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Rendering Entertainment moving lights


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Hello all 

 

I am trying to do some renderings with Entertainment fixtures, moving lights. 

However I am struggling a bit on getting the right workflow. 

 

Is there a way to get different positions, zoom / fokus / color / gobos? 

I am looking into scenes, but they don't seem to change the positions of the fixtures. 

 

How do you work with moving lights, and renderings? 

All is very appreciated

 

Best from Mathias 

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12 hours ago, mhersland said:

Hello all 

 

I am trying to do some renderings with Entertainment fixtures, moving lights. 

However I am struggling a bit on getting the right workflow. 

 

Is there a way to get different positions, zoom / fokus / color / gobos? 

I am looking into scenes, but they don't seem to change the positions of the fixtures. 

 

How do you work with moving lights, and renderings? 

All is very appreciated

 

Best from Mathias 

@mhersland Pretty much think Nemetschek wants you to do this type of work in Vision…

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Vision is an ideal solution for this workflow and existing customers on VSS get free access to Vision via a 2 universe version.

You can focus add colours and gobos and control intensity in Vectorworks but not switch been multiple 'looks'. You are creating a single 'look'.

 

We have an existing feature request regarding the ability to play back 'looks' within Vectorworks.

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Hi Tom and Jesse

 

Thanks a lot for your reply.
I am a frequent user of Vision, and enjoy doing previs. with it. As well a am a Grand MA user, and bought the viz-key from MA, to be abto to pre-vis when not at my console. 

However I am not super impressed by the rendering quality, compared to what Renderworks can do. 

I miss being able to export more photorealistic renders, including the calculation of bounces, and reflections. 

 

If it is my lack of knowledge please let me know. 

However I tend to see people post renders like the ones attached. I struggle a bit on getting the same amount of detail with Vision. 

I mostly do theater work, and enjoy checking my angles and sketching directly in vectorworks. 

 

Best from Mathias 


 

IMG_7311.PNG.e45ba7dde50e5575ae4cd4744f4f35bb.PNG

1036557550_CernerCHC2018-ColorPOVComped.png.64a2f9349c2f2946f4e5c94020b6c59b.png

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Renderworks uses a complex rendering technology that does allow for things like light bounce. This is also why it can take anywhere from 10 seconds to 5+ minutes to render a single image. This style of rendering isn't very well suited for the kind of "real time" rendering that previz solutions provide, such as Vision, which often needs to be rendering 30 times per second.

 

That being said, there may be some things you are not aware of.

 

For starters, if your machine is beefy enough, go into the Vision Preferences (not Document Preferences) and drag the Performance/Quality slider all the way up to Quality. You can't get things like light bounce with Vision by doing this, but it will give you better looking haze, gobos, and shadows. This level on the quality slider also enables all texturing capabilities; reflectivity/specular images, bump images, and normal images. Which leads me to my next point.

 

Check out the HQ Textures guide we posted for going from VW to Vision. It has some really useful tips for getting the most out of Vision from a quality and performance standpoint.

 

Again, you can't get things like light bounce with Vision. If you are looking for this level of quality you might be better suited to leverage VW to the best of its ability. However, with good textures and the right settings, you can get some pretty impressive renderings in Vision even without the light bounce.

 

Here are some random stills I had lying around that were rendered by Vision that showcase some of the higher quality textures and render settings. I hope this helps!

 

Screen Shot 2020-06-18 at 9.49.29 AM.pngrender.jpgScreen Shot 2022-09-07 at 9.13.25 AM.pngScreen Shot 2022-09-07 at 9.15.06 AM.pngScreen Shot 2022-09-07 at 9.13.08 AM.pngScreen Shot 2022-09-07 at 9.13.49 AM.png

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On 9/5/2022 at 3:37 AM, mhersland said:

Hi Tom and Jesse

 

Thanks a lot for your reply.
I am a frequent user of Vision, and enjoy doing previs. with it. As well a am a Grand MA user, and bought the viz-key from MA, to be abto to pre-vis when not at my console. 

However I am not super impressed by the rendering quality, compared to what Renderworks can do. 

I miss being able to export more photorealistic renders, including the calculation of bounces, and reflections. 

 

If it is my lack of knowledge please let me know. 

However I tend to see people post renders like the ones attached. I struggle a bit on getting the same amount of detail with Vision. 

I mostly do theater work, and enjoy checking my angles and sketching directly in vectorworks. 

