Archicad lamps?

[darb433]

Hi,

Are we able to easily integrate the use of archicad in built lamps (ies,area,etc) with the archicad octane plugin? Or do we have to create seperate objects and then make them into diffuse materials with emission within the plugin?

If I have a project that is using the standard archicad lamp objects which are reflected in floor plans is there any 'easy' way to quickly get an octane render from a 3d view rather than having to go back and create objects for each lamp?

Thanks

[rappet]

Hi darb433,

Archicad lamp objects do have materials (ie. Bulb) and in Octane you can assign an emitter material to it.
So you do no not need to assign new objects for the lighting.

I do not know about ies (non lamp objects) lights I have not experimented yet, because I had no need (yet)
being able to produce good interior renderings with the lamps and atmospherical (sub/hdri) lighting.

Cheers,

[przemn]

Hey,

I must say I have problems with making realistic interiors using only lamps. If there's a window in a room - render looks great. If not ( like in a bathroom ) - it is just bad. I would like to hear some of your tips and tricks

Anyway, I just upgraded to AC19 thinking, that I will be able to use cinerender materials in octane also ... well, seems I should read all the forum topics first ...

Przem

[face_off]

I must say I have problems with making realistic interiors using only lamps.

ArchiCAD lamps will have a lot of polygons, so not serve as good Octane emitters. Pls read the Octane Notes links in my signature for reducing the noise you are getting when rendering with these emitters.

Paul

[rappet]

I often model small planes with emitter assigned to the plane material and place them woth the lamps.
Bigger emitter planes you can use just behind the camera and or behind window planes.
Another trick is using ArchiCAD 3D marquee and clip it the way you do not have a wall behind the camera and this will add ambient light easily.
Or sometimes you can leave away the ceiling when not seen with chosen cam to get ambient.

[przemn]

Some very interesting ideas in both of your posts. I was able to have best results with no ceiling / wall behind camera and hdr lighting, but still it was just not good. Thanks, I will definite!y try your solutions also.

Przem

[ArchPrime]

Is there ever going to be a clever way to import ArchiCAD light sources directly rather than relying on emitting textures ?
Perhaps there is a way to covert what is known about the ArchiCAD light source into an IES texture floating in space the right distance away a from target, and pointing in the right direction?

Messing around trying to achieve spotlight is otherwise insanely slow and not at all intuitive or WYSIWYG in Octane. I prefer Octane light quality, once set up, but for a quick one off render it is far faster just to skip octane and render with built in cinerender, which largely defeats one of the key advantages of having octane.

[face_off]

Is there ever going to be a clever way to import ArchiCAD light sources directly rather than relying on emitting textures ?
Perhaps there is a way to covert what is known about the ArchiCAD light source into an IES texture floating in space the right distance away a from target, and pointing in the right direction?

Messing around trying to achieve spotlight is otherwise insanely slow and not at all intuitive or WYSIWYG in Octane. I prefer Octane light quality, once set up, but for a quick one off render it is far faster just to skip octane and render with built in cinerender, which largely defeats one of the key advantages of having octane.

I think this requires some expert user analysis first.

For example, the Desk Lamp 01 21 - there is physical geometry in the scene, and if you click on on of these lamps, you can see a material "GDL_builtInMatIlluminatio" in the Select from Selection combo box. If you change the material type to Diffuse and add an Emission node, the lamp then works.

But then Ceiling Lamp 21 also has physical geometry, but does NOT have an emitter material, so where is the light supposed to be emitter from?

Area Light 21 has NO physical geometry (ie. ArchiCAD reports no polygons for these objects).

So the conversion rules behind these different lights need to be worked out. I think decoding the way all the General Lights work would be very difficult.

Paul

[ArchPrime]

Is there ever going to be a clever way to import ArchiCAD light sources directly rather than relying on emitting textures ?
Perhaps there is a way to covert what is known about the ArchiCAD light source into an IES texture floating in space the right distance away a from target, and pointing in the right direction?

Messing around trying to achieve spotlight is otherwise insanely slow and not at all intuitive or WYSIWYG in Octane. I prefer Octane light quality, once set up, but for a quick one off render it is far faster just to skip octane and render with built in cinerender, which largely defeats one of the key advantages of having octane.

I think this requires some expert user analysis first.

For example, the Desk Lamp 01 21 - there is physical geometry in the scene, and if you click on on of these lamps, you can see a material "GDL_builtInMatIlluminatio" in the Select from Selection combo box. If you change the material type to Diffuse and add an Emission node, the lamp then works.

But then Ceiling Lamp 21 also has physical geometry, but does NOT have an emitter material, so where is the light supposed to be emitter from?

Area Light 21 has NO physical geometry (ie. ArchiCAD reports no polygons for these objects).

So the conversion rules behind these different lights need to be worked out. I think decoding the way all the General Lights work would be very difficult.

Paul

I think the conversion would need to ignore any physical geometry associated with ArchiCAD lamp object surfaces, and extract all info directly from the GDL light parameters in the object - these will be the same for area lights without visible geometry.

I am certain there must be a mathematical relationship between how these parameters describe the light intensity,cone spread, direction etc within ArchiCAD, and what it would take to replicate these characteristics in Octane via creation of a small polygon with an emitting IES texture

[face_off]

I am certain there must be a mathematical relationship between how these parameters describe the light intensity,cone spread, direction etc within ArchiCAD, and what it would take to replicate these characteristics in Octane via creation of a small polygon with an emitting IES texture

If you can provide this mathematical relationship, I will code it into the plugin.

Paul