ARCHICAD - PhotoRendering Settings

Owned by Systems Next Limit (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 13 Feb, 2023 by Next Limit
8 min read

Inside the ARCHICAD environment PhotoRendering Settings dialog is the commonplace of the render parameters.

You can open this dialog from the 3D Visualization palette or from the menu Document > Creative Imaging > PhotoRendering Settings...



Into the ARCHICAD plugin, we integrated nearly all the available Maxwell parameters. It means you don’t have to go to Maxwell Studio to finalize your scene settings you can do it directly inside ARCHICAD.

This page describes all the different parameters the ARCHICAD plugin adds to the UI. All Maxwell parameters are accessible from the PhotoRendering Settings panel once Maxwell Render engine is the active engine.

Please make sure Maxwell Render Engine is the current ARCHICAD render engine!

General Settings

From here you can control the basic render settings such as specify the output, render time, sampling level etc. Please see the Render Options page for the Maxwell Render documentation for details on these parameters as they have exactly the same functionality.

Specific settings to the ARCHICAD plugin

  • Folder: Select the folder location of Maxwell generated files (mxs, mxi, jpg, ...)

  • Name: Name of the MXS file (Maxwell scene file) the plugin generates.

  • Protect Geometry: Enable this option to protect the exported geometry so that it cannot be re-exported from Maxwell Studio in OBJ format.

  • Time (min) and Sampling Level: These two options will determine when the render will stop. Whichever is reached first it will stop the render. If you want to stop the render manually just set the time to a very high value as well as the SL (a high SL normally unreachable can be SL 30; an exterior render can be ready at around SL 13-15; an interior render may need an SL 15-18)

  • Engine: Here you can choose between CPU Production (good for final render using only the CPU), CPU Draft (good for quick previews; it's what FIRE uses, but it doesn't render channels, Multilight sliders, or stores the MXI file) or GPU. If you select the GPU engine, a gear icon will show up so you can select which cards you want to use for rendering).

  • Num. Threads: Here you can select how many threads of the CPU processor you want to use for a render. 0 means all available and -1 or -2 mean all but 1 or all but two.

  • Priority: This sets the priority of the rendering process in your computer hierarchy. Low is set by default as it allows you to keep working on your scene while rendering without a big slowdowns and without a very noticeable performance loss in the render.

  • Command Line: Additional command line parameters of Maxwell render (MXCL) can be specified here. Please see the Command Line page for more details.

  • Multilight: Here you can activate Multilight option. You can set it to Disabled, Intensity (it only allows modifying the intensity of the lights during or after the render but doesn't require as much RAM as Color Multilight) or Color (which allows changing both the intensity and color of the lights). Here is more information about this feature: Multilight

  • Save Mode: This option remains greyed out unless Multilight option is active. It lets you choose if you want the different lights stored in a single image (composite) or you prefer to get each light contribution to be stored in a different image for further compositing tasks (Separate).



Globals / Scene conversion

 Globals

  • Geometry Scale: You can scale up or down the ARCHICAD geometries during the export process. Value 1.0 means the exported items will have the same size what they have in ARCHICAD. Value 2.0 meas scale up by 2 and 0.001 is the same as 1:1000.

  • Override Material: This option is a more flexible version of the previous foam material feature. Renders with simplified material setup can be very useful to study shadows and light. It has three modes:

    • Disabled:  This is the default mode, the plugin doesn't apply the overwrite material option.

    • All: It is the same as the Override Material setting in Studio, all the geometries are rendered with the same override material. You can choose override material if you click on the ... button.

    • Opaque: All materials are assigned the chosen overwrite material except transparent materials, which keep their glass materials.

  • Default material: Here you can choose an mxm file (Maxwell material) to be used for any object without specific materials. By default, a diffuse grey is used.



Scene conversion

  • Smoothing Angle: With this parameter, you have advanced control about how the plugin exports smooth polygons. If the angle between adjacent polygons is smaller or equal to this angle, they will be smoothed.

This parameter doesn't have any effect if you are in "3D Window" Export mode.

