Sunday, 8 May 2011

Tgi3d : plugins for sketchup



Checkout Tgi3d which has developed a few plugins for sketchup.

  • State-of-the-art plugins for Google SketchUp!
  • Enables you to create accurate 3D models efficiently, either with or without photographs.
  • These SketchUp plugins are free-form 3D modeling softwares, which allow you to create organic 3D models.
  • Simple yet powerful calibration method!
  • High quality photogrametry!
  • NEW: Smart texturing!
  • Available for both Windows and Mac OS X systems!
Visit: Tgi3d for further info. Facebook page can be found HERE.

Time Lapse Video



Scenes taken from Tenerife, more than 2,000 meters above sea level and over a year to capture all possible shades, clouds, stars, colors from a unique landscape and from one of the best skies on the planet.
First in a series of videos nocturnal and crepuscular Time Lapse taken in the Canary Islands trying to capture the beauty of each island.
To capture the natural movement of the earth, stars, clouds, sun and moon TimeLapse technique was used, Dolly vertical and horizontal rails, spindles with horizontal and vertical movements. HDR data collection.

Visit: elcielodecanarias.com

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

An Introduction to Sustainable Design in BIM (video download links)

Here are some direct links to download the videos detailed on this page.



To download them all quickly, use DownThemAll.



To play the FLV files, you may want to use Media Player Classic Home Cinema.



Sustainable Cities

http://download.autodesk.com/us/bim/video/overview/sustainable_cities_video_800x450.flv





Autodesk Revit Products for BIM-Enabled Sustainable Designhttp://www.aec-projects.com/autodesk-revit-products-for-sustainable-design/content/intro.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/autodesk-revit-products-for-sustainable-design/content/ch_01.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/autodesk-revit-products-for-sustainable-design/content/ch_02.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/autodesk-revit-products-for-sustainable-design/content/ch_03.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/autodesk-revit-products-for-sustainable-design/content/conclusion.flv



Conceptual Energy Analysis Screencast

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/intro.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/ch_01.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/ch_02.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/ch_03.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/ch_04.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/ch_05.flv

http://c0377931.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/conclusion.flv



Optimizing Building Designs with Autodesk Revit MEP & Autodesk 3ds Max Design

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/intro.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_01.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_02.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_03.flv





http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_04.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_05.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_06.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_07.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/ch_08.flv

http://www.aec-projects.com/optimizing-building-designs/content/conclusion.flv



Revit MEP Sustainable Design - 2010 

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/intro.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_01.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_02.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_03.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_04.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_05.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_06.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_07.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/ch_08.mp4

http://aec-projects.com/mep-engineering-solutions/outro.mp4


Via What Revit Wants

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Auckland buddhist temple

buddhist temple by Ankit_
buddhist temple, a photo by Ankit_ on Flickr.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

boundaries

boundaries by Ankit_
boundaries, a photo by Ankit_ on Flickr.

photo from my trip to auckland and northland in the easter break.

view more photos here: http://bit.ly/f7D8MO

Thursday, 7 April 2011

The Three Classicists


A 4 meter x 3 meter drawing that was done in one day at the Royal Institute of British Architects by Ben Pentreath, George Saumarez Smith and Francis Terry

Time Lapse Film by Ben Moore

Music by Aphex Twin

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Bintan, Indonesia

IMG_5732 [uploads] by Ankit_
IMG_5732 [uploads], a photo by Ankit_ on Flickr.

Photo from my trip to Bintan, Indonesia.

Check out More here: http://bit.ly/f0hIL7

Thursday, 31 March 2011

Sunset at Manila Bay

manila_baywalk by Ankit_
manila_baywalk, a photo by Ankit_ on Flickr.

Photo of sunset/dusk taken by me during my trip to the Philippines. See more photos of Manila Trip here:

http://bit.ly/ghQGhS

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Organic modeling with the Artisan plugin

SketchUp plugin wizard Dale Martens (a.k.a. Whaat) recently released an amazing and incredibly useful organic modeling toolset called Artisan. Based on Dale’s popular Subdivide & Smooth tools, Artisan is perfect for people who want to use SketchUp to model organic shapes and terrain features. Artisan includes a set of “deformation” tools that allow you to sculpt, smooth, flatten, pinch and apply textures just like you would with a brush.

