I have only just started playing around with the advanced render settings, but have no good examples as yet, I am interested in a kind of diffuse ambient occlusion effect as shown on the image link below, any help in getting started with a few basic cubes and sphere in an open box would do. The shading effect that moves out from the highlight to the outside edges is what I am after, also a plain non reflective material.

Here is the link to what I am after.  http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?app=downloads&module=display&section=screenshot&record=2918&id=973&full=1

Thank You!.

A similar effect shown here in blender.  http://raffaellacropanese.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/2-renderlayer-ao.jpg

Michael, I can't advise on the advanced render settings but what you want to achieve is doable with an area luminance.
These were done way back in version 10 and 12. The area light geometry is made by extruding a single line essentially creating a single surface. It is very important when using area luminance to assign it to simple geometry with few faces to keep render times down.

I have only just started playing around with the advanced render settings, but have no good examples as yet, I am interested in a kind of diffuse ambient occlusion effect as shown on the image link below, any help in getting started with a few basic cubes and sphere in an open box would do. The shading effect that moves out from the highlight to the outside edges is what I am after, also a plain non reflective material.

Here is the link to what I am after.  http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?app=downloads&module=display&section=screenshot&record=2918&id=973&full=1

Thank You!.

Hi Michael,
 Are you looking for something like this? (see attachment)
Is there anything (more or less) you would like to see.

Both are very good examples Richard and Dean, and both are similar to the effect that I am trying to achieve. I have had a dabble with the ambient occlusion which I have never touched really since the feature was available , and had my head turned upside down, as when you add a brighter object, the scene actually gets darker and the same with increasing the ambient light.

The area light looks very interesting, has this been done also with ambient occlusion or is there a natural falloff of light on the surfaces with area light?.

I also need to know how to set the accuracy or quality of ambient occlusion , as my prints will probably be 6000px x 4000px down in size.

I have been working on an art gallery for the last 5 months to use as a very extensive prop for some of my artwork and sculptures to give a natural backdrop for my artwork prints. The rooms in the gallery lack the falloff of light into the corners, so am experimenting with a greyscale ambient occlusion  version to overlay in photoshop which should add a lot more realism to the scene.

Your examples are very helpful, and the area light will be a very good place to start.

Can you give an example of the settings you have used in this scene?.

Many thanks for the feedback, as I am venturing into uncharted territory with the advanced render styles.


Michael C Geraghty. (Turbocad V19.2 Pro Plat 64 bit)

I have had a dabble with the ambient occlusion which I have never touched really since the feature was available , and had my head turned upside down, as when you add a brighter object, the scene actually gets darker and the same with increasing the ambient light.

If you are using the presets then is would explain this problem. 
The tone mapping (Auto and Brighten up) causes this as this tries to bring the brightness down and also the contrast up. I have found we need to get more of an even light over the scene so this issue does not occur. I have often set this up for one view and thought it was acceptable then changed to another view and it looks completely different and does not look right in that view.

I often disable this for some scenes.

Thanks for the feedback Darrel, I have spent a few hours today playing around, sometimes good, but after the fiddling, I lose it again. Pity we cannot access the render and lighting properties with a vbscript, and run variations on the settings using just one luminance and one advanced render style , set up a text object that would print the variables under the test render. The advantage of this would be using only one base light or render style that the script would iterate through saving a thumbnail of the variations.

"The area light looks very interesting, has this been done also with ambient occlusion or is there a natural falloff of light on the surfaces with area light?."

No advanced render mode was used. This was done back in V12 using "Quality" render mode. The area light inherently produces a softer more diffuse shadow. I suggest for starters a min lod 0.1  and max lod of 1.0 this will give good shadow detail and reasonable render time.

Thanks Richard , Had a try with Area light today, but not as I expected, but that was with advanced render Ambient Occlusion. I will give it a try without.

Dean, can you post your settings also, not sure if you have used Ambient Occlusion, but a very good contrast, may be because the walls are a different shade also.

I had a few hours on the ambient occlusion render style again today, and after a lot of searching and a read of the section in the wiki, I found out that no lights at all or luminances are req'd with that render style, although extra lights can be added.

Today I am going to try and find out the difference between "Ambient Occlusion Render Style" ,
 and  " Real Time Ambient Occlusion Luminance".

I am also going to delve into the Area Light again today, but without ambient occlusion render style.

Thanks Richard , Had a try with Area light today, but not as I expected, but that was with advanced render Ambient Occlusion. I will give it a try without.

Dean, can you post your settings also, not sure if you have used Ambient Occlusion, but a very good contrast, may be because the walls are a different shade also.