 

Best from Mathias 


 

IMG_7311.PNG.e45ba7dde50e5575ae4cd4744f4f35bb.PNG

1036557550_CernerCHC2018-ColorPOVComped.png.64a2f9349c2f2946f4e5c94020b6c59b.png

 

Hi!   I actually did the bottom (CHC 2018) render several years ago.    I draw/model most everything in Vectorworks (though I do replace chairs/people with high poly assets in Cinema) and then render/texture/light it all in Cinema 4D,   that image was rendered using the Corona Render Engine.   I've since switched (mostly) to using Redshift because it's super fast, particularly with volumetrics, also in Cinema 4D.   Previously I was comping a standard volumetrics pass over the base render in photoshop.     

 

There is just way more control available in Cinema and it was nice not having Vectorworks tied up rendering for hours when I could've been working on another project. I know Vectorworks Cloud Rendering is a thing, but I always had really hit and miss luck with it, which isn't a fun game on deadlines.  Though I have found it become more consistent for me recently with cloud publishing. 

 

Quite honestly I could never get anything I was particularly proud of out of Vectorworks alone,  believe me,  I tried.   That's not to say it can't be done,  but to quote Evan Alexander it was a lot of "Render, Render, Suck.   Render, Render, Render,  Still sucks".  repeat ad nauseam.     Once you use something with an IPR (Interactive Preview Renderer) you'll never go back.   To be fair,   once I switched to this workflow I haven't attempted to use Vectorworks to render since.   I know there have been improvements/changes and Redshift is in some capacity available in Vectorworks today,  but I haven't messed with it.  

 

Also, to be clear I'm not trying to illustrate exact 1:1 lighting looks for clients either,   I'm just giving a visual representation of the intent of the design.    It's been a while,  but I think the above render took about 40 minutes to cook vs like 5 minutes for the below (which is also twice the resolution of the above,  and full disclosure I have 4 GPUs so that helps).  Screens blurred for client confidentiality,  but other than that no post processing was done.

 

Untitled-3.thumb.png.0213ced7631fb494a841c1aa4ef4fce4.png

 

I think ultimately you have to choose what is most important to you,   render quality,  convenience,  speed,   flexibility,  cost, etc.    Would it be easier to keep it all in one piece of software?  You bet!   But I don't think I could achieve the quality I'm after doing that. 

 

Asking questions is how I started too.   @EAlexander helped me very much on my journey,   dude's a rendering wizard,  wealth of knowledge,  and just excellent human being.  I wish you the best of luck! 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Wesley Burrows
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@Wesley Burrows Thank you for the kind words!  So great to see your work grow and expand over the years.

 

I agree with so much of what you say above.  Cinema4D or Blender or XXX 3d software has always been a better solution for lighting for me and my work.  There are a lot of options of software and a lot of rendering engines, so you have to try them out and see which on fits and feels right.  It takes time and dedication.  I have a video on volumetric light in Redshift on my YouTube channel that will show you the basic workflow, but as Wes points out, you'll need the correct GPU setup to really take advantage.  I've found Cinema and Redshift to be the fastest and easiest solution for entertainment lighting.  And yes - do ask questions!  Many here to help you on the journey.

 

e.

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Hi all

 

Thanks a lot for all your great and inspiring reply!

 

Thanks @bbudzon for another great explanation on how to manage in Vision. 

It seems that I need to pay more attention to materials. 

I would believe my systems are beefy enough to run in high quality, depending on the amount of fixtures. 

 

However I work mostly in stage lighting / theater, but now as well do some museum / installation lighting and trying to find a workflow to fit both needs. Maybe it is impossible. 


 

Great point @Wesley Burrows am very happy about your inputs. 

I have the same experience when rendering in Vectorworks, but as you describe it might very well be my lack of knowledge.

 

@EAlexander i have been following your work for some time now! Your work is super inspiring! 

I have been looking into leaning Cinema 4D. The last couple of weeks I tried a bit in Blender. But the workflow between Vectorworks and blender don't seem as semles as between Wectorworks and cinema 4D. 

Do you have any experience in that? 


 

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Thanks for the kind words!

 

I don't have a ton of hands on experience with Blender, but I know that it is more then capable.  My suggestion would be to model in VW but to do all your materials, lighting and camera work inside of Blender - so you are only exporting geometry.  .OBJ or .FBX should be the best, but you should test them a bit and see what carries over well.  There will be triangulation on the geometry, but that is okay and happens with Cinema 4d too.  You can ignore some of it and clean some of it up, depending on what you are doing.  Eevee looks promising for volumetric lighting, so I'd be curious to see what can be done with that for entertainment purposes.  I haven't worked with Cycles yet myself.  Let us know how that goes and feel free to ask questions!

Edited by EAlexander
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