What s New In Autodesk VIZ Eddie Perlberg

Transcription

1 December 2-5, 2003 MGM Grand Hotel Las Vegas Eddie Perlberg VI12-1 Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 also includes VIZ Render, its very own visualization tool. VIZ Render uses some of the same technology developed in 3ds max TM and Autodesk VIZ, including much of the photometric lighting and rendering technology. There are, however, many significant differences. This session is geared for new users of VIZ Render and those already familiar with Autodesk VIZ About the Speaker: Eddie is a project manager in the Visualize Success division of R.A. Smith & Associates, Inc., a leading engineering, surveying, and technical services consultant in the Midwest. Eddie has 15 years of experience developing architectural and visualization solutions. He has taught a variety of classes and is a recognized speaker at numerous seminars. Eddie is also a contributing animator for the Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, Admirals, Wave, and Marquette Golden Eagles. He is experienced as a CAD manager, designer, and visualization artist. Eperlberg@wi.rr.com

2 Introduction 2 To understand the features of VIZ Render, it s important to understand its position in AutoDesk s design visualization strategy; to be an integral part of the integrated software family developed to serve a wide spectrum of designers at varying stages in the design process. Built upon the same underlying core technology, each product within AutoDesk s family of design visualization offerings will provide a new level of interoperability, allowing designers the flexibility to use a wide range of tools to best serve their needs. 1 All of the members of the visualization family share the same technologies with radiosity, lights, cameras and materials to name a few. Each extends those capabilities and adds feature sets along the way. VIZ Render VIZ Render is the newly designed rendering application coupled with Autodesk Architectural Desktop VIZ Render, when integrated into the design workflow, offers near one-click rendering capabilities. Installed with Architectural Desktop, VIZ Render does not offer any modeling capabilities. Additional data can be merged in from Autodesk VIZ and 3ds max to help enhance the scene. VIZ Render is licensed with Autodesk Architectural Desktop and is not available as a stand-alone product. Within this rendering environment VIZ Render remains transparently linked, at all times, to the model file in Autodesk Architectural Desktop This live link becomes the means for you to test designs, materials and lighting, thereby providing the ultimate platform flexibility for architectural studies. Autodesk VIZ A strategic component of the design visualization strategy is Autodesk VIZ software, the award-winning 3D modeling, rendering, and animation tool. For designers and visualization artists who need to incorporate data from a variety of design applications, Autodesk VIZ provides productive tools for modeling, rendering, and animation. VIZ is focused to the architectural and industrial designers who need to produce highquality examples of their work and do not need many of the advanced multimedia features of 3ds max such as character animation or special effects. Note: The next release of Autodesk VIZ (VIZ 6) is currently under development. This new version of AutoDesk VIZ will offer greater interoperability with other Autodesk design solutions, including the AutoCAD 2004 product family. In an effort to make all of the visualization family more compatible, no features of Autodesk VIZ will be unique from 3ds max. Planned to be available in the first half of 2004, the new product release will benefit from advancements made last year in developing VIZ Render and the current release of Discreet 3ds max tm 6 software. 1 3ds max 3ds max is the leading general 3D modeling, rendering, and animation application. The 3ds max 6 focuses on addressing the needs of advanced visualization designers in a variety of disciplines, including architectural, graphic, and industrial design. 3ds max software has become the tool of choice for those who provide advanced visualization services to design enterprises around the world. 1 Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 As you can see, any discussions regarding VIZ Render must begin with Autodesk Architectural Desktop VIZ Render relies completely on Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 (ADT 2004) for the creation of objects. Leveraging the data created for construction documents in your ADT 2004 file, intelligent objects, style definitions, material assignments, blocks and other geometry, is used to create compelling visualizations. The connection between Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render is the File Link Manager utility, which bridges your Architectural Desktop design database and your VIZ Render scene. The File Link Manager allows you to move your Architectural Desktop objects into VIZ Render, where you can rearrange them, modify their material properties, and use a substantial collection of lighting, rendering, and animation tools to create compelling visualizations. Since the File Link Manager maintains the link back to the original 1 AutoDesk Press release Autodesk Sets Design Visualization Direction, Targeting Family of Offerings for Specific Design Visualization Needs Dated October 3 rd, 2003

