R Reynolds

From your 2016 reference; Since all my hardware runs Windows 10, I've hit a wall.

I have a vague memory that the programmer's name came up when you opened the plugin. Can you still install v13 (2005 "Sorserez" disk) and run the hxt? My hat's off to the both of you. The last time I coded anything in C was in the last century and my brain would always hurt after someone tried to make me understand the concept of a pointer to an array of pointers.

While rummaging through an old miscellaneous folder I found a plug-in from 2005 that, if I remember correctly, simultaneously changes the crossing bias at all cp's around a circular spline. It could be a nice time saver. I tried dropping it into my HXT folder but it didn't show up as a plug-in or wizard. Is there some way to "re-compile" it for v19p? Bottleneck.hxt

Yeah, it would never work for the car that needs to be ready for its close-up but for random vehicles parked in the background, more than adequate.

I've discovered a progressive render issue in v19.0p. While it's not a show stopper it's been annoying me for a long time and I've finally found the root cause. This image is an overview of the test chor. There's a camera with a 1000mm lens looking at five instances of a grey reference sphere, each at a different distance from the camera. The sphere instances are scaled in the chor as they get closer to the camera so that from the camera view they don't change too much in image size. They are positioned so the camera can see all five spheres side by side. Between the camera and the closest sphere is a slightly tinted, four patch plane that is a "glass sheet" with a transparency of 80%. It is positioned so that the camera only sees the lower half of the spheres through it. A simple sun light shines down from above and the chor has global ambience turned on with a white colour; intensity = 80% and occlusion = 100%. This image is the results of 5 pass prog renders and 9 pass full screen renders. The first two sphere rows are with no glass in the way while the last two rows have the glass turned on. For prog. renders through a transparent surface something strange happens as the surface gets farther from the camera. If you turn off ambience and leave in the glass slide this issue also goes away. Although it always happens in progressive renders, I have seen it occasionally in 9 pass full screen renders of an 80Mb project chor. So if Stefan does try to fix this issue he may want to look at both types of screen rendering. amb_occl_thru_glass_distant_embed.prj

That's really impressive; especially the deep cutout for the license plate which I never would have expected to be that believable. Well done!

Nicely done. Wireframe of the vase, please? I'm curious how you ended the vee grooves at the neck.

Now that I've finally optimized the settings for klieg lights as window skylights, I'm getting closer to having an interior light level that's believable. I'm still tweaking intensities to get good exposure levels from full sun to inside the archway but this is an improvement on the lighting in the Oct. 1 image of this arch since we can now see the spill light from the concourse beyond the doors.

I've practically spent the last quarter of 2021 on the arched concourse that can be seen through the archway in the last image. As I said at the beginning of this thread, the real N.Y. Penn Station concourse was an elaborate waiting room for travelers using the stairways to the trains in basement tunnels. Great architecture but I wanted something more along the line of what the Pennsylvania Railroad built in Pittsburgh, a large train shed. Basically a structure built to accommodate multiple, entire passenger trains. But I couldn't imagine the amount of my time and computer RAM it would take to model that intricate array of beams and girders so I decided to go with a complete fantasy design of riveted box arches. This design means far fewer patches and the rivets and stamped patterns can be faked using normal maps. And here's a short camera move shooting inside, near a painfully under-modeled lounge/observation car which is here mostly to give a sense of the scale of the building. walk_thru_00.mp4 I'm beginning to get the feeling that I may never get to the end of the line on this project but I'm having a blast during the trip.

Reset Settings is a bit of a nuclear option but that solved it. Thanks Robert.

It may be a minor annoyance but it's also puzzling. All other windows dock and undock as expected but for some unknown reason the Properties window has become stubbornly untethered. Shutting down and re-starting A:M has no effect. Any suggestions?

See attached project. translucent_test_embed.prj

Klieg set to Cast Shadows Raytraced rays cast 4 Distribute in passes OFF Bias 0.02" Darkness 80% But I tested it and Z buffered shadows exhibit similar behavior.

My setup is simple. I have a small klieg spot pointed at the top of a vertical cylinder. Beyond the cylinder is a small flat screen with its translucent attribute = 50%. When the camera is to the right of the cylinder and views the screen you can see both the shape of the spot and the cylinder's shadow being cast on it. The same is true when the camera is to the left of the cylinder and viewing the other side of the screen but these shadows are now being transmitted through the translucent screen. This short video shows a 9 pass progressive screen render as you view the screen from the right and then from the left. AM_translucent_glitch_renders.mp4 As you can see, the front facing soft shadows are correct but the shadows supposedly going through the translucent material only have sharp edges. Is this a real render glitch or have I missed a variable/check box that needs attention?

Hey, I paint what I see and steal what is useable.

Here's my first guess for camera light icon at 4X full size.

Another issue with hierarchical lights is that once you add one to the model, they become the light source for real time screen renders. This is especially annoying when the light source is inside the model. Is there an option that keeps real-time screen renders using the default light source that's at the camera?

Right you are sir! Once again you've shown me the light. 😄 Thanks Robert.

I'm building a railroad indicator lamp, essentially a red/green traffic light. I wanted to simulate the look of the optics of these lights which were designed by mounting an incandescent lamp at the focal length of a coloured glass fresnel lens (like in a lighthouse) such that its light is only visible when viewed almost on-axis as one would from a long distance. I think I've come up with a believable result using a hierarchical klieg light mounted inside the enclosure. It's aimed to shine inside the case and illuminate a small internal disc, standing-in for the lamp filament, sitting near the focal length of the lens. Viewing the indicator while it turns in front of you produces a result I'm satisfied with. semaphore_test.mp4 The problem is that, as far as I can tell, hierarchical lights (sun, bulb or klieg) do not handle well the shadows of other parts of the model. I set up a test model that's similar to my indicator lamp. Inside the open sided box is a klieg light aimed at a target disc that in this case has a hole in its centre. In any render from the modeling window there are no shadows generated by any surface regardless of whether the shadows are ray-traced or Z-buffered. Strangely a chor render does have translucent ray-traced shadows but the light still passes through the entire model and falls on an external model. My work around was to make an inside screen that was totally black so the light hitting the rear of the case is absorbed and only the target disc is illuminated. As for the light leaving the back of the enclosure, I'm fortunate that there will be about 4 ft. (1.2 m) between the rear of my indicator lamps and the nearest surface so I should be able to set a fall-off value that minimizes the spill. I suppose since hierarchical lights are typically used for things like automobile headlights this has never been an issue before. However you'd quickly notice this glitch if you were trying to shooting a night scene using the dome light of car as illumination. The passengers would have shadows while the other parts of the car would not. Obviously the ultimate work-around would be to add the lights in the chor but it would be nice to have this convenient feature work.

I've finally replaced my 10+ year old computer with something more up to date. It runs A:M just fine and solves two minor but annoying problems A:M had with my old hardware. But now I can't turn off spline anti-aliasing. Checking the "Antialias Lines" box has no effect. I've set the Radeon software Anti-Aliasing switch to "Use application settings". This isn't even close to being a real problem and I'll probably get used to it with time but Steffen might want to look into it. Maybe it's a symptom of other driver issues or maybe I'm just missing something.

Nice work!

The archway to the concourse.

The main waiting room.

A view of the arcade from the floor of the waiting room.