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Newsletter – February 2015
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In this issue…
- Convert Your “Cutout” Collections to RPC
- Ultra Simple Compositing in 3DS MAX
- RPC Spotlight – Automobiles
- Dashboard Filters
- Content Tags
- Tips & Tricks: License Management
Convert Your Cutout Collections to RPC
You can make all of your entourage and cutout collections more useful by converting existing libraries of 2D People and Trees into render-friendly RPCs. The new RPC Creator feature built into Dashboard lets you drag & drop any 32-Bit PNG or TIFF image onto Dashboard and immediately convert to an RPC complete with custom icon and preview.
The only thing you have to supply is the real-world height of the object and optionally change the name. That’s it! Once the RPC is complete you can drag & drop from Dashboard into 3ds Max, Revit or Autocad directly from Dashboard.
To get started make sure you have the latest Dashboard and look for the new Create menu.
For Videos and Tutuorials to help get you started check out Dashboard Best Practices | Tips & Tricks.
Ultra Simple Compositing In 3DS MAX
We know a lot of you have 3ds Max available but haven’t had the time to dive into it. 3ds Max is a mature and powerful product which also means it can be somewhat intimidating if you don’t use it often.
This month we’ve put together a quick tutorial that shows you how to composite RPCs like moving automobiles and people over your static renderings. Those renderings don’t have to come from 3ds Max… generate them in Revit and liven them up! Even if you’ve never used 3ds Max you can create a fun animation sequence with your own static rendering as the background in as little as 20 minutes.
Give it a try and share your results with us!
View the compositing tutorial »
(Compositing RPCs Inside 3DS MAX)
RPC Spotlight – Automobiles
If you didn’t see the last couple of newsletters you may have missed that 85 new vehicles were added to your subscription over the past couple of months! This includes often requested semi and tractor-trailer trucks – International ProStar and Mercedes Actros models. You’ll need to update to the newest Dashboard to get your bounty!
The new trucks include the ability to automatically drive along a spline in 3ds Max (check out the “Animating RPC Semi Trucks” tutorial), turn off/on the trailer or cab so you can fill your warehouse lots with empty trailers, and the ability to customize the graphics on the back of the trailer and sides of the cab and trailer.
The RPC Automobiles Channel in Dashboard provides you with the industry’s most comprehensive collection of vehicles for use in Revit, 3ds Max, Autocad, Microstation, Rhino, Modo and FormZ. Next up… European cars! Have a suggestion? Send them our way to suggestions@archvision.com.
Dashboard Filters
Opening the Filters Panel (bottom of Dashboard below each Channel) reveals a tag cloud displaying all of the tags associated with the content in that Channel. You have the option of sorting the tags by Popularity (the default) or switching to an Alphabetical listing. Filters are a powerful tool that lets you drill down to just the right content within a Channel with he goal of helping you get from thousands of pieces of content to the content you need in a couple of clicks.
Watch the video »
Content Tags
The new Tag Editor feature in Dashboard lets you add tags to your RPCs making them easy to search and keep organized. You can select single or multiple pieces of content at a time and then add/remove tags from the selected content. Each Tag you add is instantly searchable and will appear in your Filters Panel making getting to just the right content a snap.
To open the Tag Editor go to Browse / Organize > Tag Editor inside Dashboard.
Learn more about our thinking on tags »
Tips & Tricks: License Management
A new feature of Dashboard for Admins is the ability to manage licensees. As an Admin for your account you have access to the License Administration panel found by clicking on your email address in the Dashboard interface. There you will see all of the ArchVision licenses associated with your account.
If you are managing All Access Floating Licenses you can manage the list of email addresses able to access your license. You can also see if a license is currently in use and who is using it! Each license has an associated Activation Code that can be provided to your users so they can add themselves to your license pool. So there are two ways you can add users to your Floating License pool… 1) manually add/remove their email addresses through the License Administration interface or 2) provide your users with the Activation Code associated with a license which they can enter after clicking the “Buy/Activate License” in Dashboard. *Note that users must be registered on archvision.com to be added to a license pool.
If you find you don’t have Admin privileges contact support@archvision.com for help.
