New Material Renders Question

I have a quick questions about the new Material Renders that will be introduced soon.

For preexisting model files, will the Material Renders be generated automatically or will it require the shop owner to create and save the new render on the Details page?

This is real important to me because I have over 700 model files listed on Shapeways and all of them have the "Up" axis in the positive Z direction. So it is real important that I DO NOT lose the old original grey scale rendering and have them replaced with the new, incorrectly oriented, Material Renders.

I also use a link to the old original grey scale renderings to show the model files on my own personal catalog website. If Material Renders automatically generate and this old grey scale picture disappears, then my links become dead.

TDR.Innovations

A bit of both. You have two weeks to go thru your shop and alter any orientation(s) or viewing angles that you desire.
Approx two weeks from now, they are going to start a batch process to re-process ALL of the existing renders.

The "Z-Up" issue has already been raised... . that's being actively discussed internally right now. I agree with you that it's too much work to have to update all 400+ models I currently have. There should be an message about that decision posted in a few hours. "Stand by for news".

But, if you know that you have some models that are turned incorrectly, (I have a bunch where the nose of the truck is facing away from the screen) you could/should also start working with that now.

Note: even after the batch process is finished, you are still going to be able to go back and "tweak" the orientation (per model) as you desire.. That option is here to stay.

Surely if they run a batch job to generate the renders for all older models, it should be possible to do a rotate before the render so that the initial orientation of the new images should match the old ones (which either happened to be correct, were painstakingly corrected by the designer, or did not matter anyway due to symmetry or whatever). Toppling the images of something like 2 million models just because the new software is different does not make sense to me at all, even if the burden of righting them again is distributed over a largish number of designers. (I am beginning to think the whole announcement and the threads discussing it should be pulled and shapeways should reconsider before things get really embarrassing)

The old grey renders will disappear or stay still available?

Why not add renders without checking if a photo of the material exists?

Are the renders accessable/removeable via the image section (then everybody can choose it or not)?

Are there any further previews ?

Woody64

I just did a manual material render, not only did it create the new render but it also deleted the old grey scale picture!!

So if the automatic batch material renders go through not only do I get 700 wrong pictures, but all my right pictures will be erased too??!!

All the items I offer are either in WSF, FD, and/or FUD, the new material render for these materials look just like the old grey scale renders. This makes sense because the materials are all "white-ish" to begin with...... So not only do I loose 700 good pictures, get 700 bad pictures, loose about 250 links to my catalog page but the 700 bad pictures look just like the old pictures!!

It makes no sense.

I want to keep my old pictures and let me phase in the new render pictures as I see fit, That is the only thing that makes sense. If Shapeways makes it so we can keep the old pictures, with original links, then that would be OK with me. Then I could fix the material renders at my leisure.

Tried to generate renders but nothing happened (also after some hours)?

A cool new render: FUD streetlamp in the fog... :-( Good luck to anybody who wants to sell an item in FUD with only this kind of render.


link to the model : https://www.shapeways.com/model/1933620/pair-of-streetlamps- h0-1-87.html

The first to try label will only confuse any potential buyer, and he will only be the first to NOT try ! I think it's a necessary evil for Shapeways to rollout this new idea sitewide, to see it's effects in real life. I just hope they will not wait too long before they revert to the old system.

Guys report here href=" https://docs.google.com/a/shapeways.com/forms/d/1-o37JoLgKC0 HUBwQu1oQijOaSGjG0VkmLlO5Vj8ievQ/viewform" target="_blank"

Just wanted to add my two cents at how annoying the model orientation on new renders is. How on Earth was the decision made to make the model orientation different to the old grey render?! So many models are going to look like s**t if this isn't addressed before public roll-out.

Good point since I think all of us located the item in a way to have a sensefull render

It has taken me 3 1/2 years to get the system I have worked out. I evolved to using the rendered pics from Shapeways in my catalog because I thought they would be stable and safe. Fotki messed me over about a year ago when they decided to unplug their computers for a month or two while they moved them to eastern Europe because the weather was better there.

Now Shapeways wants to mess with the pictures.....

If Shapeways deletes the old renders then there goes the past years work and here comes another years work fixing the orientation of the renders and fixing our catalog.

This is not some small problem that will just take a few hours to fix. I am looking at 200 to 400 hours to fix this problem.....that is 200 to 400 hours I could be generating new 3D models and expanding our business......and Shapeway's business.

Write in the form I have posted XD

Already have, thanks

Hmmm when I start the rendering I get some pictures 10 minutes later but they don't show up as images in product view.
Is that not enabled yet or is there any failure ?

Woody64

@TDR.Innovations :
We will create the renders automatically in a few weeks time if you haven't already created the renders. We are switching back to the Z axis, apologies for the scare. We hear you that reorienting that many models would be insane, so it will be done shortly.

We haven't made any plans to remove the grey render, so they are safe for the time being. If anything we may stop generating them for new models in the future, but your existing images are safe.

2Woody64
The grey renders are still available and still being created on upload.

We are creating the material renders in order to help customers see what a product will be like after printing, so a photo will do a much better job than our render ever will

The best previews are on the images section or my clicking the "preview" link underneath the render posing viewer, which will show you the renders on your product page, as a customer would see them.

This should not be happening. Can you PM me the model it is happening on?

We're looking into additional lighting or texture we can add to the FUD render to help showcase the model. Part of the problem is that since FUD is transparent, in order to be accurate it is hard to see the details We're exploring a few options and will show you all once we have a few good leads.

I promise you, it is not in our best interests to scare off shoppers. We'll be keeping an eye on it closely, but we've also done a lot of research into this and feel it is going to be the right direction for our marketplace. Either way, we appreciate your concerns and the entire team is taking them seriously.

You have to click on the preview link underneath the render posing viewer to see the renders. If you are still not seeing them, can you PM me any models that are having this issue on? Thanks!

Not so bad ...