The toolbar for Dale Martens' Artisan Organic Toolset for SketchUp


Eric Lay modeled Patrick Beaulieu's "Bobby Bubble" character, then rendered him (her?) with Twilight Render.


Use Artisan's Sculpt tools to "paint" 3D deformation onto surfaces.

You can add or reduce polygon complexity in your model, allowing for more or less detail. There’s also a suite of vertex tools that you can use to model based on controlling vertex points. Oh—and did I mention that it’s a ton of fun to use? Have a look at some of the features yourself...

Popout

As anyone at the office can tell you, I’m no artist or designer, but I thought I would give the Artisan tool a try over the weekend. Below is something that I whipped up; not too shabby for an hour’s worth of work.

I modeled this hamburger. Er, yum?


If slimy, unappetizing hamburgers aren’t your thing, no worries. It’s not a stretch to see how the Artisan tools might be applied to a whole range of different markets and use cases: character design, product design, environmental design, construction, civil engineering, architecture and, of course, landscape architecture.

Peter Stoppel modeled this scooter.

Peter also modeled this wedge of landscape.


Artisan is also incredibly useful for freeform terrain modeling. This model is by Daniel Tal.

For more information and video tutorials on the Artisan Organic Toolset for SketchUp, check out this website. You’ll also find a great writeup on the Artisan tools in SketchUcation’s February issue of the CatchUp news magazine.

Thank you to Dale for building this great plugin, and special thanks to Eric Lay (a.k.a. Boofredlay), Peter Stoppel (a.k.a. Solo) and Daniel Tal for your great graphics.

Via Google

Thursday, 17 March 2011

RenderWeb | render animations directly within Facebook




RenderWeb is a new platform that allows friends and communities to share
computational resources to render animations directly within Facebook. Once the
projects are rendered, the animations are available for the entire community to
watch and tag.

Click HERE to Read More

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

the Advanced Camera Tools for Sketchup 8



The Advanced Camera Tools plugin lets you work with real-world cameras in your SketchUp Pro 8 models. Cameras you create with the ACTs provide precise controls for settings like Focal Length, Aspect Ratio and Image Width, which allows you to accurately preview real camera shots right inside SketchUp.

Here's a video showing the plugin:



here’s some of what you can do with the Advanced Camera Tools:

Place cameras in your model and look through them to preview your shots.


Choose from dozens of pre-configured camera types, or create your own.


Position and aim your ACT cameras using familiar moves like Pan, Tilt, Roll, Dolly, Truck and Pedestal.


Set the Focal Length of any camera to simulate a large number of physical lenses.


Look through your ACT cameras to preview Aspect Ratio and Safe Zones for the shots you’re planning.


Toggle on and off all of your ACT cameras’ frustums to clearly see what is—and isn’t— visible in your shots.

The Advanced Camera Tools work on both Windows and Mac computers running SketchUp Pro 8. The plugin itself is a free download; you can get it here: Windows | Mac OS X

Via Google Sketchup Blog

Thursday, 10 March 2011

RENDERLights for SketchUp



3D Render Announces the Release of RENDERLights for SketchUp

RENDERLight for SketchUp is the fastest and easiest to use real-time
Radiosity and light simulation engine in the architectural industry.


Helsinki, Finland – March 8, 2011–Leveraging over a decade of
visualization and software development experience, 3D Render today
announced the release of RENDERLights for SketchUp. Building upon their
widely successful RENDERLights engine, architects, visualization
artists and designers now have access to a real-time virtual reality
engine on the popular Google SketchUp platform.


“We are very excited to get RENDERLights for SketchUp into the hands of the design community”, said Pauli Jantunen
Development Manager for 3D Render, “The speed of the design process has
changed dramatically and we’ve developed the first virtual reality
engine that will truly democratize visualization throughout the design
process.”


