Attached Link: Collada - the parent site

However, Jeff, the *.obj format does carry information about scale, it carries information about the central axis for the entire model, and it regards "Y" as "up." It does not carry information about the locations of pivot points other than the central model axis. If you have pivot points on sub-components, such as doors, these will be stripped away upon export to *.obj.

So, if you are making your models quite large, you probably should reduce their scale just prior to export, to be safe. In most applications that someone would import an *.obj model, it is far easier to locate and re-scale a model that appears too small in that application, than it is to locate and re-scale a model that is way too large for the viewport of that application. If you did not center your model and force the model axis to be at "0", "0", "0", and the model is too large, it will be almost impossible for the user to locate and re-scale your model to fit well within their application.

Collada has several versions, and before using it, you should inform yourself about the basic content of the format. For this purpose, you should go to the website I listed above. This web site describes the information carried in the general version, provides links to downloads for some of the specialized importer/exporters, such as for MAX, and provides testing tools so that you can "see" how well your model might appear once translated into Collada format.

Please note that many applications, such as Daz Studio, MAX, Poser, Sketchup and so forth have implemented their own versions of a Collada exporter within their application. These custom-built exporters may or may not have all the features of the primary Collada export/import program, or they may have implemented an older version of Collada that lacks all the features of the current version.

Collada carries all the information common to the *.obj and *.3ds formats (scale, axis location, color), but it does not assume that "Y" is always up (Thank God!), most versions carry information about groups, about the pivot points of sub-components, it carries skeleton and skinning information, some IK information and some information about animation.

If you have software programs that always maintain the current versions of Collada in their updates, you can have everything translated well, including the most complex animations. However, almost all the major 3d programs neglect Collada in their updates, and it is rare to find a complete translation of all the information Collada makes possible. It is rare to find anything other than the Autodesk products that always allow full translation of IK systems. And then there are kinks associated with particular products. Vue, for example, easily allows importation of simple animation of a model (movement of the whole model) information that came via any Collada exporter, but only the MAX Collada Exporter seems to send more complex information (a walking cycle, for example) into Vue. If I wish to rig a dolphin in Maya and animate it in a swimming motion, for example, I actually have to transfer that dolphin mesh to MAX, rig it all over again, animate it there and then use the special MAX Collada Exporter to get that swim cycle into Vue successfully. Rather more work than it is worth!

So, good practice is to use the Collada testing tools to look at your Collada exports, and then you'll just have to experiment to learn the specific limits on Collada imports into programs like Vue.

As to your concern, Jeff, for getting visible seams on meshes under scale changes, that should not be a problem in either the *.obj or *.dae file formats. The only circumstance I think that where it would be a problem is if your texture file is too small for your model (or model component) to begin with, or if you have quite visible seams to begin with. (It is not going to have anything to do with the import or export function.)  You can determine if you have visible seams or too-small texture files by scaling up your model and taking a look at it in close-up view, of course.

Is no longer a problem, James. But thanks for the additional note.

When you create an export out of Maya, there is a settings box/button at the lower right hand side (of the windowpane that asks you where you want to export the file to...)  that you can click on to see the various options for that particular export format. Click on that thing to make sure that textures are being exported, as well as the geometry. It may be that the default is to not export textures. (Sorry, it's been so long that I no longer know the default setting.)

If you are an experienced modeller who is into rigging characters or objects, I recommend Collada, rather than *.obj as an export format for Vue. Collada exports carry the bones information into Vue 8 and 9, as well as the texture and materials information. In fact, Collada exports even carry some crude animation information into Vue. Vue does not yet possess an IK capability, but at least your bone structure will make it into Vue. Collada exports (and Collada imports into Vue) are a bit touchy, so you sometimes have to dink around quite a bit to get a good result.

But the Maya *.obj exporter is rock solid.

Export your model in *.obj file format. (To a directory established just for this purpose.) The textures will be exported as well.

Personally, I delete all history before exporting, and I "combine" everything that is reasonable to do so before exporting. (And, of course, you will have been meticulous about your UV mapping, yes?)

Other than that, there is no special magic needed.

Be aware that your axis settings never export correctly into an *.obj model. That is, the Maya *.obj exporter strips all info away about your axis settings. (This may be a problem with the basic *.obj file format itself, I don't really know. But, I have traced the problem to the complex lack of axis info within the *.obj file.) So, if you've made doors that open with an assigned pivot point, etc., you'll have to do these all over again inside Vue.

