CompuServe Thread

>> I make extensive use of Object Colors and a strategy for object naming.<< Thats about the same technique I use, however I make my models using autoCAD and 3DS modelling. I really use 3DS as a substitute for not having AME, although with the new acad 13, most functions needed from AME for architectural use are included. However all models are really drawn using the 2D plans, because only a small percentage off our work really asks for 3D work and visualisation, lets just say the fee we get for some of our work does not justify 3D work. (this mostly is true for regular housing). I just split all plans up, and make a different drawing for every facade side of a building. Then I import them into a new drawing using a different UCS according to the facade side. On this underlying plan which is a block or XREF I build my 3D faces. For difficult forms I just export the faces needed to a DXF and then import that in 3DS do some booleans, etc… export it again to acad, and so difficult intersections are solved. >>You might try working with many .prj files and merge them just before rendering. You could also create 'stand-in' objects which can be used for camera/lighting placement. The 'stand-ins' could be substituted for the real thing at any point.<< that is the way to do it, I even do it in AutoCAD splitting up and then importing and so creating a merge, It saves a lot of time. >> I don't own Optimize yet but that could be a useful tool for face reduction. I try to use bitmaps as sparingly as possible, let the lighting tell the story.<< Well I have got Optimize and for architecture I tell you get it it will save you tons of rendering time??? I recently had a project file about 3.5MB, not to large I brought it down in 30 minutes with optimze to less then half its size without any visual consequences when rendering the animation, without optimize I would not have finished the project in time. Also when modelling in 3DS or other program, you do not have to worry to much about having to much detail in an objetc, for example I moddeled a design spotlight, that looked like a fish conus, the conus had to many faces so the 3DS file for one small spot was abou 200K, just passed it through optimize to get it a small as possible, so it could easily be merged many times in a prj. file, without to much hasle when rendering. Christophe