3 Architectural Desktop file, you can continue to develop your design in Architectural Desktop and automatically update your VIZ Render scene. Getting your Model Ready for Rendering So let s look at the steps to consider when looking to move your ADT file into VIZ Render for some visualization magic. It s important to recognize some of the time saving steps that can be taken in the ADT environment to bring an element of ease to the processes. ADT is uniquely equipped to make style based decisions that will make implementing tasks like material application more universal. At the same time, universal applications may be too broad for the subtleties of the visualization process. While all window objects may have a glass element, the same could not be said for mass elements which will represent many different types of object. It would result in more work to assign all mass elements a specific material. Since the task of model creation sits squarely on ADT s shoulders, we will leave that to ADT sessions. What we will need to focus on in ADT, when developing models for visualizations, is the definition of materials and their application. We will investigate the process of style based material assignment in ADT and later, objects based assignment in VIZ Render. Material Definition Materials are the most prevailing aspect of VIZ Render. It is the materials combined with light effects that make your visualizations compelling and realistic. Through the material properties you define color, texture, transparency, etc. While ADT is uniquely superior in the creation of building designs, so is VIZ Render s ability to create material definitions. Because of the circular nature of materials flowing from ADT to VIZ Render and back the actual creation of materials is best suited to VIZ Render and moved into ADT. You use VIZ Render s Material Editor to get the precise material effect, including surface color and pattern, shininess, transparency, surface texture, and reflectance that you want to see in your rendered scenes. These rendering materials can be assigned to objects in your VIZ Render scene, but they can also be used in Architectural Desktop. There, it is assigned to components and then moved back to VIZ Render. VIZ Render s Material Editor also allows you to tweak Architectural Desktop's material assignments. When Architectural Desktop assigns a VIZ Render rendering material to an Architectural Desktop component, it automatically uses a subset of the material's properties to create an AcDbMaterial that approximates the VIZ Render material. In this way, a light version of the rendering material will appear on these components when they are viewed in Architectural Desktop or rendered with AutoCAD's legacy renderer. Since they omit some subtleties of the original material, these light versions will not look as realistic as the original material in VIZ Render. But the additional rendering attributes are carried with the material even if they cannot be viewed in Architectural Desktop, and when the component is linked back into VIZ Render, it will render with all the original material attributes intact. To export a material from VIZ Render to an Architectural Desktop drawing, you simply drag the material from the Materials Palette in VIZ Render to the drawing window for the Architectural Desktop drawing you are sending it to. When you do this, the surface render material with its properties are defined in that drawing, which means it is available to incorporate into a new or existing Architectural Desktop material definition. Autodesk Architectural Desktop offers a large number of predefined building materials in the drawing templates. You can, however, also create your own custom materials. A. Create a material and assign it to an object or object style: 1. In VIZ Render, open a scene with the desired materials defined. If one doesn t exist, in an empty scene, create the Render Material in the Materials Palette to be used in ADT. 2. With ADT and VIZ Render open side by side, drag the Render Material from the Materials Palette in VIZ Render to the drawing window in ADT. As we ve discussed, this gives ADT a light version to use. 3

4 3. Close VIZ Render for now, save the scene if you wish to access these material in the future. 4. In ADT, on the Format menu, click Style Manager. The Style Manager is displayed with the current drawing expanded in the tree view. 5. Expand Multi-Purpose Objects, and expand Material Definitions. 6. Right click over the Material Definition label and pick New from the pop-up menu. Create and rename a material definition for each material needed. 7. Right click over the label of the newly created material and click Edit 8. In the Material Definition Properties dialog box, highlight the Display Representation you would like to assign the material (the current Display Rep. is shown in bold) and place a check in the Style Override box that corresponds with it. This should open the Display Properties (Material Definition Override) dialog box. If not, access the dialog box by selecting the button. 9. Move to the Other tab and assign the Render Material we dragged in from VIZ Render. B. Assigning to Components 1. On the Format menu, click Style Manager. The Style Manager is displayed with the current drawing expanded in the tree view. 2. Expand Architectural Objects and expand the Object Style you wish to edit (for our example we ll use Window Styles). 3. Highlight the style to assign our material to and right click to Edit 4. Move to the Materials tab and select the material definition that corresponds with each component. 5. From the drop down list that appears select your predefined Material Definition. 4

5 Materials Definitions can be created on the fly with the New Material button and quickly edited with the Edit Material button. Material definitions can be stored with the style and thus saved in your template. Starting VIZ Render You start VIZ Render from within Autodesk Architectural Desktop by choosing it from the Open Drawing menu in the lower left corner of any Architectural Desktop drawing. Starting VIZ Render in this way automatically links the current drawing's data into a new VIZ Render session. To start VIZ Render from Architectural Desktop: 1. In Architectural Desktop, with any drawing open, click the Open Drawing Menu button in the lower-left corner of the drawing window. Note: The drawing must have been saved at least once before you start VIZ Render. 2. From the Open Drawing menu, choose Link To VIZ Render. 5

