Dawning of a New Blog

As if there weren’t enough AutoCAD blogs to pick from, right?

Well it’s hard to wade through the repeated information at times to try and find a new gem, here or there.

This is especially so, when trying to find information on Autocad’s rendering and visualization tools. These seem to be the neglected topic for many CAD operators out there on plain-jane Autocad. There’s many reasons for this, I’m sure. Most prominently, I believe that if a company is investing resources and time into rendering and visualizations, then chances are they’ve invested in more prominent packages to handle the rendering such as 3dsMax or VIZ. A good chunk of Autocad users, also, just plain have no idea that you can do 3D in Autocad, or at least don’t know how. Those who are aware of 3D, by now have moved on to packages more geared towards 3D modeling OOTB than Autocad is and therefore use different rendering packages.

But here I am, and here you are, looking for Autocad information and rendering information at the same time, so we must be on a similar page. You no doubt realize that with the lack of documentation on using Autocad for these things, the learning it takes to utilize these tools is obtainable only, mostly, through experimentation, and peer support.

Here you’ll find what I hope to be a good explanation of the knowledge I’ve accumulated and hopefully it’ll be of use to you. Also, as they come, I plan on making available to you, various containers of materials, textures, models, anything that seems to be helpful to the demonstration of principles detailed in future posts.

Worth noting; I will mainly be addressing Autocad’s latest release abilities, although many principle and ideas are quite neutral to what release you are doing. However, there are obvious leaps such as the introduction of the mental ray engine in 2007, the lack of landscape objects past 2006, introduction of new procedural maps, new lighting methods, sun controls, etc etc. I will note what releases certain topics pertain to, though.

Watch this space

Coming soon!

Coming to this space, an ever growing collection of tutorials, guides, tips, tricks, downloadable resources, and help on all things related to rendering, visualizations, animation, material manipulation, mapping, moderate modeling tips, and tricks.

One of the least documented areas of Autocad is the rendering side of things. There is plenty out there showing you the basics or a list of commands and what has been added, but very little about what to DO with these tools and features. Well soon that will change.

-Watch this space