Boasting an incredibly powerful and simple user interface,
RENDERLights for SketchUp was designed from the ground up with the
design industry in mind. In an increasingly competitive market, it has
become critically important to quickly and easily communicate design
intent with internal stakeholders and customers. RENDERLights for
SketchUp brings real-time to the masses with unprecedented real-time
performance, radiosity lighting simulation, Google 3D Warehouse
integration and the shortest and easiest learning curve of any virtual
reality application on the market.


“For me it was ideal to see and present the architectural design and related urban planning with a portable digital model” said Ilari Schouwvlieger, Chairman of Board at BMZ Invest. “It aided us to promote the design for city officials, hotel operators and investors.”

RENDERLights for SketchUp shares many of the advanced features and
functionalities of the core RENDERLights engine including: texture
baking, realistic environments, animation systems, sun and shadow
simulations, real-time bloom water and raytraced reflections, 3d
presentations, large model handling and their one click (Click ‘N’Go)
functionality.


For more information and to get picture material on RENDERLights for SketchUp, please visit: http://www.renderlights.com/?p=802


Product Availability


RENDERLights for SketchUp is distributed as a standalone license and
is available for the limited introductory price of €299 per year.
Purchases can be made from the RENDERLights website at: http://www.renderlights.com/ and from select international resellers.


About 3DRender


3D Render is one of the leading visualization offices in
Scandinavia. Based in Helsinki, Finland, 3D Render has over a decade of
experience in visualization and software development. Their products
range from simple 3D imagery and videos, to complex virtual models and
web based applications. 3D Render specializes in the development of new
and innovative ways to help decisions makers in the design industry use
visualization tools.


Via Renderlights

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

EnergyPlus Version 6.0 and OpenStudio for SketchUp Version 1.06 Available


This is quoting the news from the BLDG-SIM mailing list (See http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org for information on joining this email list).


Please go to the EnergyPlus homepage to learn more and download the software.


“The latest release of the EnergyPlus building energy simulation
program, Version 6.0, is now available in versions for Windows, Linux,
and Mac operating systems. A few key new features include: significant
speed increases — up to 25-40% execution time reduction in most
simulations, life-cycle cost calculations, Transformer model, modeling
of CO2 concentrations, enhanced Green Roof (EcoRoof) model, enhanced
convection coefficients.  We have updated and extended capabilities
throughout the existing building envelope, daylighting, and HVAC
equipment and systems portions of the program.


EnergyPlus V 6.0 is available at no cost from the EnergyPlus web site:  www.energyplus.gov.


OpenStudio plugin for Google SketchUp: The OpenStudio is a free
plugin for the GoogleSketchUp 3D drawing program. The plugin makes it
easy to create and edit the building geometry in your EnergyPlus input
files. The plugin also allows you to launch EnergyPlus simulations and
view the results without leaving SketchUp.


EnergyPlus Example File Generator: A Web-based service is available
that creates and runs EnergyPlus input files for simple models of
commercial buildings. The input files (and annual results summary
files) are sent to your e-mail address as attachments. This is a pilot
project and is currently made available only as a BETA service. You can
access the service and customize the characteristics of the building
you want to model on the EnergyPlus Example File Generator Application.


The set of example input files now includes full-blown models of
typical new construction (drawn from the DOE Commercial Reference
Buildings project). Also included is a real-life Hospital sample.


What’s New in Version 6.0?


The highlights ­ improved and new features ­ are displayed by category.


General

*  Significant speed increases, up to 25-40% execution time reduction in most simulations, depending on specific features used

*  Revised reference building examples (formerly benchmark buildings)

*  New detailed 130-zone hospital baseline and low energy example files.


Datasets

*  New dataset for life cycle costing with regional U.S. fuel escalation factors.

*  Doubled number of refrigerated cases in refrigerated case data set


Input

*  Zone lists supported in most internal gains, infiltration,
ventilation, thermostat, and demand manager zone name fields to apply a
single input object to multiple zones.

*  New lookup table object allows alternate performance input format to
eliminate the need for regression analysis, can be used in place of
existing curve objects, and can create curve objects.

*  Windows and Daylighting

*  New reporting of pre-calculated hourly daylight factors.

