Alan Cooper Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Is it possible to do a raytrace rendering where wire frame items show up in the foreground (objects which have their surfaces removed, which leave the surrounding edges) but at the same time solid objects in the background show up fully, or will I have to achieve the effect by 2 layers in a photo editing application? Lightworks used to be capable of this in another program in which you could select 'show wire frame' before rendering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etroxel Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 You'll have to do 2 separate passes to achieve this if the "cut" where you want the transition to happen goes through objects that are on both sides of the cut. I made a tutorial on how to do it a while back: http://getmethod.com/blog/2011/11/5/how-to-make-a-sliced-solid-and-wireframe-rendering-in-bonzai.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 5, 2015 Author Share Posted July 5, 2015 Evan, thank you for reminding me about your brilliant tutorial. I will certainly be using your method in the future. On the little project I have been doing, which is re-designing my logo I decided to use a different approach in the end. I had modelled the original many years ago using Turbocad, and used primary color wireframe lines which showed up in the built in lightworkds full render, but Turbocad has changed so much since, I am very uncomfortable in the user interface, finding a control I want is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So I started from scratch in FormZ and instead of using plain lines for the 'box' and circles, relying on line thickness for the effect, and sphere in the background, this time I used the frame tool from the Derive menu for the box, by tracing a face of a cube, then copying and rotating copies for the other faces and for the circles I used Toruses. I prefer this result from totally 3d objects. It would still be nice if Lightworks could be adjusted in FZ to include some 2d content in the foreground, which could also be used in a specific layer to annotate and show dimensions in Lightworks-Renderzone, which could often be more efficient than annotating in an outside application later. It would also be nice if in file, project settings, the screen background could be changed after a renderzone rendering, without the render restarting. I have mentioned this before but worth doing so again, especially with 8.5 nearly ready for release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Hi Alan, In the RenderZone options, there is an option to Render as Wireframe, but those wires will be obscured if you have any opaque geometry that is in the foreground. There is also an option to change the background without re-rendering. After you have rendered (with the Post Process enabled - which is on by default), just choose RenderZone Post Process from the Display Menu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Thank you Tech, Background ok. Wireframe not ok. It still took me a long time to find the control you have illustrated, for background, but got there eventually. The confusion lies in that I was looking at the display options from the Display options palette, which includes exposure correction depth blurr and lens flare, but the first of the four, background, is missing. I needed to go to to Display options from the main menu instead, which I had not even noticed had existed. Thanks, that works fine. Perhaps it could be added to the palette as well. Renderzone options appear not to exist on Windows version of FZ, I think I have searched extensively in 8.02 pro build 9413, and cannot find the control for render as wireframe in Renderzone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Hi Alan, Render As Wireframe is an Object Level Attribute. Pick the object, click the Attributes Tab of the Pick Options, change the Basic Attributes to RenderZone and set it there. You can also double click on a Layer or Layer Group and set an Override for all the objects on that layer there. RenderZone Options will be available on both Mac and Windows as long as the RenderZone extension is enabled. If you have disabled it (perhaps by choosing not to continue the trial), you can re-enable it from the Extensions Menu: Extensions Manager. Does that help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Thank you Tech, Yes, that helped a lot, object level attribute is what I needed to hear. And great that it can be over-ridden by layer. I did not find over-riding by layer group to work, maybe it would do after a re-start, I will check that out when I have some time. I am very pleased to achieve the effect I wanted in Form Z without needing to mess around with photo editing software and transparent layers. This is nice and efficient Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Hi Alan, Layer Group Overrides will only affect Layers that have been added to the Layer Group (drag and drop in the Layers Palette). Glad that allows you to get what you want! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Hi Tech, yes, it looks like edits within layer group affect layers within unless a layer has been edited separately and is therefore different to the others within the group...which is good. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 To illustrate the effect, very simply, with simple lines rendered as grey to show extents of the walls, door etc for a tiny office in what used to be a box cupboard. In this particular instance I think leaving perspective out gives a clearer impression. My objective is to model as quickly as possible, starting with a template because in my industry, people expect a free quote with a simple design these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Looks quick and easy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Is it possible to show some dimensions in the renderzone render? I have tried in the dimension layer over-rides, and also in the dimension object attributes where it does have renderzone settings, no success yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Hi Alan, Currently Dimensions do not show in RenderZone, but we can see if it is possible to add that if it would be useful to you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Yes please, it certainly used to be possible in another Cad program which uses Lightworks, so hoping it can be. In that program you could also explode dimensions as they were actual graphics, but I suspect it is different in FormZ, due to them being 'no topology'. The advancement in quality of shaded full render which came with V8 which does support dimensions, will do for my purposes for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Shaded full with dimensions. Not bad. I assigned different colors to different dimension layers, I had to select them afterwards and untick use material average in attributes, as I think the color is worthwhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Yes, the real time Ambient Occlusion looks nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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