About the image

There are many rendered portraits in a lot of galleries. I was always impressed by the high quality of the MentalRay FastSkin shader and how easy it was to set it up once you understood the basic concept of how skin works. But as I ‘only’ have Cinema 4D, MentalRay is not an option for me. But isn’t it possible to render realistic skin in Cinema 4D? I wanted to find out with this project.

Modeling

I usually start my 3d models with a simple cube (box modeling). I know that many prefer point-by-point modeling (or poly-by-poly) but I like using a cube and ‘cutting’ the detail in, step-by-step. Box modeling allows me to quickly block out the basic shape of the figure and thus to have a better feeling for the proportions of the model. But because I am using good references, any modeling technique would have worked.

The face finished, I began laying out the UVs (maybe the most annoying part of this job). Fortunately I found UVLayout (by Headus), a program that flattens 3D geometry automatically.

Textures

I took the model into ZBrush to add a texture to the face. Every inch of the texture comes from high-resolution photos which where projected onto the model with the ZBrush tools. Wesclei Barbosa has written a tutorial about how to do that. All my reference photos as well as the texture references are from www.3d.sk

This is how the final head texture looks:

I used this same texture to create the skin details. I turned it into a black & white image and created a mask of it in ZBrush. Now I was able to use the Inflate brush and sculpt all the little skin details. This technique is explained in this video tutorial. I also included some volume for the hair with a custom brush. Finally I created and extracted a displacement map of the head.

The skin shader

Now comes the hardest part: setting up the skin shader. For this image I used the Vreel Skin Shader, a plug-in shader for Cinema 4D that allows you to set up different layers of skin and which also includes a SSS effect. It is possible to setup parameters for secularity, surface and translucent. The shader is loaded in the Luminance channel.

As you can see on the left picture, most of the texture has been ‘overwritten’ by the shader. That’s because I only loaded a color map in this test render. In the right picture I used an epidermal map and a subdermal map mixed together with a weight map. All maps are modified versions of the original color map.

This is how the luminance channel looked like after loading the different maps. The default color map is loaded into the standard Cinema Color channel.

I think the default c4d color channel is much easier to set up, so that’s why I left ‘Calculate Surface Shading’ blank. I used ‘Calculate Specularity’ to create an even amount of overall brilliance in the skin (see picture below). The standard C4D specularity channel has been used to create nice sharp specs on the edges (e.g. the lips and on the nose). Both specularity channels have been restricted to a map.

The final skin shader is made up of 6 different channels: Color, Diffusion, Luminance (with the Vreel shader), Bump, Displacement, Specular and Specular Color.

Scene

I quickly modeled a simple shirt, took it into ZBrush, divided it a couple of times and sculpted some cloth wrinkles with the Inflate brush. I also modeled the arms and shoulders and composed everything together in Cinema. There was no need to use displacements on the shirt; I simply exported the high-resolution mesh from ZBrush. I have a lot of memory, so I don’t have to worry that my computer might crash. There is almost no difference in render times between the low- and high-resolution shirt.

The texture for the shirt has been created by playing around with some filters and by using the ‘dodge’ and ‘burn’ tools.

Lightning

For this image I couldn’t use the Global Illumination system because Vreel Skin doesn’t work with GI, so I had to use standard Cinema lights. I created a 3-point-lighting with:

1) Main Spot @ 115 %
2) Fill Area @ 95 %
3) Rim Spot @ 190 %

I also include an area light (4) with very low intensity, placed below the model to simulate bouncing light from the bottom. All lights use soft shadows and ‘Falloff’ is set to ‘Inverse Square’.

Hair

Now comes the funny part: the hairstyle and the beard. I used Cinema’s hair module for this job. I created two additional maps: an alpha map for the beard and one for the hair. Both maps were loaded into the ‘Density’ channel of the hair objects. Unfortunately the density map will not take effect in the editor view. It will only be visible in the final render. So I would suggest setting ‘Display’ in the ‘Editor’ tab to ‘Hair Lines’ if you have enough memory in your computer.