*  Allow glazing defined with spectral data to be used with between-glass shades and blinds.

*  Window 6.3 (fenestration modeling software) will be able to export EnergyPlus IDF segments for window modeling.


Zone and Surface Models

*  New surface heat transfer convection coefficient options,
including adaptive model, many new correlations, and user-defined
equations.

*  Movable outside insulation, with transparent insulation material
(TIM) capability, added to conduction finite difference model.

*  Ecoroof model now has two moisture diffusion calculation methods – simple and advanced.

*  Natural and Mechanical Ventilation

*  New comprehensive modeling of CO2 concentrations in zone air, including internal emission sources and ventilation controls.

*  New simplified model for interactions between mechanical ventilation, infiltration and duct leakage.


HVAC

*  New separate sizing factors for heating and cooling.

*  Enhanced Fan Coil model to allow constant water-flow capacity control with multi-speed and variable-speed fan.

*  Enhanced inputs for variable volume fan minimum power rate.

*  Enhanced reheat coil sizing.

*  New component model for central fans with load-dependent power
calculations accounting for fan pressure rise variations, duct static
pressure reset, and fan, belt, motor, and VFD efficiency variations.

*  Enhanced hot water coil model with variable UA resulting in significant improvement in hot water flow rate calculations.

*  New basin heater model added to the single speed, two speed, multi speed and multi mode DX coil models.

*  New multi-cell feature added for three types of cooling towers: single speed, two-speed, and the variable speed.

*  New HVACTemplate support for heating/cooling sizing factors, VAV minimum flow rate options, VAV terminal unit controls.


Refrigeration

*  Multiple refrigeration systems can now share a single condenser.

*  Refrigeration condenser fan models enhanced and added input for minimum air flow rate.

*  Refrigeration condenser output enhanced to identify recovered energy used internally for defrost and for other purposes.


Electrical Systems

*  New transformer model for electrical power service and on-site generation.


Controls and User Functions

*  New dual-max control for VAV reheat terminal units with reverse acting damper and hot-water coil.

*  New maximum supply air temperature limit for VAV reheat terminal units.

*  New averaged setpoint managers allow control of supply temperature
and humidity ratio based on requirements of multiple zones.

*  New setpoint managers that allow control of supply air humidity
ratio of a central system serving multiple zones based on the critical
zone humidification or dehumidification requirements.

*  New All-Off equipment operation scheme option added for plant and condenser loops.

*  Weather variables added as energy management system (EMS) actuators.


Economics

*  New life cycle cost calculations.


Output

*  New reporting of EER and IEER (in addition to SEER) for DX cooling coils with air cooled condensers.

*  Enhanced SQLite output to include error file content.


Utilities

*  New EP-Launch option to run multiple simulations
simultaneously, taking advantage of multiple processors (Windows
platform only).

*  Enhanced output file access in EP-Launch (Windows platform only).

*  IDF Converter (Transition GUI) can now save intermediate versions.


Platforms

*  Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7)

*  Linux (Ubuntu 9.04 and above, Redhat 5.4 and above)

*  Mac (10.5, 10.6)

*  EnergyPlus V 6.0 has been tested on all of these platforms.

*  ParametricPreprocessor executable added to Linux and Mac distribution.

*  DElight simulations added to Linux and Mac distribution.


And many other enhancements and speed improvements throughout.


EnergyPlus Training Workshops


We will continue to offer training workshops.  For more information, please see:  http://www.gard.com/training.htm


EnergyPlus Weather Data


Weather data for more than 2000 locations worldwide are available on the EnergyPlus web site:  http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/weatherdata_about.cfm


If you know of other weather data for your country that you’d be
willing to share with the EnergyPlus user community, please contact the
development team at energyplus-support@gard.com.


EnergyPlus Helpdesk


A helpdesk system has been set up for managing
EnergyPlus user support requests. The helpdesk system includes a
download area, a knowledge base and troubleshooting area. To submit new
support requests (tickets) or search the knowledge base, please go to energyplus.helpserve.com.  You may also submit new issues, files and reply to tickets via e-mail at EnergyPlus-Support@gard.com.
This address has been linked to the helpdesk since early May 2008. 
This is the best way to get your specific EnergyPlus questions
answered.”