6 You will see the VIZ Render splash screen, then the VIZ Render user screen with your Architectural Desktop data loaded into it. This can take a minute or so to load the application and the data. Tip: You can also start VIZ Render by typing vizrender in the command prompt and pressing the ENTER key. VIZ Render VIZ Render is a companion application of Autodesk Architectural Desktop Its purpose is to leverage the design data created in Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 to produce realistic visualizations of your designs for presentations or design studies. VIZ Render creates these images with the same core technology that goes into the other members of AutoDesk s visualization family. With a focus on stability and simplification, VIZ Render required a considerable amount of time and effort to develop. Created for the designer in need of casual visualization, VIZ Render needed to achieved a more uncomplicated yet precise management of geometry, materials, and lighting effects. No simple task considering you can use VIZ Render to create a variety of compelling presentations, including renderings, animated walkthroughs, and interactive panoramic renderings. Expectations in visualization have grown. To communicate design intent effectively, designers require tools to visualize and present design intent at every stage of the design process. Much of the data compiled for this document comes directly from The VIZ Render and Architectural Desktop Online help files. I recommend you utilize them completely for a greater understanding of the product. 6

7 Interface The user interface shares many similar aspects of the other members of the visualization family, AutoDesk VIZ and 3ds max. Users of these products will welcome the familiar command panel, quad menus, resizable viewports, pulldowns and organization. Yet VIZ Render does have a look all its own. The predominance of the Materials Palette layers and lack of toolbars in the default interface give a cleaner, focused feel. The toolbars are hidden and available with a simple right click over showing toolbars. The Materials Palette is easily hidden off to the side to be brought back as needed. With its heritage in place, many of the traditional keyboard shortcuts are intact and the User Interface customization capabilities remain virtually untouched. Due to the intended use of the product, the Command panel has been simplified to reflect the focused aspect of VIZ Render. Attention has been paid to reorganizing similar processes. So now you will find the Render, Radiosity, Environment and Effects dialog boxes all combined into one. Material definitions in the Materials Palette are streamlined and many of the controls renamed to better suit the casual user. Viewport Navigation has been relocated, refined and simplified, however, viewport controls still exist with a right click over the Viewport Title. a. Menu Bar File contains commands for managing files. Edit contains commands for selecting and editing objects in a scene. Tools contains many important program functions, including precision functions. Modifiers contains commands for modifying objects. Views contains commands for setting up and controlling the viewports. Create contains commands for creating objects. 7

8 Rendering contains commands for rendering, radiosity and the environment. Customize gives you access to controls that let you customize the user interface. Help provides access to the VIZ Render online reference systems. b. Time Controls The Animate button turns on animation mode. The other controls navigate through time and play back an animation. c. Command Panel You can undock the command panel and place it anywhere you like. By default, the command panel is docked at the right of your screen. You can access a menu that lets you float or dismiss the command panel by right-clicking just above it. If it is not displayed, or you want to change its location and docking or floating status, right-click in a blank area of any toolbar, and choose from the shortcut menu. Modify holds modifiers and editing tools. Utilities holds miscellaneous utilities. d. Status Bar and Prompt Line These two lines display prompts and information about your scene and the active command, toggles controlling selections, precision, and display properties. e. Viewports You can display from one to four viewports. These can show multiple views of the same geometry. f. Viewport Navigation Buttons The toolbar at the upper-left corner of the main window contains controls for zooming, panning, and navigating within the viewports. g. Materials Palette The Materials Palette is like a tools palette in Autodesk Architectural Desktop. It is a floating window with multiple panels. The panels contain materials that you can apply to objects in the scene. h. File Link Toolbar The File Link toolbar lets you quickly update the linked Autodesk Architectural Desktop objects in your scene. File Linking Data management between Autodesk Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render is mostly automatic, but you can control the important file-link functions to make them work the way you work. File link is best understood through a few simple principles: The only way to create a file link is by starting VIZ Render from an Architectural Desktop drawing. You can start VIZ Render separately without opening Architectural Desktop, but this is primarily used for working with VIZ Render files that have already been created and saved. There can be only one Architectural Desktop drawing linked into your VIZ Render session. Using the Binding command will sever the link between VIZ Render and Architectural desktop, but you cannot create a new file link from inside VIZ Render, and you can never be linked to more than one Architectural Desktop drawing. 8

