ARCHICAD - Object Properties

Owned by Systems Next Limit (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 30 Dec, 2020 by Next Limit
2 min read

When you select one or more ARCHICAD object (walls, library objects, etc.) the plugin palette layout changes to display the Maxwell object parameters of the selected item(s).

Object Properties

The main parameters of the Object Properties tab are the same visibility parameters you have in Maxwell Studio. For further information please read the MAXWELL MANUAL Attributes Panel: Object

Object Properties - Motion Blur

In a traditional animation software motion blur is calculated from the movement of the objects between the frames.

In ARCHICAD we don't have proper time/frame system, but it could be nice to have some motion blur effects (for cars, people, etc.) directly inside the render. (Another option is to create "fake" blur effect in the post process via Image editing software.)

With these very simple Motion Blur options you can add Linear motion blur to moving object.

  1. Select the object
  2. Enable motion blur by setting it to Linear
  3. Click on the button Set and pick the end of the object motion vector in the Floor or 3D view.
  4. Adjust the speed (in m/s)

Object Properties - Lamp

In case the selected ARCHICAD object is a Lamp, you have further options:

Intensity multiplier

The plugin automatic calculates the emission value of the ARCHICAD lamp for Maxwell, in case you would like to deviate from it you can adjust it with this multiplier.

Radius multiplier

Maxwell emitters are real geometry items. During the export the plugin creates one or more small sphere object(s) with emitter materials to simulate the light source. The position of the sphere object(s) is defined in the ARCHICAD lamp GDL script. It can happen that the light source is behind some other object (or for example the light bulb with not transparent material surrounds it) which means the light can't come out from the lamp. In this case it can be a workaround to increase the radius multiplier so the sphere outgrows the other object. Sometimes it can be an acceptable solution, sometimes it is better to make the sphere smaller. There is not general advice, it depends on the actual Library object.

Segments

Number of segments of the generated spherical emitter. Use bigger value here to improve quality (in case the light contour is not smooth) but keep in mind that emitters with more polygons can slow down the render process.

Multilight group

Enter a descriptive name here. All the lights sharing the same Multilight group name will be controlled at render time with only one Multilight slider. If the lights in the same group don't have the same light intensity, the slider will change it proportionally