Sunday, 10 October 2010

FBX File Link with Revit Architecture — 3ds Max Design 2011 New Features

Receive and manage upstream design changes from Autodesk Revit Architecture software with the new FBX File Link. This intelligent handling of data helps reduce rework of visualizations in 3ds Max Design when original designs are revised and refined, supporting nonlinear decision making processes and facilitating collaborative, iterative workflows. Designers can also take advantage of new import options to group incoming materials, helping to optimize and simplify management of complex data sets.












Via Blgsim

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Stop Motion Animation Created by an iPad

 

This film explores playful uses for the increasingly ubiquitous ‘glowing rectangles’ that inhabit the world.

We use photographic and animation techniques that were developed to draw moving 3-dimensional typography and objects with an iPad. In dark environments, we play movies on the surface of the iPad that extrude 3-d light forms as they move through the exposure. Multiple exposures with slightly different movies make up the stop-frame animation.


Monday, 13 September 2010

3ds Max/3ds Max Design 2011 Subscription New Feature: Iray Renderer

As part of the subscription advantage pack release for 3ds Max and 3ds Max design 2011 The new Iray Physically accurate renderer has been added and in this video you can get a quick overview.

Saturday, 11 September 2010

Digital Architecture hash tag on twitter is #digarchi

The Digital Architecture hash tag on twitter is #digarchi. Paper.li is a great website that organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created through twitter tags and I have made a digital architecture tag where all info for digital architecture can be stored via tweets. To read digital architecture newspaper and to save it to ur paper.li click HERE

Also any twitter users who want to share digital architecture links place the tag #digarchi at the end of your tweet.

Friday, 10 September 2010

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II's




This video highlights several clips made using new High Dynamic Range (HDR) process. Video is captured on two Canon 5D mark II DSLRs, each capturing the exact same subject via a beam splitter. The cameras are configured so that they record different exposure values, e.g., one camera is overexposed, the other underexposed. After the footage has been recorded, we use a variety of HDR processing tools to combine the video from the two cameras, yielding the clips you see above.

HDR Video provides filmmakers with many exciting new opportunities. Not only can HDR video create interesting effects, it can also allow for even exposure where artificial lighting is unavailable or impractical. For example, when a subject is backlit, one camera could be set to properly expose the subject, the other the sky, resulting in video with perfect exposure throughout.

Via  sovietmontage.com.

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Quick poché for your section cuts in Sketchup

Poché is what
architect-types call the filled-in areas of a plan or section drawing.
It denotes the parts of a building that are being cut by an imaginary
section plane. Here’s what poché sometimes looks like:

Adding a poché (fill) to your section cuts makes your model views more readable.

Plenty
of folks would like to add areas of poché to their section cuts in
SketchUp; doing so helps to make drawings more readable. Bob Pineo,
a licenced architect and überSketchupper from Virginia, just sent us a
great little video that explains his technique for adding poché to
section cut views. Check it out:



This
method involves coloring the inside faces of your walls black (or some
other color) so that they appear to have a poché applied. It’s cleverer
than using the Create Group from Slice
command, since that method is more labor-intensive and needs to be
repeated for every new section cut. Bob’s technique works even if you
move the Section Plane, which makes it a lot more flexible.

Via Google Sketchup

How do you Save Scene Materials to a .mat file in 3dsMax 2011?

How do you Save Scene Materials to a .mat file in #3dsMax 2011?: http://bit.ly/adWxZC #autodesk #3d #cad #rendering #digarchi #architectureless than a minute ago via web



Link: HERE

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Announcing Google SketchUp 8

Today is an exciting day around the SketchUp World Headquarters out here in Boulder, Colorado. We’ve just kicked off our third bi-annual “3D Basecamp” to a crowd of SketchUp-savvy folks converging on The Dairy Center
from all around the world. I’m looking forward to some great
conversations about SketchUp and 3D modeling in general over the next
few days. But that’s not our only news today...

