Happy New Year from ABVENT!

iRender launches The Shader Shop

Attention all Artlantis User Group members! iRender is pleased to announce the launch of The Shader Shop. Browse through 1,300 great Shaders in 34 Categories, with more on the way. If you order before January 31, 2011, there is even a 30% discount introductory offer. Click here for more details on pricing and how to place your order.

REAL & SIMPLE Student Design Competition 2011

The REAL & SIMPLE Student Design Competition 2011, sponsored by CaesarStone Quartz Surfaces, is open to all South African students of architecture and interior design. Click here for the complete competition Brief.

The prize for the winning student and lecturer of the winning student is:

A 5 day visit to Israel which includes:

A visit to Caesarea, the home of CaesarStone. Tel Aviv, the white city – the melting pot of cultures and artistic styles. Tel Aviv boasts the largest open-air Bauhaus museum in the world. In 2003 Tel Aviv one of 56 historical cities became one of the few modern cities to be declared a world heritage by UNESCO.

Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, a city that promises a religious and spiritual experience, excitement and pleasure. In Jerusalem there are amazing tourist attractions for all lovers of culture, arts, theatre, music, architecture and gastronomic delights.

The prize includes airfare, accommodation and spending money. The total prize is valued at R50 000.00 each. This prize is not exchangeable for cash.

iRender, a provider of design software applications to design professionals in Southern Africa since 2001, has offered an additional prize package to the winning student, consisting of:

• Full SketchUp Pro 8
• Artlantis Studio 3
• Additional Artlantis Media
• Space Navigator 3D mouse

All valued at R20 000.00

A trophy manufactured out of CaesarStone will be presented to the winning student at the awards evening.

Good luck!

11 Janvier: La journée de l'architecture

Once again, 36 locations across France will offer FREE, short courses in ArchiCAD 14, Artlantis 3, Bonzai3D, HyperArchi 10, and SketchUp Pro. Participation is FREE, but registration is necessary. Please click here for details and sign up today!

ArchiCAD Winter School 2011

Kasberg, Austria will see a 'flurry' of activity January 22-29, when it will host the 2011 ArchiCAD Winter School. It's a place to meet, greet, learn, work, talk, ski, snowboard, have fun... or to put it in another way: the best way to spend a week in 2011.

ArchiCAD Winter School is an event created by users for users. The event is organized by the ArchiCAD Users’ Association, which ensures that the entire event and the programs are very user-focused.

Abvent's very own Ildikó Szabó will be on hand Thursday, January 27, to present Artlantis to the participants.

It is truly an international event as all the lectures and workshops are held in English. The delegates are usually a mixture of ArchiCAD users from the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, China, Italy, Slovakia, Norway, USA, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden, Germany and, of course, Austria.

Click here for details!

Video: Intro to rendering in Artlantis

We're not going to mince words here. We love this tutorial. Our new friend, Evan (that's him on the left), has done a great job introducing Artlantis Render to anyone who's new to our all-time favorite architectural/design software or just needs a good refresher course.

Note to all Bonzai3d users: this one's for you!

We have a winner!

The second Artlantis Render Competition, organized by ArtlantisMembers.com and sponsored by Design8, has come to a close, and the winners have been announced. Our regular readers may recall that the theme of the competition was 'Water.' First place goes to Jaco Dippenaar for his design entitled 'Under the Bridge.' Jaco wins 'The Artlantis Attitude' by Dwight Atkinson and the full collection of Neri objects. Second place went to Simon Frederick, while third place was awarded to Fernando Daniel.

Click here to see the 2nd and 3rd place designs, and for more information about ArtlantisMembers.com.

Looking for new furniture?

Our regular readers will be pleased to learn about ArtlantisFurniture.com, a great source of high-quality furniture objects especially created for Artlantis Render users. Take advantage of the SALE! going on now: all individual objects are priced at 99 cents.

The site is also a great marketplace for Artlantis users to make money by selling their own Artlantis objects. Have you been building your own library of quality models? If so, artlantisfurniture.com can showcase them and generate revenue for you! Click here to find out how.

Enjoy!

Good news for Artlantis 3 / SketchUp 8 users!

The SketchUp 8 import plug-in has been completed and users can open the appropriate .skp format directly in Artlantis on both Mac and Win platforms.

The Artlantis 3.0.5fc1 Windows and Macintosh update patch contain this plug-in and are available for download here. Users who have installed the update patch already are kindly requested to download and install it again.

New shaders from ArtlantisObjects.com

ArtlantisObjects.com has announced the release of a new, high-quality shader collection. Cement Wall Finish Shaders are a unique series of shaders that allow unlimited and independent control of the structure of the surfaces you're rendering. These objects are available online here.