Michael, Yes, I used an advanced render (ambient occlusion) I started with the “White 1 klux” then made my adjustments. There is a “single” point luminance just below the white rectangle on the ceiling. Was my render close to what you were asking? You were looking for non -reflective materials with the shadows getting lighter farther away from the corners, correct? Try experimenting with the “shadow factor” and “contrast” in the ambient occlusion parameters for adjusting the shadows.(see attachment) Perhaps I can help. Is there anything that you would like to see more or less of in my render? There are so many settings with luminance’s, materials etc. that I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d be more than happy to give you that file for testing, if you wish. The only thing is that with a different drawing the settings will be different. Maybe it's best to use a test file.

A copy of your file would be an advantage Dean, as we can use it as a test scenario model, so we are all testing variations with the same physical parameters. I have also been looking at the 'maximum ray length' in Final Gather and Shadow Factor in AO. The association between these two settings are apparently very important. Reference from the Turbocad Tiki  link below.

http://www3.turbocadcommunity.com/tiki-index.php?page=Ambient+Occlusion&highlight=ambient%20occlusion

My initial tests are along similar lines to your AO Settings Dean , only different color materials and different model proportions and internal objects. By varying the 'Max Ray Length'  and Shadow Factor we may be able to scale up the box model with similar results.

If you post the file Dean, can you post a Turbocad V19 Version, as I am on Turbocad V19.2 Pro Plat.

Many thanks for your input and feedback!.


Michael Geraghty.

Ok Michael, i'll test the conversion from v 21 to version 19. I'll post the file later. I'm not with my computer at the moment.

Many thanks for your help Dean, appreciated!.

Michael Geraghty.

Many thanks for your help Dean, appreciated!.

Michael Geraghty.

Hi Michael,
Here’s the file > see attachment.
The render style and luminance didn’t make it in the conversion to V19 so I had to re-create the luminance and render style for Version 19. V21 has a whole new render system. I was able to get the render very similar to my V21 file.
> Turbocad is very un-predictable > I’m crossing my fingers that the file gives the same results on your computer. If you get any “confirm replace” dialogs just choose “replace all”. Also after opening the file I would do a render just to make sure we are starting from the same place. The render style is an Advanced render “White 1 Klux (custom V19)” with none of the  foreground wireframe
The luminance is “point (custom V19)  > The view is “left perspective”
My custom materials should transfer with the file. They were turbocad materials I adjusted a little.
If for some reason the render result is not similar to mine we’ll just have to walk through all the settings.

Many Thanks for the file Dean, I have played around today with a few settings, but your usage and settings for point light was exactly what I wanted, I will post some variations later on tonight. 3:30am now, so off to bed for a few hours. With a bit more exploration between us all on the forum, a lot of really nice renders and styles could come out of the ambient occlusion ventures, getting down to the nitty gritty of the parameters that interact, may mean that we can create a scaleable box model with similar results.

Thank You again!.

Michael Geraghty

Still plugging away with the ambient occlusion test, and up to now, have come to the conclusion that each image would be a one off, and settings would not be scaleable.

From what I have read with other 3d software up to now, they appear to  create UV maps of the whole model. and the create the ambient occlusion map in XNormal and then re-import the AO maps for use on the model.

I was hoping that the lightworks engine could create the kind of effect that I was after, but so few examples on the intricacies of the ambient occlusion settings at present.

Here is a video about  blender that shows the effect that I am after, but not sure if they create UV Maps first or not. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oxOPNA8Ut8

Some Diffuse Ambient Occlusion images done in blender

http://mikebrogowski.com/2011/02/pre-visualizing-in-blender/

In some of the articles relating to ambient occlusion in Turbocad, it shows a model of a car, which is the same kind of effect, now if lightworks could give us some information on how to achieve these settings it would be really handy.

Here is the link to the article. http://www.turbocad.com/Company/Articles/LightsWorks

and the link to the image in question. http://www.turbocad.com/Portals/1/Feature_Images/LightWorks/Audi_AO_comp.jpg

Hi Michael, see attachments. I created those drawings in V21. If you wish I could post screen captures of the settings.

It would be appreciated Dean, the appearance of render no1 looks stunning, very visually appealing. I have had a few days break off it, as I suffer a lot with Migraine these days and have been burning the midnight oil for months.

I have just revived my old system with my Delphi XE2 software on, and as time progresses and I get back into it, will try and see if I can create a program to generate an advanced render style saved as a text file that could just be added to the render styles. There are so many settings, so when I get around to it, will just start off with the main parameters that need adjusting, and then set those parameters as variables that I can iterate through generating variations on the settings and saving as new render styles.

Many thanks again for your assistance Dean, I have searched high and low both on and off the forum for any examples, but it appears that they are all trial and error , and mostly by people here on the forum.

Mike Geraghty.