We’ve also finished work on SketchUp 8,
the next major release of our favorite 3D modeling tool. We’ve been
heads down and working hard for most of the last year, and I’m happy to
be able to share with you the fruits of our labor.


Google SketchUp 8 includes a batch of exciting new features.
We’ve made it easier to build site context models for your projects
using our ever-growing collection of geo-data. We’ve added a new
collection of “Solid” tools for doing common additive/subtractive
modeling operations and we’ve packed out LayOut with some new features
that make it easier to document your models professionally.



Ordinarily,
those of you who use SketchUp in a language other than English have to
wait a few weeks for a version in your language. But not this
time—today, SketchUp 8 is available for download in English, French,
Spanish, Italian or German language versions. (We weren’t able to get
all our translations done in time for release today, but keep an eye on
this blog for news about SketchUp 8 in more languages soon)

As always, SketchUp Pro 8
is available for $495 from our web store. Upgrades from any previous
version of SketchUp Pro can be had from for only $95. And, of course,
we’ve still got a version of SketchUp available for free. Head on over
to our main website for all the details.

You
can be sure we’ll be talking about this release a lot over the next few
days at 3D Basecamp, but I want to make sure that those of you who
weren’t able to join us in Boulder have a chance to let us know what
you think, too. I’ve posted a new Google SketchUp Questions and Ideas series. I’m listening, and I’ll respond to as many of the top posts there as I can.

Via Google

Friday, 27 August 2010

Ecotect Analysis - Comparing Analysis Grid Results

Here is another Tip and Trick for Ecotect Analysis, this time showing how you can compare analysis results by exporting and importing the grid data:


Via Sustainable design toolbox
 

Thursday, 26 August 2010

SU Podium V2 Render Test

If you haven't heard SU podium V2 Public Beta Trial version has been released and is available to download from HERE. This Beta trial version will expire on September 15, 2010 so make sure you try it out before the trial runs out.

I thought i'll give it a go and it seems quite impressive. Below is a quick test render that I did using the new SU podium V2. All I did was chose the "exterior.pps" preset and PNG file output and hit the render button. I Placed the background in photoshop.

podium_v2_test

Click HERE to view a video on SU podium v2 intoduction

Ecotect Analysis - Modelling Shading Effect of Wall Thickness

Tutorial which covers a quick method to model the shading effect of the wall thickness when you have a model created in Ecotect or imported via gbXML:


subscribe to the YouTube channel for more videos :

Sustainable Design Toolbox YouTube Channel

Via Sustainable Design Toolbox

Friday, 20 August 2010

Creating A Final Gather Map and its Benefit: 3dsmax Mental Ray Rendering Tip

Creating a Final Gather(FG) Map is useful so you can re-use the FG map for a final render. And How to do this? Well Once you are ready to do a proper render after doing a series of test renders Just tweak your FG settings under indirect illumination to what you think is necessary to achieve a good looking render. Set your render resolution to say 640x480. Once you've done that, under indirect illumination scroll down till you find "Reuse (FG and GI disk caching)" . Under that you will see "Final Gather Map" as shown in the image below:

fg1i

In the dialogue box choose "Read FG Points Only from Existing Map Files" and click on the "..." icon to save the FG map in a directory. And then you can just click on "Generate Final Gather Map File Now". Once you have clicked this, it will generate a FG map by rendering it out.

You will see under the rendered frame window, Final Gather will be ticked and locked meaning that it is going to use a FG map to render the next image as shown below:

fg1

Once the FG map is generated, You can then change the resolution of the final render that you want to produce say 1024 x 768 because resolution doesnt matter for FG map. And then change the rest of the settings under the render frame window such as antialiasing as shown in the image below:

fg2

So, when you are creating your FG map you can make the presets lower under the rendered frame window and also render at a smaller resolution but making sure your FG settings are the best. And Once your FG map is created, you can use that same map for the same scene and create a larger resolution render and changing the presets to high quality settings that are under the rendered frame window.

By doing this it saves a lot of time as Final Gather computation can take a long time. So if you render the Final gather at a lower resolution it will be faster than rendering at a lager resolution and their is no need to render with FG at a higher resolution as it doenst really matter if you create a FG map.