I created eyelashes and a wet layer for the eyes. For the eyelashes I selected an edge loop around the eye, created a spline from it and pressed the ‘Add hair’ button.

Rendering and Post Production

The render with Vreel skin shader and displacement took about 4-5 hours (1h 30min without displacement). I rendered the hair and beard in a separate pass and composed both in Photoshop. Further more I rendered an Ambient Occlusion pass and multiplied it over the picture. I wasn’t happy with the way the eyes looked, so I copied parts of an eye photograph over the image. I finally did some color correction, applied Gaussian Blur to simulate DOF and added a grain layer. Here is the final image.

By Patrick Eischen

::GFXZoOM |source:3dm3.com

OK, this is a technique I picked up in a thread at CGTalk.com so I can’t take any credit for devolping it, and if you’re more than average in Cinema you probably know about it anyway. What we’re gonna do is make a segment of a tire, make duplicates of this segment, add a Bend deformer and drop the whole package in a HyperNURBS. I’m not gonna guide you throgh every single step but rather focus on the technique itself. You should be somewhat familiar with the functions of adding and bridging points.

Load the reference image in the Luminosity-channel and take a note on the size of the image. Then create a cube and give it corresponding values in the X- and Y-fields. Set Z to 1. Assign the cube the material with the default mapping type, UVW — you want the reference image displayed on the front of the cube so that you can work from the Front viewport and with UVW the image will place itself properly.

Then move the cube 1 or 2 units backwards on the Z-axis. Why? In the next step you’re gonna create a Polygon Object and start adding points and if you keep the cube at 0 on the Z-axis you points will be placed visually “inside” the cube. The points will be created at Z=0 and you don’t want that space occupied by the cube. So change the cube’s Z-position from 0 to 2.

Create a Polygon Object (Objects>Polygon Object). Nothing in your viewport will change but in the Object Manager a new Polygon Object is visible so double-click it and name it “Segment”. Switch to Front view, zoom in on the profile, make sure you’re in Points mode and that you have Segment as the active object. Now start adding points by selecting Structure>Add Points and then CTRL-click the outline of the profile. Just focus on getting the points down for one side of the profile since we will later mirror the Segment to get the complete element.

Place the points at the “crucial curves” of the profile — identify what features are giving the profile its shape and place the points accordingly.

When you have all points in place you select them all and clone them once — Structure>Edit Surface>Clone. Set Clones to 1 and change Rotation from 180Ú to 0Ú. Click OK.

OK, now you’ve cloned your points so don’t let go of that selection! Move the new points on the Z-axis only to -50 (or just type -50 in the Coordinates Manager). All points are at the same Z-value so moving them all att the same time will be OK at this stage. Note: the cloned points are the unselected ones in the image above.

Time to bridge the points. Select the Bridge tool (Structure>Bridge) or just hit B on your keyboard. The cursor will now look like an arrow with a small, black bridge. Click on the first point and start bridging. Check out this gif if you’re not sure on where to start, or read up on the Bridge tool in the manual.

This is roughly what you should have by now. Here I’ve dropped the Segment in a Symmetry Object just to see how it works. Now it’s time to start slicing using the Knife.

Select the Knife (Structure>Knife) or hit the letter K on your keyboard. Make sure that the option Restrict to Selection is unchecked in the Active Tools Manager — we want our cuts to slice throgh the whole mesh. From the Top or Right viewport add 4 cuts like in the image: 2 cuts to form a thin band of polygons and 2 cuts to form a slightly wider band. If you hold down Shift while cutting you will restrict the knife to 45Ú angles and will make it easier to keep the cuts straight.

Now switch to Polygon mode, select the polygons shown above and delete them.

This is how it should look.

OK, this can be a bit tricky but the principle is quite easy: select some points, clone and move them, and use the Bridge tool to create new polygons. Here’s how you do it:

Select the points on the image marked with purple dots (•) and copy their Y-value from the Coordinates Manager.

