AccuRender nXt

Does this new AccuRender nXt work with Architectural Desktop 2006/2007 and AutoCAD Architecture 2008/2009 or is AccuRender 4 still the only product for ADT/ACA?

 Thanks

 Christopher

NXT should work with ADT fine.  Are you having trouble with it?

Just to clarify-- nXt works with the 2007/2008/2009 family of AutoCAD products-- also known as R17.  It is intended to work with any ADT/ACA based on this platform.  My guess is that ADT 2006 will not work and that ADT 2007 and beyond will.  Obviously, the architectural flavors have not been extensively tested.  We'd love to have some more people trying it out.

Roy

I can confirm that nXt does NOT work with Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006.  (Neither does Accurender 4)

I can confirm that nXt DOES work with Autodesk Architecture 2009.
I am running into problems with the material assignment through the construct/view/xref methods that Architecture does it's information management though, as mentioned http://nxt.accurender.com/forums/t/970.aspx

scothand:

I can confirm that nXt does NOT work with Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006.  (Neither does Accurender 4)

 Yes, my mistake. AR4 works with Desktop 2006, but not Architecture 2009.

scothand:

 Yes, my mistake. AR4 works with Desktop 2006, but not Architecture 2009.

Well, Catch 22...these are moments when you just wanna to give up. Start using any software really feels like marriage. You enter to something you just cannot see end of. You just have to hope. And, well, now....I do have functional setup of the office - we use Desktop 2006 + AR4. We are considerng another AR4 license to meet requirements of our clients...On the other hand, we are now almost three versions behind with Desktop (all the time paying subscription to have them:-)...There are nice features, so we would like to upgrade, but how to do it - if I upgrade my Desktop seats, I will not be able to render any more, because I commited to AR...which does not cooperate with current Desktop. So I start thinking of nXt...which, in turn, does not support - and seems not willing to do so in future - all features that made the combination of Desktop+ADT the winner. We were able to produce sufficient renderings (see http://www.rh-arch.com/project-detail.aspx?project=32 as one of latest examples of AR4 works) or even videos (not included on web and done using AR3 - everything is deteriorating:) in the fraction of time and expenses professional studios require - it was just side product for us...what could I do now? Any recommendations?

 Sorry, no recommendations.  This morning out of frustration, I reinstalled ADT 2006 and tried to convert a project back from Architecture 2009.  I did find that by exporting the full model from 2009, creating a drawing in2006 that Xrefs the exported model, I can render the models using AR3 or 4.

This is a terrible solution, but I need to get some renderings out the door by tomorrow morning, and after spending all weekend trying to get nXt to work with the ACA/ADT environment, I can't handle it anymore.

scothand:

 Sorry, no recommendations.  This morning out of frustration, I reinstalled ADT 2006 and tried to convert a project back from Architecture 2009.  I did find that by exporting the full model from 2009, creating a drawing in2006 that Xrefs the exported model, I can render the models using AR3 or 4.

This is a terrible solution, but I need to get some renderings out the door by tomorrow morning, and after spending all weekend trying to get nXt to work with the ACA/ADT environment, I can't handle it anymore.

That is part of the problem of using a beta product to try and do production work. I just have never seen it work... but, this product is coming along very nicely.

dkh007:

scothand:

... I need to get some renderings out the door by tomorrow morning, and after spending all weekend trying to get nXt to work with the ACA/ADT environment, I can't handle it anymore. ...

That is part of the problem of using a beta product ..., this product is coming along very nicely.

And that is exactly the point.

1. We (scothand, myself and probably many others) did invest both our money and (more importantly) our time into the product (AccuRender)
2. This product (Accurender) is supposed to be, according to www.accurender.com, "high-end rendering, fully integrated into AutoCAD, or Architectural Desktop"
3. This product (Accurender) is currently not integrated into current version of Architectural Desktop AT ALL. There is currently shipped version you can buy, which DOES NOT work with current Architectural Desktop version and, as a second choice, very promising beta, which does not seem to be willing to maintain this "full integration"
4. If THE creator (hope you are listening:-) did express more interest in fulfilling the needs of architects (quoting again from www.accurender.com: "AccuRender is carefully designed to complement your existing AutoCAD workspace and fit seamlessly into your workflow") who are pushed by marketing policies of Autodesk (use vertical products, go for desktop solutions, pay subscription fees...) to use the current version...so, if the creator did pay more attention, there would not have been such posts as these.
5. I am really worried now. I think you can find out from the complexity of posts I am submitting in http://nxt.accurender.com/forums/t/970.aspx thread I am ready to cooperate, to beta test, to participate to make the final product better, but I was told: "I am willing to lose customers over this decision." Well, feeling a bit orphaned, you can imagine:-) I am not trying to make points for BYCOLOR assignment now, I am just trying to point out, that any architect, using the current version of the product (Autodesk ACA) is not able to produce any renders using the product (Accurender) which "seamlessly integrates" into the previous one.
6. I do like nXt. I do agree with what has been told elsewhere here, that there is something like personality of the creator of the rendering package imprinted into all renderings produced by it... I am using Accurender and I am willing to do so in the future, but I currently can not and there is no sign it will be possible.

Our support of the ADT family of products has been generally pretty marginal over the years-- if we hit something that kind of worked we were really mostly lucky.  In general we haven't been very enthusiastic about putting much energy into this platform because the effort required is high and the returns in general have been poor (very few active AR customers.)