OK, I got a chance to try the rotating directional lighting trick. It works fine. It is quite easy to animate the light so that it rotates. No Phython script required. The directional light is not very strong, although it is quite distinct - at least shining on an object I posed in the scene. You'll have to kill the sunlightm and then dink with the Atmosphere Editor to cause the light to be almost purely sunlight, that is non-existant. (The alternative is to have the balance set to half or all ambient light, but you don't want very much ambient light in your scene. Just enough to show what you need.

You may be able to animate the attributes of other lights as well, so that they turn on in a couple of frames, and then turn off in most of your other frames. But, the point is that lights can be animated, and done so very simply.

Good luck with your project.

Not trying to sell you anything. But, the rain blocks in that pack would do what you wish, I believe. For a 5-second video at 28-32 frames per second, you would have to duplicate whichever rain block seems appropriate. Then stack them together into a very long (tall) object. Then just group them or wield them together into a single object. And then just animate that single object in a simple linear trajectory in the direction of your POV. (That is, drop the long rain block away and downward from your camera and down toward the ground.)

The rain blocks include lots of individual droplets, but also tiny little streaks to help convey the direction of the rain. Should work just fine - be pretty easy, I would think. Rendering times willbe a bit high because of the multitude of reflective objects, of course. But should not be too bad.

The lightening flashes should not be a problem either. Essentially, you are asking to turn on and turn off one or more strong "directional" lights. If it were me, I'd write a simple Python script to do this, or ask someone else on the C3D Python Forum to write one for me. Not a huge programming chore - just mostly a matter of getting the frequency and the duration of "on lights" worked out to your satisfaction. One advantage of "lightening flashes" is that you don't need any or very much gradual build-up of light and gradual decline. I think "on" and "off" should work pretty well.

I honestly cannot remember if lights can be animated in Vue as well, but that might be possible too, and then you would not need a Python script. Or, if they cannot be animated in the on and off sense and your version of Vue doesn't support Phython, they certainly can be animated to rotate in a circle. What you do then is to position a dead black cube in such a way that it is near the axis of the directional light and on the backside of the light when it points toward your scene. Rotate the light in a circle, so that it passes inside the cube for "off" and then continues rotating outside the cube and onto your scene for "on." I'm away from my computer for awhile, so I am just thinking this up, and don't know if actually would work. But you certainly can give it a "go," and when I can, I'll try it.

Did you consider this product set?

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=5275

There are a bunch of various rain types in here which are all 3d models - that is rain particles in a volume of space. The sets can be moved frame-by-frame to create an animation in Vue. Or, I can make you some custom rain objects for your purpose.

However, in another post elsewhere, you asked for splashing rain effects. And this truely is not possible in Vue. As volter says, you would need a combination of the latest version of Realflow (Realflow 5 is pretty expensive) and Max, Maya, XSI or Cinema4d for this. And even then, speaking as a long-time Realflow modeler, it would be difficult to create.

As to lightning, could you clarify/specify a bit more what you are looking for? It may be that I could work up something for you.

Attached Link: Dosch Designs

I participate in the archivenet when possible, and contribute models there. Almost all the other contributors there are people known to me in the architecture business. To my knowledge, about 90-percent of the models really are freebies. About 10-percent or maybe less of them are stolen, as you correctly say. These latter were contributed by Chinese architects, who probably are not always aware of what is stolen and what is not. In China, many, many MAX models and texture files are circulating freely in the architecture community without their provenance being well understood. Sometimes, some of those end up here.

By the way, a tremendous share of the stolen models available on Chinese architectural web sites are from various Dosch model and texture collections. So, if you are in doubt as to whether you should download something from Archivenet that you like, you might want to first check against the inventory of Dosch models. Then, if you don't see a correspondence, it's probably safe to help yourself to what you see. If you do find a correspondence - that is, you see a Dosch model on Archivenet, you might want to drop Dosch a quick e-mail, so that he can have the model in question removed.

What Alexcoppo says about the low quality of free models is generally true. However, some of us do try to make high quality freebies available when we can. Most of us model-builders can easily remember when we did not know how to model and were dependent on the good grace of others. So, we try to repay those earlier efforts, in kind. I don't place my freebies here, because Rendo lacks the server space to host such things. But, as almost everyone here knows, you can find my contributions at C3D.  I'm glad for this thread, because it reminds me that I need to make more for the general community. I needed this kick-in-the-pants reminder - so "Thanks" for that -LOL!

Hey James - where's your spirit of adventure!

Hi Dale.

I have the slightly older six-core on a ASUS Crosshair Formula III mobo, with six GB of DDR3 highest grade RAM. Will be unavialble for a couple of days, but would be willing to share some benchmarking data with you at the end of the week. If you like.

Have Vue 8.5 and 9 installed, but not quite the latest download of Vue 9. And no internet connection at that machine. And no power issues for me, I think. I'm a big fan of having a LOT of steady-stable power available for my systems.