Now select the blue dots (•) and clone them once, just as we did before.

Paste the values you copied earlier in the cloned dot’s Y-channel and hit Enter — the points should move down to the position marked with orange (•).

Now Bridge the points to build the polygons nescessary for the pattern of the tire. The image above shows what it should look like.

Continue cloning points and then bridging them as this image shows. As you can see I’ve let 2 triangles slip through but I think we can get away with it

Now it’s time for some more slicing. Select the Top view and lay down 6 cuts along the X-axis as shown in the image. The cuts are made close to the edges and the reason for these cuts is to provide sharp definition when we eventually drop the finished wheel in a HyperNURBS. When you’re done cutting swith to Front view for some extra slices.

The black lines on the image indicates where the cuts should go. Once again, we want sharp definition on our tire pattern and this will get us there.

This close-up is just to illustrate that I decided to go with triangles for the ending of the thinner polygon band as well. You can also see some of the cuts we made in the previous steps.

If you drop the Segment in a Symmetry Object and hit render you should have something like the image on the right. It has some resemblance with a tire but we’re not there yet. Switch to Points mode and Top viewport.

Select the Live Selection tool and make sure that Only Select Visible Elements is unchecked. Then select a any group of 4 points and start moving the on the X- and Z-axes. If you have some reference material of real tire patterns, use them, otherwise just move and rotate the points (around Y-axis only!) until you get something that could pass as a believable pattern.

Frequently check with the Symmetry Object active and dropped in a HyperNURB to see how you’re doing. When you’re satisfied it’s time to Duplicate and then Bend.

Deactivate the HyperNURBS and select the Symmetry Object. Then select Function>Duplicate. The number of Copies determines the size of your tire — 5 copies will make it pretty small and 200 will make it pretty huge (although rather thin…). Anyway, enter 50 to start with and work from there. Alse check Generate Instances so you wont bog down your system with too much geometry. Also, if you change the geometry of your Segment, all instances will update immeadiately.Now, the tricky part here is to know how much every instance should move. Select Top view and start experimenting with different values for the Z-channel. You might wanna zoom in real close in order to get the instances to line up properly. I found that something around 2500 was an appropriate number. Click OK.

Add a Bend deformer (Objects>Deformations>Bend). Group the Symmetry Object (containing your Segment), the Instances and the Bend deformer under a Null Object (Objects>Null Object). Name the null Wheel. Select Right viewport and rotate the Bend deformer -90° around the X-axis/Pitch. Now double-click the Bend object to bring up its dialog box. Change the Y size so that it encompasses the whole group of instances and is placed reasonably in the middle of the group. Check Keep Y Axis Length and set the Mode to Limited.

Your hierarchy should be as the image above illustrates. Now we will bend all those instances into a circle and forming the actual tire.

Grab hold of the yellow handle on the Bend deformer and start dragging it in the Z-direction. You will see the instances starting to bend. You will probably have to drag the handle as well as zoom out quite a bit before the circle will be almost closed. Now zoom in and double-click the Bend deformer once again. You’ll see that the Angle will be very high and this is the value you should play with now — add 10-20 degrees, click OK and see what happens. Zoom in extremely close on the gap between the two ends and make sure that they meet as neatly as you can. For my wheel the angle of 412Ú proved to be OK.

Now drop the Wheel-group in a HyperNURBS and render — Congratulations, you have a tire! Just add a hubcap and you’re ready to roll!

Here I’ve added some additional cuts (the line along the center of the tire) to break up the pattern a bit plus a rim modeled by following this tutorial by Holger Schömann at Digital Worlds.

Note: the tire can get very heavy on the polycountside when you drop it in a HyperNURBS so if you’re not planning any close-up shots of it, deactivate the HN. Usually you can get away with simple polygons. Or set the HyperNURBS Subdivision Renderer to 1 to keep some smoothness.

::GFXZoOM |source:3dm3.com::

We can start to say that this tutorial is very simle, but probably it’s a little boring…
We’ll realize two version of the ball, first a Lowpoly version, then a Highpoly one. Prepare your Lightwave3D’s Modeler!

PART 1 – LOWPOLY

fig. 1

Create a sphere (shift + o) then, by clicking on n to open the numeric panel, set the following parameters (as showed in fig.1 too).
Tesselation -> Segments = 3
Radius X = 400 mm
Radius Y = 400 mm
Radius Z = 400 mm

fig. 2

Drag the ouse on the OpenGL preview panel end click on 0 (zero); the preview panel will be showed fullscreen: other perspetive are unnecessaries for this tutorial.
As we know, a (real) soccerball is composed by several patches as polygons: they’re pentagons and esagons. Our sphere is composed by triangles only: so, we must unify triangles to create patches as pentagons and esagons. We will start seeking pentagons and, in a seconda time, creating esagons.
Start with the first pentagon. If we ahven’t modified the perspective in Opengl preview window, we can find the first pentagon in the middle-lower area of the sphere, as showned in fig. 2. Select these polygons.

       fig. 3.a                     fig.3.b

Now we can unify selected polygonsby Unify command (shift + z), as showed in n fig.3.a. Create a new surface for this polygon, (q), and name it soccer_penta (fig.3.b).

Make a dark color for the new surface, eg. R:50 G:50 B:50. We’ll make a preview as fig.3.b.

fig. 4

We can procceding in this way: rotate the sphere in OpenGL preview , select 101 all pentagons. Remeber to assign the right surface for pentagons (soccer_penta).
There aren’t too much difficulties to make this, only pay a little attention to select the right tringles.
If we have make the right selection, we’ll have a preview as fig. 4.
Pentagons will be 12.

fig. 5

Now we can proceed creating esagons. The procedure il exactly the same. as we can see with fig.4, now is very easy to seek esagons. Only keep in mind to procedeed with 1 esagon at time.
When we can select the first esagon, assign a new surface, named soccer_esa.
surface name: soccer_esa
color: R:245 G:245 B:245
When we finish with esagons we’ll have exactly 20 esagona.
We have finished with modeling a low poly version of a soccer ball. Result will be similar to that in fig. 5.

We have finished first part of this tutorial, and we have create a low poly version of a soccer ball. This model is very useful in the next part of this tutorial: we use it as background layer to seeking easily pentagons and esagons in the high poly version.
In fact, modeling for the high poly version is very similar, but we must add a some ulterior passage…

PART 2 – HIGHPOLY

fig.6

Restart at the same way: select a new layer, and make the low poly soccerball as background layer.
Select Ball command (shift+o), and click tesselation button for type (fig.6).
This time, the numeber of segments is 12.
Now we have a new sphere, but highly detailed. IDal momento che il processo di creazione e’ del tutto simile al precedente, ci rendiamo conto che adesso individuare i poligoni che formano esagoni e pentagoni e’ molto piu’ complesso. Niente paura! Come avevamo detto inizialmente, ci viene in aiuto il modello lowpoly.

fig. 7

Setting the lowpoly model as background layer, probably in OpenGL preview window we cannot see background lines. So, still having in foreground the new highpoly sphere, click on the “q” key and create a new surface, named “highpoly”. Open the surface editor (CTRL+F3) and set the transparency as 50%. In this way, setting the new sphere a semi-transparent, we can see the background model and we can use it as guide for the prosecution of this tutorial (fig.7).
Obviously, at the end of the tutorial we can re-assign a 0% transparent material.

fig. 8

Using polygons of the lowpoly model as reference, we can procedeed by selecting trinagles that composes first pentagon (without a particular order, the first pentagon is the first who we can find) (fig.8).
NOTE: be careful to select ALL tringles for each patch (pentagon or esagon)!
Now create a new a new surface named Soccer_hi_penta.

fig.9

Now, with tringles selected, apply SMOOTH SHIFT command (Shift+f), with an offset of 4mm (fig. 9).

fig.10

Probably, we can have that some polygons are “detached”, and for this reason we can have problems in the future: we must apply MERGE command (”m” key), selecting “FIXED” button as Range parameter, and insert 3.5mm on Distance field.
Procedeed another time with Smooth shift command with a 4mm offset, then with a merging with a 3.5mm range.

Repeat the steps: for each pentagon (and in a second time, for each esagon) we must apply these commands:
1) select polygons;
2) assign surface;
3) smooth shift -> 4mm;
4) merge -> 3.5mm;
5) smooth shift -> 4mm;
6) merge -> 3.5mm.

fig.11

Now we can see the partial result of our highpoly soccerball by clickin con TAB key to transform our polygon in a NURBS / SUBPATCHES view. (fig.9)
Creating the model, the subpatches visualization is unnecessary, so after a quick view return to a raw polygons rapresentation.
We’ve realize the first patch of our soccer ball!
At the same way, precedeed by creating all pentagons, so you can create all esagons.
Remember to modify surface name for esagons: for these patches the surface name will be soccer_hi_esa.

fig.12

After the creation of all patches, we can activate definitely the subpatches view, having a preview as fig.12. Save and export in Layout.
Ok, now you can go to play soccer… or if you want watch some match of Korean/Japan World Cup 2002 !!

By Gianluca Panebianco

::GFXZoOM |source:3dm3.com::

This ECOTECT tutorial explains how to divide a large surface into smaller divisions for analysis purposes.

Duration

You will need about 5 minutes to complete this tutorial.

Training and Accreditation

Successfully completing this tutorial fulfills one of the practical skills required for completing Level 2 of the Solar Radiation Analysis training module.

Resources Required

To complete this tutorial, open the Bldgs-ShadingDesign-RtoL.eco ECOTECT file, located in the Examples folder of your ECOTECT installation.

Tutorial

1. Select the plane as shown in the screenshot. Then go to the Modify»Surface Subdivisions»Rectangular Tiles... menu item.

   

   Select the plane as shown.

2. The following dialogue box appears – here you can specify the size of the surface subdivisions, and how they are tiled across the selected surface. Use the settings are shown in the screenshot, and then click Ok.

   

   Use the following settings for the surface subdivision.

3. The following error message may appear.

   

   Click Ok to continue.

   Click Ok to continue anyway. When you do, Ecotect generates the surfaces subdivisions on the current zone.

   

   The selected plane is now subdivided.

Useful Tips

• In the above example, the original object being subdivided is deleted upon creation of the new subdivided surface. To keep the original object in addition to the newly created subdivided surface, uncheck the Delete Original Object checkbox in the Surface Subdivision dialogue box.
• If you do decide to keep both the original and new subdivided objects, you may want to create a new zone and relocate the subdivisions to this zone, in order to have more control over how the subdivisions are displayed. To do this, first create a new zone in the Zone Management panel. Then select the subdivided surface in the model, and then right-click on the newly-created zone. From the context menu that appears, select the Move Objects To option.

::GFXZoOM |source:squ1.org::

Synopsis

This ECOTECT tutorial explains how to display object attributes if they already exist in a model.

Duration

You will need about 10 minutes to complete this tutorial.

Training and Accreditation

Successfully completing this tutorial fulfills one of the practical skills required for completing Level 1 of the Solar Radiation Analysis training module.

Resources Required

To complete this tutorial, open the AcousticRays.eco file located in the Examples folder of your Ecotect installation.

Tutorial

In ECOTECT, textual or numerical attributes can be assigned to any object in your model. These attributes can be specified manually by the user, or defined by calculation, and can include things like the daylight factor or incident solar radiation falling on a surface, or the number of rays hitting a surface during an acoustic analysis.

1. Open the ECOTECT example file, and select any surface in the model. Go to the Selection Information panel, and look at the Attributes section of the panel. You’ll see that up to three different values have been assigned to the selected object – these are the object’s atrributes.
2. But what exactly do these numbers mean? To find out, go to the Display»Object Attribute Values»Properties... menu item. This displays the following dialogue box:

   

   The attribute management dialgoue box.

   Under the Manage Attribute Data tab, you can see a description of what the three different object attributes represent – for example, the third object attribute in this model had been defined as Weight Level and the units of measurement are decibels (dB). Click Ok to return 3D Editor.

3. To display object attributes over your ECOTECT model, go to the Display»Object Attribute Values»Attrib. 3: Weighted Levels menu item. This will display some dots over the surfaces of your model, and also add a title and legend to the 3D Editor window display, as shown:

   

   Display the object attibutes in the 3D editor.

   It is possible to display any one of three object attributes defined for an object at any one time.

4. However, this object attribute display by itself is not particularly informative. Go back to the Display»Object Attribute Values menu, and you’ll see there are three Display options that can be used in conjunction with the selected object attribute:
   • Display Text Values shows the assigned value for the selected object attribute.

     

     The Display Text Values option.

   • Display Vectors displays the surface normal direction of an object, superimposed with the colour legend value for the specified object attribute.

     

     The Display Vectors options.

   • Display Colours shades each object with the colour legend value for the specified object attribute.

     

     The Display Colours option.

   • Any or all of these three display options can be used simultaneously:

     

     The Display Text Values and Display Colours options shown simultaneously.

5. Click on to the Display»Object Attribute Values»Custom Scale... menu item. In this dialogue box, you can specify the colours used for the object attribute legend, along with the minimum and maximum value range.

   

   The Colour Scale dialogue box.

::GFXZoOM |source:squ1.org::

Synopsis

An appliance object represents a piece of equipment within a zone. As such it can be set to emit heat and use resources such as fuels, electricity and water.

This tutorial explains how to add an appliance to your ECOTECT model, assign materials and configure settings, set activation times and assign an operational profile.

Duration

You will need about 20 minutes to complete this tutorial.

Training and Accreditation

Successfully completing this tutorial fulfills one of the practical skills required for completing Level 3 of the Thermal Analysis training module.

Resources Required

To complete this tutorial, open a new ECOTECT file. You may also wish to have a look at the Operational Profiles tutorial.

Tutorial

Placing an appliance

1. First select the Appliance button from the Modelling toolbar. Then, in the 3D Editor, position your cursor over the canvas in the required location for the new appliance.
2. Click the Left mouse button to accept the chosen position, and then drag the direction arrow to specify the direction the appliance faces.

   

   Use the mouse to specify the direction the appliance faces.

   Alternatively, if you press the Esc at this time, the direction of the appliance will default to the positive X axis. If you locate a point and click with the Left mouse button, a vector will be drawn to indicate the selected direction, and the placement of the appliance is now complete.

   

   The inserted appliance.

Assigning appliance materials

1. As with all other Ecotect elements, you can assign a material to an appliance to define its characteristics. Select the newly created appliance, and then go to the Selection Information panel.
2. Under the Object No heading, you will see fields for Primary Material and Secondary Material. Let’s start with the Primary Material – select this field and then click on the button, and then click on Select Material. A dialogue box appears, showing a list of available appliances. Choose one, and then click Ok.

   

   Select an appliance to use.

3. For the Secondary Material field, make this the same as Primary Material. This is generally the case for appliances, and it’s important to do this as it will have an effect when configuring activation times (see Tips section).

The different appliance materials cover common equipment, and includes information such as dimensions, greenhouse gas emissions and electricity consumption. Of course, you can also create your own appliances if you don’t find one that suits.

Configuring appliance dimensions and other settings

1. Select the appliance, and under the Selection Information panel, select the Primary Material field and then click on the button. This time, click on Properties.
2. This opens the Element Library Editor dialogue box, and displays the current settings for the selected appliance material. Here, there are a number of settings that can be configured for an appliance. For example, use the Length X, Width Y and Height Z fields to set the appliance dimensions. Other important settings include Electricity and Water usage, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

   

   Select an appliance to use.

3. If you wish to make your changes apply to the current appliance material, click the Apply Changes, and you will then be returned to the 3D Editor. If you wish to save your changes as a new appliance, give the appliance a new name, and then click the Add New Element button. You can then click the Close button to return to the 3D Editor (however, you then need to reassign the newly created material to your appliance via the Selection Information panel).

   

   The appliance will resize based on the dimensions you have specified.

If you can’t see the overall shape of the appliance in the 3D Editor, go to the Display»Show Element Detail menu, and check that this is set to either Partial or Full.

Assigning an activation schedule

1. Appliances can also be assigned an activation schedule, that tells the appliance when it is either on or off. Select the appliance, and then go to the Selection Information panel.

   

   Set activation times.

2. Under the Activation heading, you will see two fields Time On and Time Off. Using a 24 hour clock, you can specify the times for which the appliance operates.
3. When On, the object is 100% activated, when Off it is 0%. For an object to be always Off, use a Time On of 0:00 and a Time Off of 0:00. For always On, use an on value of 0:00 and an off value of 24:00. If the ON time is after the OFF time, then the object is simply active overnight.

The activation times work well for simple appliances with only two operational states. However, some appliances may have different operating and power-saving modes in addition to this. For these, you will need to use an operational profile (see next).

Assigning an Operational Profile

1. If you require a more complex pattern of activation times, or for appliances that have different power usage levels, an operational profile is your answer. Select the appliance, and then go to the Selection Information panel.
2. Under the Activation heading, click on the Schedule field, followed by the arrow button. In the context menu, click on the Select Schedule option. A dialogue box appears, from where you can select an operational profile to apply to the appliance (assuming you have created one previously). To learn more about how to create an operational profile, click here.

Tips

• The direction vector of an appliance is simply to allow the object to be rotated and manipulated within each space – the emissions from an APPLIANCE are assumes to be omni-directional.
• To position the appliance at a height above the ground plane (ie. Z = 0) hold the Ctrl key down while moving the cursor in the 3D Editor canvas – this restricts the movement of the cursor to the Z-axis only. Release the Ctrl key at the Z-height you wish to insert the appliance at – you can use the Zone/Cursor palette to specify the Z-height value.
• The use of activation times is affected by what primary and secondary materials have been assigned to an appliance. When an appliance is activated, the alternate material becomes active. The exception to this is when the primary and alternate materials are the same. In this instance, the appliance uses and produces in accordance with the material properties when activated, but has zero output when turned off.
• The dimensions of an appliance do not affect its operational or output, and is used only for space planning purposes.

::GFXZoOM |source:squ1.org::

About Software

ECOTECT is a complete building design and environmental analysis tool that covers the full range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. It finally allows designers to work easily in 3D and apply all the tools necessary for an energy efficient and sustainable future. Check out its features to learn more.

Autodesk® Ecotect™ 2009

Autodesk® Ecotect™ 2009 is now available for purchase on-line. The software includes Ecotect, WeatherTool and SolarTool installs as well as help files, tutorials, example weather data and other useful resources for getting started. This release focuses on incorporating standard Autodesk licensing technology and does not include any significant feature enhancements. This release of Autodesk Ecotect software can be purchased with only Standalone Licensing technology.

Purchase on-line now…

Students and Education Users

Autodesk Ecotect 2009 is now available as a free download on the Autodesk Student Community website. If you are a student or faculty member, you can create a new account on this site if you do not already have one. Once logged in, click on the Software Downloads section and scroll down to the Autodesk Ecotect area.

Visit Autodesk Student Community now…

30 Day Free Trial

You can now download a 30 day free trial of Autodesk Ecotect 2009. It provides all of the functionality of Ecotect, SolarTool and WeatherTool. This trial will expire 30 days after install and requires acceptance of the end-user license agreement (EULA) that accompanies the product.

Download 30-day trial…

::GFXZoOM |source:ecotect.com::