Hi Michael,
I have no idea what your drawing type is and or what it will consist “of” but maybe a few of these settings might help.
You should be able to re-create these settings in V19. Hopefully the screen captures will help.  I chose these for now. I used a few variations of a “pattern” plain white material, matte “reflectance” adjusting the diffuse and ambient factors and sometimes adding a rough “texture”. 
Advanced Render> Start with the default  Final Gather/Ambient Occlusion  white 0.1 klux .
C1 > is the bounce and gather settings
C2 > is the AO settings.
C3 > is the auto and brighten up settings.
C4> is the ray traced settings. The “feature following anti-aliasing” is important for rendering crisp lines as seen in the top of the table. With FFAA off, those lines appeared jagged. This setting adds to render time. Normally I save turning that setting on till the final render.]
C5 > For the interior scene, there is a “single” luminance just below the ceiling in the center of the room.

Thanks for sharing Dean 

Like Mike, i realy like pic 1

Torfinn

Hi Michael,
I have no idea what your drawing type is and or what it will consist “of” but maybe a few of these settings might help.
You should be able to re-create these settings in V19. Hopefully the screen captures will help.  I chose these for now. I used a few variations of a “pattern” plain white material, matte “reflectance” adjusting the diffuse and ambient factors and sometimes adding a rough “texture”. 
Advanced Render> Start with the default  Final Gather/Ambient Occlusion  white 0.1 klux .
C1 > is the bounce and gather settings
C2 > is the AO settings.
C3 > is the auto and brighten up settings.
C4> is the ray traced settings. The “feature following anti-aliasing” is important for rendering crisp lines as seen in the top of the table. With FFAA off, those lines appeared jagged. This setting adds to render time. Normally I save turning that setting on till the final render.]
C5 > For the interior scene, there is a “single” luminance just below the ceiling in the center of the room.

This will be a great help Dean, just off to give it a try, will post back later.

Thank You!.

Michael Geraghty.

Well here is the nearest that I have managed to get so far Dean, I have had to modify the settings, but can't seem to get the shaded areas to move back closer to the corners yet, there are a lot of different parameters which I am still trying to figure out.

HI Michael,
What are you using as light and is the luminance  "fall off" setting set as "constant"?
I'm going to post a V19 file (my original "box" that I posted) with all white material.

Hello Dean, my lum is goniometric set at constant falloff. I changed the color from white to a grey color as it brightened the scene up a bit. I have used a small sphere for the goniometric lum, and set it to "load to render luminance only". Does the size or material of the sphere have any bearing on the scene.

Please see attached.

Hi Michael,
 Here is a V19 file.  And the attached picture of  the final render. In the tcw file you should have a
“reflect white” material  in the category  ‘paint band” and in the category “my paints” a white hatch 2 material.
“White 1 klux (AO render)” advanced final gather/ambient occlusion style
“point (AO render)” luminance assigned to the small sphere in the center of the room.
Like I said earlier the settings do change with each drawing. If you want to you could post or pm me one of your test files. I do still have V19 platinum.

>I'll take a look at your file

Hi Michael. (see attachments)
 I made a few changes to some settings in your file.

Many Thanks Dean, with the latest settings, almost like for like, I found out where I was hitting the problem, some of the settings in v19 are in percent and your settings for AO drop off rate was abs value, which was 0.87 in version 21, and  I have changed mine now to 87 percent and it worked just great, at least quite a good proximity. I will check any of the other settings to see if I am in percent or abs settings.  Don't know why the two settings are used.

Here is my very close proximity version now.

Here is my rendered version of AO render (V19) rev1.tcw Dean, exactly as yours, so obviously some of my setting had been in percent mode when I have input abs values.

After a hard week on this, all starting to make some sense, I must go back over my settings and see how many I have input abs values in percent settings.

You have been a great help Dean and Richard, so thank you both very much for your assistance!.

Regards Michael Geraghty.

Wow, you guys, quite a thread; thank you for getting this conversation started Michael. The first example you showed had that visceral, gripping quality, that draws you in. Really nice. And desirable.

I played around with Advanced AO rendering in the beginning, like v16, until I discovered Brad's Softbox which I have used in Quality mode regularly for the bulk of my work ever since. I developed quite a library of luminaires, though, and did find that using the natural quadratic falloff gave me the kind of shadows I liked best. As much as I like to futz with the settings and tune the shadowforms, I've been focused elsewhere, so I appreciate the hours of test-wait-test you've all spent.

Michael, that final image is superb.

One other thing I noted, someone mentioned TCAD's rendering unreliability. If I do too many tests, sometimes the program stops applying my latest changes, and I have to save and restart the drawing; often I'll just restart the whole program to be cleaner.
Cheers
Steve