Want to suggest a test scene?

Hi Dale.

Your version of the Phenom was just released here a couple days ago. I went to purchase one, but Fry's had only ordered 2 or 3, and I was too late. Doubtful if very many people have much experience with it yet.

City Engine is not so much a rendering enviroment like Vue and Bryce as it is a tool for laying out cities. It does have it's own "enviroment" and rendering engine, but these are more for visualization purposes, and not for photorealistic purposes.

I don't actually know whether or not Poser files can be imported into it - it never occured to me to consider that.  But, I kind of doubt it.

City Engine is not really designed to replace Vue. Rather, itin theis particular case, it is designed to layout streets and buildings that can be imported into Vue.

Attached Link: http://www.procedural.com/

The buildings consist of rectangular (irregular and highly variable) objects that have facade - texture files, and depending upon which version of City Engine you are using, they may have some roughly modelled features, such as balconies. But, they don't have glass windows. In the Pro version of City Engine, it is possible to create street lights and such, but not in the Vue version. So, ... there is no where to put lights.

To help answer some of your questions, I'll make some renders of the results, so that you can better visualize all this. But of course, you could just go to Procedural.com and take a look for yourself. (See above link.)  But keep in mind when you look at the items on their web page that you are looking at the products of the Pro Version - not the Vue version.

CE for Vue works only with version 8.5 or Vue 9.

This special version exports selected building "models" as Vue *.vob  objects. The resulting objects are fairly low-resolution buildings suitable for background use. Most of the apparent detail really consists of facades that started as texture files and are simply applied to the rough building shapes.

The great thing about City Engine is that whole city blocks or neighborhoods can be generated fairly accurately from real street data, or made-up (drawn) street and topo data.

City Engine IS cool, and as Alexcoppo says, it has a fairly decent learning curve. Not at all point-and-click. More on the nature of the Vue Material Editor Advanced - in terms of compexity of use. Anyone can go download the trial version for free, and take a look at the tutorials. The purchased product interface opening sequence includes plenty of links to tutorials. And for what it does, its is as good a product as exists.

You also will need to be a reasonable hand at creating or editing building facade texture files in something like CorelDraw or Photoshop to make good use of this product.

If you're not into procedural programming/editing, don't worry about it. Some of us have been following the developments of City Engine for the last couple of years, and have purchased it. We'll be making products from City Engine that can be used in Vue - as regular city blocks or neighborhoods - for background use.

I was not happy with the regular version as small defects creep into the *.obj model files that it generates. However, I purchased this special Vue version in the wee hours of this morning, and I've not yet found a flaw in the exported *.vobs. Plus, I can tell you that Procedural.com's technical support is snappy and right on top of things. I made a mistake in installation that I could not recover from myself, even though I'm a techie. They had my installation fixed and up and running sweetly within two hours.

Another opinion on some of the points Bruno makes.....

In just my personal opinion, it is difficult to get great architectural materials with the Vue Material Editor. Particularly metals. Tony Mezaros has put out an extensive package of Vue metals, and I've also spent quite a lot of time trying to work up some of them. But I think neither of us are quite able to re-create architectural metals to the standard of Maxwell Render or Vray. V-Ray and the Max and Maya rendering engines (or Maxwell Render) seem better in this area of architecture.

(I'm a Maya and Max modeller, and use Maxwell Render for the most part for product work.)

If I already had a substantial investment in VRay, I'd stick with it.

However, that being said, the Vue Material Editor can create some unsurpassed materials useful to architects, such as moss, rubble, stone and the like. Not terribly good with wood, a little better with brick, but I like my professional wood and brick texture libraries better.

If you are returning to school, you probably should acquire Autodesk MAX and learn to use it with VRay, as well as Vue Infiinite or Xstream. Vue is directly compatible with MAX and can operate inside it (for the Vue Xstream version). VRay, of course, works with MAX. And MAX is kind of the architectural standard. (Nothing wrong with Rhino - it is great. But there is a serious need to master polygon modelling as well as NURBS modelling for architectural work.) Max would resolve your common "environment" situation - be the central workspace for Rhino - Vue - Vray.

If you are returning to school, then it would be relatively inexpensive for you to acquire MAX, and possibly Vue as well. Personally, I like Maya better, and it is a shorter learning leap between Rhino and Maya, than it is between Rhino and Max. But if you are going to continue in the architectural biz, you really need some familiarity with MAX.

As to speed, the Vue 9 rendering engine certainly is as fast as Maxwell Render 2, and seems just about as fast as Vray in Maya, for the most part.

Do you mean the shape/object, or the material?