Migrating rendered files from pre-2010 versions of Renderworks

The integrated Cineware by Maxon rendering engine provides many benefits, such as increased rendering speed, high-quality rendering, additional export options, and a simplified interface. From Vectorworks 2010 through 2021, Vectorworks used Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine.

When opening files created using a pre-2010 version of Renderworks, when Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine was not yet used, please keep the following points in mind.

The rendered appearance and quality of converted files is kept as similar as possible. However, some shaders cannot be matched exactly and render differently.

The following shaders are not matched: Corrugated, Spanish, and Roman roof tiles.

The following artistic rendering options are no longer available: Contour, Mosaic, Stipple, Color Wash, and Ink Print styles.

Other artistic rendering styles do not render identically in previous version files; however, the number of artistic rendering options has increased.

Area lights now emit light in both surface directions, not just in the surface normal direction. Therefore, some masking geometry may be required behind the area light to obtain a similar rendered effect to previous versions.

Lighting and image brightness from previous versions can now be adjusted with the Emitter Brightness parameter in the lighting options (View > Set Lighting Options).

If you created custom plug-in objects in previous versions, the shader record numbers have changed.