  • Skip Zone elements: Enable or disable the export of Zone type elements.

  • Clamp Reflect. 0: Maxwell materials with too high Reflectance 0° color value (close to RGB 255,255,255) can make your image noisy and not realistic. You have this option to automatically clamp the high color values.

For white materials, RGB 225,225,225 is usually a good choice.

  • Radiance multiplier: This parameter is a global multiplier for automatically converted AC materials. In case the AC material has an emitter property, the plugin multiplies the power of the automatically calculated emitter component with this value.

  • Export Light: In ARCHICAD Lamp objects can have light components. These light components are not geometries, only definitions of virtual light models. The plugin converts these virtual lights to simple geometries for Maxwell with emitter materials applied on them. In case you don't want to export these, just turn off this parameter.



Channels / Layers

For information on using these settings please see the Channels chapter in the Maxwell documentation.



Post-Process



Although these settings can be changed after the render, you can specify them directly here for a particular render.

Tone Mapping affects color of the final render. Check here to see more in-detail information: Camera panel - Tone-Mapping

Simulens allows adding camera effects like glare, bloom, etc. For information on using these settings please see the SimuLens chapter in the Maxwell documentation.

Overlay Text allows adding a small text banner at the top or bottom of the image with different information about the image. Here you can find more details: Overlay-Text

 

Denoiser / Extra Sampling

The Denoiser section lets you activate the denoising feature included in Maxwell so you can get your final render quicker. Here is more information related: Denoiser

The Extra Sampling feature lets you tell Maxwell to render a particular part of the image further once the final SL has been reached. It is useful for particularly difficult areas of a render that need more calculations than the rest of the image and it will be quicker than rendering the whole image to a higher SL. Here is more information related: Extra Sampling

 

Environment



Inside the Environment tab, you can find the same environment parameters that you have in Maxwell Studio. You can choose between SkyDome and Physical Sky modes or you can light your scene with HDRI images in Image Based mode. In case FIRE is active you can find the desired environment effect very fast.

For information on using these settings please see the Environment Lighting pages in the Maxwell documentation.

Camera parameters

For details on the Maxwell camera parameters please see the Camera chapter of the Maxwell documentation.

Unique parameters of the plugin

  • Lens Type: Set the type of the Maxwell camera lens. In the default mode "by ARCHICAD" the plugin converts the ARCHICAD camera settings automatically. This is true for parallel and axonometric projections too.

In the case of an axonometry view please keep in mind that Maxwell can't convert the view in case the spatial axes are not perpendicular or not equally scaled! 

You can also choose some Maxwell-specific lenses from the drop-down list:

Thin Lens is the Maxwell default lens which features depth of field and motion blur; Pin Hole is the same as Thin Lens but removes all the depth of field effect. Ortho, simulates parallel perspective, suitable for elevation or plan renders; Fish Eye, Spherical and Cylindrical offer some special projections that can help to achieve wide-angle or even 360º views. You can find more information about the different lens types here: Lens Types.

 

  • Axo dist: In the case of using an Axonometric view or an Ortho lens, this parameter will work as a way to slice the geometry to be able to see the inside of a building. You can set this parameter to positive or negative values.

  • Autofocus: Normally plugin reads the focus distance of the ARCHICAD camera. It can be difficult to set the proper focus distance with the normal ARCHICAD tool, but with this option, Maxwell will automatically set the focus distance so the first object that hits the camera line will be in focus.

    • Focus Distance: Manual focus distance of the exported ARCHICAD camera. In the case of an Axonometric or Ortho view, this will move the camera closer or further from the target.

  • Resolution: The plugin can set the resolution of the rendered image according to:

    • ARCHICAD 3D window size - choose this one if you want to see exactly the same camera setup that you see inside the 3D window. (To be sure you will see exactly the same, keep the Film fit parameter ON.)

    • Render Size - in this mode, the output image size comes from the ARCHICAD render size values. You can find the render width and height values at the top of the PhotoRendering Settings dialog below the Engine parameter.

  • Film fit: Keep this flag ON if you want the plugin to set the film width/height values automatically (proportional to the render image dimension).