photoworks2 help please!

Hi,

I'm trying to do a quick rendering of some clear acrylic parts that are
fastened to an aluminum frame. When I render it areas where there are
several layers of acrylic (more than 2) the aluminum extrusion renders a
dark gray. I've tried turning up the depth settings to no avail. I've
been using a 'translucent plastic' with the transparency turned up to
simulate acrylic. It's like the ray tracer can only see through x number of
clear faces before it gives up....

Any ideas would be gratefully received!

Zander

 

Zander,

I've had a similar problem.

Try these things:

Go to the PW2 Materials editor where you've defined the acrylic parts and
ake sure the COLOUR of the material is set to dark grey. Sometimes
everything will be transparent but the colour is set to a mid grey and it
makes it seem like it's not as see-through as it should be.... set it to
white or near-white and that should help.

Also, go to the scene editor and go to the shadows tab... make sure
"transparent shadows" is selected. This takes a LOT of processor power but
is really the only way to get realistic renderings of things inside glass
cases.

These in tandem should allow you to produce a decent image.... hope this
helps!

George.

 

Thanks George, I'll give that a try....

 

Zander,

Unless they've changed things lately, you are correct in that the
raytracer can only see through x number of clear faces before it gives
up. It would be too computationally intensive to trace every bounce
of every ray as it reflects and refracts into infinity. To avoid
crunching numbers forever, raytracers set a cap on the max number of
reflections or refractions. To adjust this in PW2 you should be able
to go to the PhotoWorks, Options dialog and set the max number of
reflections and refractions a ray takes before it dies. (It's been a
while since I've been in PW2, so you may have to look around a bit in
the PhotoWorks, Options dialog).

I hope this helps.

-brian
www.bxhdesigns.com

 

Oops.... in my first post that should have read that the colour is NOT set
to dark grey...... but I'm sure you probably figured that one for yourself.

I'd be pleased to know what outcome you managed to come up with

Happy hunting

George

 

This tells us quite a bit about how badly SW screwed up on PW2, when the
PW_Guru himself hasn't been using it for quite a while!

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems