Anyone tried rendering yet?
From what I've seen, it works pretty well on design surfaces. But as for the existing, I'm not so sure...
We did a design survey, and used Fieldbook imports to dump the data into C3D. So, all features (linework) was created as Survey Figures as part of the dump.
Problem 1:
Now I want to select some of those Survey Figures, and apply a Material, so that they render correctly. For example, natural ground should render as natural ground, asphalt as asphalt, grass areas as grass, etc. But I haven't found an easy way to do this.
I tried using the Survey Figures to create "Render-Only Masks" on the surface, but C3D refuses to use Survey Figures to create Surface Masks. So I tried to copy the Survey Figures, explode them into polylines, and use the polylines to create masks. Unfortunately, exploding a copy of Survey Figure seems to erase the original, so that option didn't work.
Eventually, I discovered that I can create a new drawing, insert the figures into the new drawing, and explode them. This creates 3D-Polylines, which can't be joined to create closed polylines. So I converted the 3D-Polylines to normal Polylines, flattened them, and then joined them as-needed to create closed polylines. I then WBLOCKed the polylines back into my original drawing, and used them to create the "Render-Only Masks". But then I hit Problem #2...
Problem 2:
Surfaces have a "Render Material Style" property, so I can specify that in the surface. For example, if I tell the surface that its render style is "Soil", it will render that way. But as soon as I add a "Render-Only Mask" to the surface, this setting gets ignored, and the rest of the surface goes blank. It's as if the "Render-Only Mask" is being erroneously interpreted as a "Hide Outer" mask.
I was able to get around this problem by creating a polyline that completely surrounds the surface, and turning it into an "OVERALL" render mask. I then set THIS mask to display as "Soil", and I can see the whole surface.
(There was actually another problem - after doing all this, I saved the drawing, and now I can't open it again. It's apparently corrupted. It was OK before I added the surface masks, then it was unusable after adding the surface masks. Hopefully, this was a one-time problem, and not a harbinger of future joy...)
Net result is I got the rendering I was after, and it looks great! But the process was EXTREMELY cumbersome. Is there an easier way, or has Autodesk just not yet addressed this issue? It almost seems like they assume users will want to render a finish design, but not a survey of existing conditions...
