ArchiCAD Summer School: Lightworks Rendering and Presentation

The morning: 1000

1: Rendering [1 hr]
- history, evolution and culture of architectural representation.
- delineation versus rendering.
- mechanics of the LightWorks engine
- built-in rendering effects
- legacy issues related to work flow - pro and con.

2: Lighting [1 hr]
- all the LightWorks lights and how to use them in a scene.
- quality and time use strategies.
- color temperature and other technology

3: Materials [1.5 hr]
- an exhaustive explanation of the LightWorks dialogs to describe surfaces.
- the LWA archive and how to get it.
- how to make "materials" from photo textures.
- relationship of light reflectance in material and rendering success.
- accessories for better images: software and objects.

Lunch: 1300-1400

4: Tricks [2 hr]
- neon
- plasma screen
- candles
- fire
- shadow catch me if you can
- cyclorama building
- setting up an interior perspective with exterior aspects
- site aerial
- museum interior
- lobby interior
- hallway interior
-more? but how much can you cram into two hours?

5: PhotoRendering Techniques
[Based in the just-released Adobe Photoshop CS2] [1 hr]
- balance and recompose images
- texturing effects
- graphic effects
- correcting exposure
- remedial effects: lighting textures.
- other topics by request

6: Questions and Challenges from attenders [1 hr - at least]
- Critique of artwork and photoshop fixes
- until everyone is satisfied.
1800

Dwight writes: Here are three reasons why you should attend, or why your firm should send an intermediate architect or technician with some artistic aptitude to my full day seminar:

1: I'm a world authority concerning the LightWorks Rendering Engine
as newly used in ArchiCAD.

I have just been finishing my new book "LightWorks In ArchiCAD" which prepares me for delivering the most up-to-date information to my audience. ArchiCAD
University's David Nicholson-Cole is paying my professional fee for this day as well as covering my travel costs from Canada to attend ACUE because he knows that I represent a teaching resource unequalled in the UK. Old hands from ACUE 2000, 2002 or 2003 may remember me.

2: I earn my living communicating ideas - so my strategies are
professional and productive.

My main work is not illustrating for others. I am in the public art business and for the time I allocate to making pitches, I must get the biggest bang for the buck in all of my visual communication. When I teach illustration, the attendees see productivity short cuts and learn to avoid pitfalls that would take months to discover independently. Ask me, I know. Efficacy in design work means that we spend a lot of time uncovering alternatives to slow, excruciating "photorealism" that sucks time and ruins deadlines.

3: I teach an interdisciplinary approach to exploit various applications supporting ArchiCAD.

Art is about getting people to say "yes," and staff who take my course become better workers, focused on job essentials with the confidence and skill to defy time wasting modeling corrections in their work. I believe that after just one day with me, staff with aptitude will be able to assume the bulk of the utility rendering  in the firm - the kind of job process images that explain and sell preliminary design - and do it profitably for their employer. After some further practice, even outside illustrators can be eliminated.

This seminar won't be new by the time I get to England. I'll be breaking the seminar in with Canadian dates during August after my book is printed.

David NC writes: After Dwight's Plenary on Photoshop in 2002, the standard of presentation work in the whole of the School of Architecture in Nottingham has rocketed upwards. The students who were at ACUE 2002 all excelled in their final degrees. I have been presenting Photoshop Specials to every incoming first year, conveying some of Dwight's enthusiasm and tricks onto each new generation - first year, first semester, first week - the Photoshop Special! so now hundreds of students have benefitted. Its a fundamental professional skill.