9 Materials Note: To create a file link to multiple Architectural Desktop drawings, use Architectural Desktop to XREF the multiple drawings into a single Architectural Desktop file, and then start VIZ Render from that drawing. Changes in Architectural Desktop can reflect in changes in VIZ Render, but changes in VIZ Render never change the data in Architectural Desktop. File linking is a one-way process that supports the practice of managing your core design in the Architectural Desktop file. Many changes made in Architectural Desktop will appear in VIZ Render after a file link reload. These include adding or removing objects, moving objects, changing material assignments, and enabling Live Sections. Changes made in VIZ Render, such as moving objects, changing material assignments, and adding lights, will never appear in your Architectural Desktop drawing. Changes you can make in Architectural Desktop should be made in Architectural Desktop. Changes that you make in Architectural Desktop become part of that database, whereas changes you make in VIZ Render will appear only in the renderings you produce. Changes in Architectural Desktop aren't reflected in VIZ Render unless you choose them to be. Changing Architectural Desktop doesn't change VIZ Render unless you use the VIZ Render Reload command or unless you restart VIZ Render from Architectural Desktop. When you reload a link in VIZ Render, you can choose to update just the geometry from Architectural Desktop, or else to update both the geometry and the material assignments from Architectural Desktop. You can transform (move, rotate, or scale) Architectural Desktop objects and blocks that appear in VIZ Render, but by default these types of changes are not corrected upon reload. If you have moved, rotated or scaled an Architectural Desktop object and want the object to re-assume the position and scale it has in Architectural Desktop, use the Reset Position function. In addition to the linked Architectural Desktop geometry and material assignments, VIZ Render allows you to create or merge into your scene many types of data from other sources, including: Lighting objects for simulating light fixtures and daylighting conditions. Entourage objects such as surrounding buildings & terrain, trees, cars and people. These may have been developed by others in 3ds max or Autodesk VIZ, but objects created in these other applications need to be simplified before they can be fully used in VIZ Render. Advanced rendering material effects that simulate the rich visual variety of any imaginable material. You can take advantage of materials developed in 3ds max or Autodesk VIZ that appear on objects created in these applications, and you can create your own material effects using the VIZ Render Material Editor. Materials created with the Material Editor can be assigned to any component in your VIZ Render scene. Materials can also be dragged directly to or from the Content Browser to facilitate sharing with other Architectural Desktop and VIZ Render users. Bitmaps for use as environment backgrounds. You can use still images in a variety of formats or even animated movies as a rendering background to create stunning photomontages that appear to place your proposed design right into the actual location. As we have discussed, the rendering material properties stored and assigned in Architectural Desktop are designed to flow transparently to VIZ Render through the File Link Manager, and the rendering materials developed in VIZ Render are easily exported to Architectural Desktop for incorporation into the material definitions there. 9

10 For rendering purposes, materials describe how an object reflects or transmits light. In VIZ Render, a material's settings describe its physical properties. The Materials Palette provides a large number of materials already created for you. You can use it to choose and apply materials to objects in the scene. In VIZ Render, materials on the panels of the Materials Palette correspond to Render Material properties in Autodesk Architectural Desktop. You can drag them to and from the Autodesk Architectural Desktop Content Browser. (You can also drag an entire panel from VIZ Render to the Content Browser, which can be more convenient.) When you edit a material in VIZ Render, however, you edit it as an Architectural material. The properties of this material are unique to VIZ Render. Note: Because of differences in the internal representation of materials, and also in the shaders used by the two programs, a shaded or rendered model in VIZ Render will not always appear the same as it does when you shade it using Autodesk Architectural Desktop. Materials Palette The Materials Palette is like a tools palette in Autodesk Architectural Desktop. It is a floating window with multiple panels. The panels contain materials that you can apply to objects in the scene. To view the Material Editor do one of the following: 1. On the Materials Palette Scratch panel, right-click a material, and choose Properties. 2. You can also do this from the Current Scene and Recycled panels, but we recommend that you use the Scratch panel to edit materials or create them. 3. Choose Rendering > Material Editor. Warning: If you create a material but don't base it on a material in the Materials Palette using the technique described in the previous alternate step, you will be able to use it in VIZ Render, but you won't be able to upload it to the Autodesk Architectural Desktop Content Browser. 4. To give a material a different name: Edit the name field that appears just above the rollouts. The name of the active material appears in the title bar of the Material Editor dialog. The name of the material is not a file name: it can contain spaces, numbers, and special characters. The name field displays only 22 characters, but a material name can be longer than that. 5. To apply a new or edited material to objects in a scene: Drag from the sample slot to an object in a viewport. All objects with that object's style definition, or all instances of a block, now have the material applied to them. Important: When you apply a material to an object or selection, that material becomes a hot material (its sample slot is displayed with white corner brackets). When you change the properties of a hot material, the scene immediately updates to reflect those changes. Any object with that material will change its appearance not just the objects in the current selection. Tip: If you need to apply a material to individual objects, or object selections, rather than to all objects of the same style, you can use the custom command, Auto Material Propagation Toggle. Use the Customize User Interface dialog to assign this command to a keyboard shortcut, toolbar, quad menu, or menu. Once the command is available in the user interface, you can use it to toggle between applying to all objects of the same style ( propagation ), or to individual selections only. 10