I'm still not entirely convinced there's a valid market at all for AR for AutoCAD-- I'm far less sanguine about putting a lot of time into chasing this particular flavor.  Having said that, we do have a small group of users that have automated their ar3/4 processes in similar ways, but with and without ADT/ACA.  It's not a large customer base and doesn't represent a lot of revenue for us, but it may turn out to be worthwhile to support this.  I've got a lot of other thing on my plate first.

Roy

Roy Hirshkowitz:

Our support of the ADT family of products has been generally pretty marginal over the years ... I'm still not entirely convinced there's a valid market at all for AR for AutoCAD

maybe I am missing something here - after all, English is not my native language: is this the correct translation of "fully integrated into AutoCAD, or Architectural Desktop" or maybe an equivalent of "AccuRender is carefully designed to complement your existing AutoCAD workspace and fit seamlessly into your workflow"?

There is no "ADT" family. There is Autodesk family of AutoCAD based vertical products. You can ask your nearest AutoCAD reseller for further explanation. In other words, pure AutoCAD users are going to die out (not sure about my English, there were dinosaurs on my mind:-)

Autodesk says architects=Architectural Desktop or architects=Revit. Accurender website says: "Unlike most renderers, AccuRender is designed by architects with architects in mind." ...writing your post, you must have been kidding.

If you are going to develop nXt for Rhino or Revit users only, please, let us know and state it openly. If you are not convinced AutoCAD forms a valid market for AR...well, I would like to know:)

Roy Hirshkowitz:

I've got a lot of other thing on my plate first.

Understood. You probably have to go through whole Accurender website deleting all references to AutoCAD:-)

and that phrase about things on the plate...it does remind me: http://www.companyculture.com/topics/BullshitBingo.htm

In other words: just give me my bycolor or whatever, or optimize the ar4code to be as fast as ar3 used to be and port it to current version of ACA and we are done.

Ros.Riha:

If you are going to develop nXt for Rhino or Revit users only, please, let us know and state it openly. If you are not convinced AutoCAD forms a valid market for AR...well, I would like to know:)

Roy, I need to know too. I've been using AR since AR3 was in beta. I am still using AR3 in 2006. AR4 has been a bust for me. The only way I can get it to work is in 2008 with the AR3 interface, and even that is broke. nXt is a breath of fresh air. I've been testing it on ACAD 2009,  running my AR3 production work in parallel with nXt to make comparisons in image quality. I really like the interface. I have no problem with the material change. Would like to see the lighting work as it did in previous releases, but I'll wait and give it a chance. I look forward to final release.

But this talk of a non-commitment to AutoCAD has me worried. I have a Rhino license and a Revit license is just a few clicks away. Thing is, I've been using AutoCAD since 1986, modeling in it since R12. I like the ACAD -AR combo.  Tell me if I need to start liking something different.

bwthomas:

Roy, I need to know too. I've been using AR since AR3 was in beta. I am still using AR3 in 2006. AR4 has been a bust for me. The only way I can get it to work is in 2008 with the AR3 interface, and even that is broke. nXt is a breath of fresh air. I've been testing it on ACAD 2009,  running my AR3 production work in parallel with nXt to make comparisons in image quality. I really like the interface. I have no problem with the material change. Would like to see the lighting work as it did in previous releases, but I'll wait and give it a chance. I look forward to final release.

But this talk of a non-commitment to AutoCAD has me worried. I have a Rhino license and a Revit license is just a few clicks away. Thing is, I've been using AutoCAD since 1986, modeling in it since R12. I like the ACAD -AR combo.  Tell me if I need to start liking something different.

Nothing's been decided, everything is still on the table.  Generally speaking I've been encouraged enough by the response here to keep going-- responses like yours are particularly encouraging.  However, there have to be enough people who want to see an AutoCAD version to make this venture worthwhile.  It also must include new users.  Updating the older version to simply work with ever newer versions of AutoCAD is probably no longer a viable business for us.

Tell me more about the lighting-- what do you mean by work more like previous versions?

Roy

<Roy Hirshkowitz> wrote in message news:4576@nxt.accurender.com...

bwthomas:

Roy, I need to know too. I've been using AR since AR3 was in beta. I am still using AR3 in 2006. AR4 has been a bust for me. The only way I can get it to work is in 2008 with the AR3 interface, and even that is broke. nXt is a breath of fresh air. I've been testing it on ACAD 2009,  running my AR3 production work in parallel with nXt to make comparisons in image quality. I really like the interface. I have no problem with the material change. Would like to see the lighting work as it did in previous releases, but I'll wait and give it a chance. I look forward to final release.

But this talk of a non-commitment to AutoCAD has me worried. I have a Rhino license and a Revit license is just a few clicks away. Thing is, I've been using AutoCAD since 1986, modeling in it since R12. I like the ACAD -AR combo.  Tell me if I need to start liking something different.

Nothing's been decided, everything is still on the table.  Generally speaking I've been encouraged enough by the response here to keep going-- responses like yours are particularly encouraging.  However, there have to be enough people who want to see an AutoCAD version to make this venture worthwhile.  It also must include new users.  Updating the older version to simply work with ever newer versions of AutoCAD is probably no longer a viable business for us.

Tell me more about the lighting-- what do you mean by work more like previous versions?

Roy

---

http://nxt..accurender.com/forums/p/921/4576.aspx#4576