AccuRender nXt for Revit

AccuRender nXt for Revit - has now been released.
High Quality, Photo Realistic renderings from Revit with a new integrated rendering Engine.
This is the fastest, best low-cost renderer for Revit.
We have now moved AccuRender nXt for Revit from Beta test mode to Production mode. AccuRender nXt for Revit is producing good renderings now, and have fixed most of the bugs which our Beta Testers have reported. We feel that the product is ready for release to the general public, and have released it for production.
We appreciate the work the testers have put into helping us define a product which is useful for the Revit community. We recognize that there will continue to be bug fixes, improvements to the base engine, and to the interface, and that is why we are offering the production version to our testers for less than 1/2 of the final price. (See Purchase)
To download the latest version of AccuRender nXt for Revit, IRender nXt for SketchUp, or other Render Plus products, visit: Downloads

Features

• You can now change Render Settings and Edit materials from the Render dialog, without having to export or reload the geometry.
• The dialog for setting the Sun position was restored.
• Sun and Sky Settings may now be changed without reloading the geometry into the rendering window, just stop and restart the renderer from the rendering dialog.
• Glow added for materials
• Background images and colors added.
• New Setup Option interface.
• Fixed locations for RPC objects and Trees embedded in Families
• Improved the RPC interface.
• Reduced the delay loading the Map Material and Plant dialogs.
• Added support for the new fractal AccuRender nXt trees.
• Fixed height and width for procedural tile materials
• We now use the Color, Transparency and Reflection from the Revit rendering material for materials not mapped to AccuRender nXt materials.
• Daylight Portal property added to Materials
• Orthographic and Perspective views.
• Revit lights. (They are all treated as point lights in this version. Spot lights and area lights will be added in a later version)
• Sun and Sky settings. (You have to manually set the nXt sun position to match the Revit Sun position. We hope to fix this in a later version.)
• Transparent and colored materials. (The settings are read directly fromt he Revit material.)
• Reflective and Textured materials. (You need to create a nXt material with the desired textures. We hope to read this directly from Revit in a future version.)

Installation

Visit: Downloads to download AccuRender nXt for Revit.

You may need to be an administrator to install AccuRender nXt for Revit.

The installation will attempt to determine where Revit is installed. If it has any problems, it will ask you to help locate the Revit.ini file in the Revit folder.

The revit.ini file is normally located in “Program Files\Revit Architecture 2009\Program”. Once you find the file and select Open, you should get a message box indicating a successful configuration.

• This version only works with Revit 2009 and Revit 2010.

• On Vista: Revit will likely need to run as an administrator in order to load its plug-ins. You can do this temporarily, by right-clicking on the Revit icon and selecting “Run as Administrator”. You can also change any Revit shortcut to always run as an administrator by right-clicking on the shortcut, selecting Properties…, going to the Shortcut tab, clicking Advanced, and finally checking Run as Administrator.

Starting nXt

• 1. Open Revit and load a model. An additional menu item, nXt should appear.

• 2. Load a perspective 3D view, so that the nXt menu items are enabled.

• 3. From the nXt menu, choose Control Panel.
  

Documentation

In addition to the notes below, see: Table of Contents - AccuRender nXt for Revit

Video Tutorial

• AccuRender nXt Simple Rendering Video Tutorial

Control Panel

The AccuRender nXt for Revit icons on the Control Panel are:
Render Model, using the current 3D view.
You decide when to Stop the rendering—it will continue refining the picture until you stop it. Try rendering a small to medium sized model first—before you throw something very large at it.
Load Setup Options Tab Dialog. Set rendering options.
Load Sun Position Dialog. Set the sun position.
Load Materials Dialog. Map a nXt material to a Revit material with the same name.
Load Plants Dialog. Map an AccuRender Plant to a Revit family, by family name.

Note: If you wish to render a non-perspective view, select the view while leaving the Control Panel visible.
You can leave the control panel up while selecting different models and views. AccuRender nXt for Revit will always render the currently active model and view.

Setup Options Tab Dialog

The Setup Options dialog is used for rendering settings in AccuRender nXt for Revit. Settings are grouped in the following tabs:

• Lighting Presets
• Rendering Setup
• Lighting Setup
• HDRI Sky Setup
• Background Setup
• Special Setup
• Image Setup
• More Setup
• nXT Setup

Sun Position Dialog

We are not able to read the Sun position from Revit yet, so you will have to set the sun again before using AccuRender nXt for Revit.

Materials Dialog

You can create a nXt Material for any of the Revit Materials in your drawing.
Select a Revit Material on the left and click Edit to define the nXt Material to match it.
The nXt Material will have the same name as the Revit Material.

Plants Dialog

You can use the Plants dialog to map AccuRender Plants to families by name.