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Photoworks questions
2

Photoworks questions

Photoworks questions

(OP)
I am new to Photoworks. I ordered the Selfpaced User Guide from my var but it's still in back order.

Is it possible to turn off my preview window? Every little change I do I have to wait for the preview window to come up and do a useless rendering. Rendering is set as deferred in the preview window.

I am trying to get a shiny stainless steel #4 finish look. Can I get some suggestions at how to set material properties, illumination, lights etc.? Imagine a cube of 100 x 100 x 100 inch madeout of 304 stainless steel sheets polished to #4, in a bright room.

Whatever I do I get something brownish, a bit dark.

RE: Photoworks questions

You can turn the preview off under PhotoWorks options.  If you have 2007 you can toggle the preview window off and on from the toolbar icon.

Download my preseantion from SolidWorks World (PhotoWorks 2007 this changes everything)and see if that is the metal look you are trying to achieve.  You can find this at my website www.robrodriguez.com in the PhotoWorks area.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
www.axiscadsolutions.com
www.robrodriguez.com
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/rob_rodriguez/
President: www.nvtswug.com
SW 2007 SP 2.0

RE: Photoworks questions

Also check out Brian Hill's indirect illumination tutorial, also posted on Rob's site.

I'm betting the brownish cast is coming from the environment you set up--either image-mapped or colored walls, etc.  You can change those to a neutral gray to remove the color cast from indirect lighting.  (White or Black walls are usually too dramatic and don't lend enough ambiance to make sense of what you see--or the white blows away detail by its brightness.)

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: Photoworks questions

(OP)
Thank you for answering.

SilasH, Mike Wilson's tutorial is good. I followed it step by step but was not able to get the shinny chrome teapot shown on page 3.

Rob, I was sure there should be a way to turn the preview window off but I couldn't find it in the Photoworks options, where it should have been. I do have 2007 so I guess the only way is to toggle it off. I'm fine with that.

RE: Photoworks questions

Look at your PhotoWorks toolbar.  When you select scene, or material editor, etc. one of the buttons will be clicked "on."  That's your preview button.  Go ahead and click it and turn it off.

RE: Photoworks questions

(OP)
I got that, thanks!

This is something strange:

I rendered a scene using a blue gradient bakground. Looked fine. My object was grey.

Then I changed the background to grey. Rendered it. Not enough contrast.

I went back to the blue background. Rendered it again and I got something different then the first render. The faces of my object were blue.

Saved my file. Opened it again. Did a render. I got again the first picture.

Same file, two renders, two results. A bit discouraging.

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