11 Modifiers VIZ Render does not use modifiers as extensively since all design work is done in Autodesk Architectural Desktop. Modifiers are now primarily used to adjust and scale mapping, alter face normals, and give access to sub-object levels where you can utilize transforms for minor changes to geometry. The modifiers you apply to an object are stored in a stack. You can go back at any time and change the effect of the modifier or remove it from the object. Or you can choose to collapse the stack and make your changes permanent. Note: Collapse only works on bound Architectural Desktop objects or merged objects from a MAX file. Substitute The Substitute Manager is used to assign alternative geometry to serve as a replacement for linked Autodesk Architectural Desktop objects. It can be applied to any collection of linked objects. Note: You can only use Substitute Manager on linked objects from Architectural Desktop. To substitute a linked Architectural Desktop object with a saved DRF file: 1. Select one or more linked Architectural Desktop objects. Note: To swap one substitute object for another, select any component of current substitute object. 2. Choose Utilities panel > Substitute Manager > Substitution rollout. Click the Create Substitute button. 3. An Open File dialog is displayed. 4. Choose a DRF file to substitute for the objects you have selected in the scene. Click the Open button to confirm your selection. 5. The DRF file appears in the scene as a replacement for the selected objects. All selected instances are replaced with a separate version of the contents of the DRF file. Lights and Cameras Lights and cameras are scene objects that simulate their real-world counterparts. Lights provide lighting for the geometry of a scene: they can light the scene from offstage, or (with a little extra work), they can appear within the scene itself. Photometric lights provide a physically accurate model of real-world lighting. The Daylight system creates outdoor lighting that simulates sunlight based on location and time of day, month and year. You can animate the time of day to create shadow studies. Cameras frame the scene, providing a controllable point of view. You can animate camera movement. Free cameras are created directly from named views that are orthographic or perspective projections within Autodesk Architectural Desktop. You don't have to do anything, they are automatically created when you link to VIZ Render from Architectural Desktop. The camera name in VIZ Render will contain the view name from the Architectural Desktop drawing. Animation With VIZ Render, you can create computer animation of your Architectural Desktop designs. You can create animated cameras, moving them around and through your designs and then create rendered animations from those cameras. You can animate the components of the design itself, such as elevators rising in a hotel atrium, or cars driving down a street. You animate the transform parameters of any object to change its position, rotation, and scale over time. Turning on the Animate button then moving the time slider places you in a state in which any changes you make will create animation for the selected objects in the viewport. 11

