" slider can be overridden via
the PW options.
And I think they are cummulative... though can't be sure.. yet.

More to learn...

FWIW, tried re-rendering a model with all the quality settings set to
highest
(tessellations, transparent shadows, high edge quality, etc)... I
can't really tell
much of a difference. Perhaps its my untrained eye, maybe a bad
monitor?
What I can tell you is that it increased my render time 20 fold.

Thanks again,
Tony