Book Review – Remarkable Renderworks

Remarkable Renderworks – An Introduction to the Basics by Daniel Jansenson, published by Nemetschek North America.

This manual arrived in the post a few days ago, and I have been reading it ever since. I have heard about this book coming out and I am really pleased to see it. Rendering with Vectorworks is not a small topic, and there are some areas that are very subtle, so we need a manual that explains the basics for the beginner, but also explains the subtle parts of rendering for the more advanced user. That is a tricky balancing act, but I think the author, Daniel Jansenson has done this.

Like all the other NNA manuals, this is a quality offering. It is printed in color, on good quality paper and it is spiral wire bound so that it always sits flat on the desk, or, even better, can be folded back on itself.

The manual starts with an overview of the workflow for visualization. This is a great idea, not just for the beginner. It is a reminder to work in a methodical way so that you don’t miss anything, or over complicate the project. There are some sage words of advice here.

The early part of the manual is like a quickstart, so the user understands the basics before moving on. After covering several of the rendering methods the manual movies on to textures. The manual covers the task of creating textures in a stepwise fashion. There are many ways to make textures and this manual covers these in a simple, carefully illustrated way. The whole manuals is full of screen shots, typically there are to or three screen shots on every page.

The middle part of the manual covers applying textures to models, and the final part is about lighting and high quality rendering. Again, the manual is full of step-by-step instructions with loads of screen shots. This was my favorite part of the manual, how to create good interior and exterior lighting.

When I first got this manual I thought that Remarkable Renderworks is intended for the beginner to rendering. Now that I have finished, I realize that Daniel Jansenson has created a book that balances the needs of the beginner with the needs of the advanced user to know in detail why things work (or not).

I thoroughly recommend this book if you want to render your models with Renderworks. Unless you are one of the few really good Renderworks users, you will get a lot from this manual, you will learn so much about rendering, in a short space of time. You will repay your investment in this manual very quickly. Go now and get your copy. http://www.nemetschek.net/training/guides.php