12 Controllers There are three types of animation controllers in VIZ Render: Position: Bezier Position Rotation: Euler XYZ Scale: Bezier Scale These animation controllers mathematically define the transformation of objects over time. Rendering Rendering shades the scene's geometry using the lighting you've set up, the materials you've applied, and environment settings such as background. You use the Render Scene dialog to create renderings and save them to files. Renderings are also displayed on the screen, in a Rendered Frame Window. Radiosity Radiosity is rendering technology that realistically simulates the way in which light interacts in an environment. Improved Image Quality: The radiosity technology of VIZ Render produces more accurate photometric simulations of the lighting in your scenes. Effects such as indirect light, soft shadows, and color bleeding between surfaces produce images of natural realism that are not attainable with standard scanline rendering. These images give you a better, more predictable representation of what your designs will look like under specific lighting conditions. More Intuitive Lighting: In conjunction with the introduction of radiosity techniques, VIZ Render also provides a real-world lighting interface. Light intensity is specified using photometric units (lumens, candelas, and so on). In addition, the characteristics of real-world lighting fixtures can be defined using industry-standard Luminous Intensity Distribution files (such as IES, CIBSE, and LTLI), which are obtainable from most lighting manufacturers. By being able to work with a real-world lighting interface, you can intuitively set up the lighting in your scenes. You can focus more on your design exploration than on the computer graphic techniques required to visualize them accurately. This is an overview of how radiosity works in VIZ Render: 1. Object by object, VIZ Render loads a copy of the scene into the radiosity engine. 2. VIZ Render subdivides each object according to the Global Subdivision Settings in the Radiosity Meshing Parameters rollout, or according to the object's individual rendering properties, if those differ from the global settings. 3. VIZ Render emits a certain amount of rays, based on the average scene reflectance and number of polygons. The brightest light source will have more rays to emit than the weakest light source. 4. These rays bounce around randomly in the scene and deposit energy on the faces. 5. VIZ Render updates the viewports by taking all the energy from the faces and spreading it to the closest vertex. Working with 3ds max tm and Autodesk VIZ Because you can merge into your VIZ Render scene objects that were created in 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ, these other programs can be powerful partners in your visualization workflow. However, VIZ Render does not support the native object formats for most of the complex geometrical structures it is possible to create in 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ. In practice, you will find that you need to simplify the object structures before merging them into VIZ Render. Note: In this topic, references to 3ds max plug-ins, modifiers, materials, and so forth are also meant to apply to Autodesk VIZ components. 12

13 3ds max Plug-Ins in VIZ Render The functionality for creating and modifying geometry in 3ds max is implemented as plug-ins, and the majority of these plug-ins are not supported in VIZ Render. But you can simplify your objects and modifiers in 3ds max before merging by using the 3ds max Collapse utility to reduce the plug-in object and its modifiers to an editable mesh object. The Collapse utility in 3ds max is roughly analogous to the Architectural Desktop Explode command: it strips away all the higher-level intelligence of the 3ds max object, including the parameters used by plug-in objects and modifiers that generated the geometry, to result in a simplified object that consists only of faces, vertices, material assignments, and so on. 3D objects must be collapsed to editable meshes, and 2D objects must be collapsed to editable splines before they can be effectively merged into VIZ Render. Most modifiers in 3ds max must be collapsed into the editable mesh or spline as well, though a handful of the most common modifiers (Edit Mesh, Edit Spline, UVW Map, MapScaler, and others) are supported in VIZ Render and survive intact when a 3ds max file is merged into a VIZ Render scene. Note: Some modifiers, such as Edit Spline, are simplified in VIZ Render, so some advanced functions and parameters do not come over from 3ds max. If your 3ds max file contains plug-ins that are not supported in VIZ Render, you will be warned with a dialog that lists the unsupported plug-ins. Unsupported plug-ins are ignored when the MAX file is merged into VIZ Render. 3ds max External References in VIZ Render 3ds max has its own external reference functionality, similar to that in Architectural Desktop, that allows multiple MAX files to be referenced into a single MAX scene. These externally referenced files are ignored when a MAX file is merged into VIZ Render. 3ds max Materials in VIZ Render It is possible to create a variety of very complex material types in 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ that you cannot create in VIZ Render. However, when these materials are assigned to objects that are merged into a VIZ Render scene, the materials come along as well. You can continue to use these materials in your VIZ Render scene and they will render appropriately. These materials must be converted to an Architectural material before you can adjust their properties using the Material Editor; the conversion will necessarily result in the loss or adjustment of some material properties. The material is converted automatically when you attempt to load it into the Material Editor. 3ds max Layer and Rendering Properties in VIZ Render Rendering properties (object properties in 3ds max) and layer assignments are maintained when the MAX file is merged into VIZ Render. 3ds max also retains additional layer properties for each object that are converted to rendering properties in VIZ Render. Conclusion Understanding the position AutoDesk VIZ Render plays in the Autodesk visualization strategy and how that translates to its capabilities should give you some greater insight on how effectively it can be utilized in your daily workflow. It is evident this endeavor has produced a simpler, almost transparent, connection between design data and design illustration. With a respect to the obvious differences, Autodesk VIZ Render leverages this data to create compelling photo-realistic images with predictable results. Building on years of experience in the visualization market, VIZ Render marks a new step it s evolution. By leveraging this data, we are quickly approaching a One Click rendering solution. 13