Best bang for the buck renderer...

[dtheory]

Pardon me if this has been covered.. seems like the subject is in flux.

Anyone want to chime in with recommendations for a supplemental renderer for VW Designer.. anything from free on upward..

I'm a solo operation, so probably biased toward low cost and speedy renders.. (pick two.. cheap good or fast!).

 

Thanks all..

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

This subject is always in flux as you say.  "Low cost and Speedy".....hmmm.  Not normally two things that are used in the same sentence, especially if "free" is another attribute.  You may have to manage your expectations.

 

Everyone has a favourite, but mine is CINEMA 4D native renderer.  Mostly because I animate.  Global illumination (GI) has become popular in recent years, but it is still computationally expensive.  C4D's Ambient Occlusion settings can come very close to GI at far greater speed.   Downside, it is expensive. 

For Architecture only, I think I would just stick with Vectorworks, but for light shows, etc, you need a C4D, Maya, etc. to compete.

[BartHays]

Twinmotion and Enscape seem to top the in the forums. I've only used Twinmotion - which offers a lot of bang for the buck. 

Although, I get 99% of what I need from Vectorworks.

 

Bart

[bcd]

I know you're on Mac, but for others on Windows, I lean towards Lumion, best bang, results, content & speed for the buck.

 

[Tom W.]

23 minutes ago, BartHays said:

I get 99% of what I need from Vectorworks.

 

That's interesting. Is that because you're mainly doing Hidden Line, Shaded, etc VPs + only occasionally need to do photorealistic renders? Or are you doing photorealistic renders in VW as well + are quite happy doing so + it's only certain occasional renders you chose to take outside?

[grant_PD]

@dtheory looking through your website you'll probably be happiest heading into twinmotion/lumion/enscape.  They are all fast gpu style renderers and pretty easy to get used to.  I would think the complexity of C4D or some other 3d modelling program+renderer will be too overwhelming for what you produce.  

[dtheory]

27 minutes ago, grant_PD said:

@dtheory looking through your website you'll probably be happiest heading into twinmotion/lumion/enscape.  They are all fast gpu style renderers and pretty easy to get used to.  I would think the complexity of C4D or some other 3d modeling program+renderer will be too overwhelming for what you produce.  

Thanks for the feedback, I was a user of C4D in the past, and yes, it's really not justifiable for what I'm doing now. I'm currently exploring TwinMotion.

[BartHays]

@Tom W. Yes, 99% of what we need is accomplished with Shaded view and hidden line VPs

Photorealistic renders are used to to "sell" an idea, but ultimately we need to communicate what it is and how to build it.

See below, Renderworks does this just fine with Post work in Photoshop. 

 

[Ross Harris]

I'm torn between Twinmotion and Enscape.

 

Twinmotion:

For exteriors, I love TM.. the assets and grass look amazing, not to mention the lighting with Lumen and Pathtracer. Direct link is good... but going back to do revisions after more modelling can be painful as you end up with duplicate geometry, so there is a bit of housekeeping to do. The bach with the Alfa and the TM house is with Pathtracer on and  skydome - when those features came out it was game changing in terms of lighting. TM has more of a 'vibe' for me personally. At this point you need a PC to get the best out of TM - I have a beast PC mainly for TM; being on a mac you won't get the best out of it as there is heap of work to get lighting and shadows right - I read somewhere that the M3's now have raytracing support... so maybe these will be on par with a PC. Not sure if Lumen works on mac's, but Pathtracer doesn't.

 

Enscape: Absolutely instant bang for buck on interiors. The thing I really like about it is the assets are in the VW file - so whenever you load it - boom - all your assets are there to do a boss render; the VW file is essentially the source of truth. Exteriors don't quite do it for me... there's more work to get a good grass texture and the trees don't look quite as realistic as TM; but I use it more often as I can bang out a render super quick that looks good enough for the client to visualise it, or doing a walkthrough is dead easy and looks great. Given the price rises for a seat, it's not so much the best bang for the dollar anymore, but the mac version has just been released - its not as feature complete as the PC version yet tho. 

 

 

Lumion: I've really tried to like it and get my head into it, but it just doesn't click for me.. It was way more work to get something I was happy with (my opinion only - there are some amazing renders using Lumion) - I'm addicted to my spacemouse, and as it has no support for these, it's practically a non starter for me. Nav with WASD keys does my head in.. Plus its expensive.. and its PC only.

 

TM

 

Enscape

 

TM

 

TM

 

Enscape

 

Lumion

Edited November 14, 2023 by Ross Harris

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@Ross Harris  @BartHays  Very nice and intricate work.  

As I animate, I seldom. if ever render to the photorealistic level.  But, Jonathan Reeves (Britain) took my work in C4D and put it through Twinmotion.  The renders are amazing. See below. I am long retired, but If I was younger, I would be al over this.

 

C4D. 

 

 

Twinmotion

 

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Although you have all seen this car, I have always posted it from C4D rendering.  When I modelled this in 2015, I rendered this version and screen recorded the B key showing the underlying geometry.  

But for its intended purpose,  the rendering is very good even for today.  It seems with VW's the tools are there, just unclear how to make them all work together.

 

 

 

[line-weight]

21 hours ago, Ross Harris said:

 

 

Twinmotion:

For exteriors, I love TM.. the assets and grass look amazing, not to mention the lighting with Lumen and Pathtracer. Direct link is good... but going back to do revisions after more modelling can be painful as you end up with duplicate geometry, so there is a bit of housekeeping to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enscape: Absolutely instant bang for buck on interiors. The thing I really like about it is the assets are in the VW file - so whenever you load it - boom - all your assets are there to do a boss render; the VW file is essentially the source of truth.

 

 

 

Interested to see these comments. My understanding of TM, is that the direct link is supposed to mean that you don't get duplicate geometry, and the VW file can remain the "source of truth" if you set it up right. But my experience, experimenting just a bit with TM was that in practice this doesn't all work very smoothly.

 

Does Enscape work in a different way, that is, in how it pulls in geometry from the VW model?

 

Do you / can you tie Enscape textures to VW ones?

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, line-weight said:

Does Enscape work in a different way, that is, in how it pulls in geometry from the VW model?

 

I think yes.

 

TM is a standalone App.

You export a Datasmith from VW and will "overwrite" it for the next exchange.

TM also reads the Datasmith to load it into TM data structure.

I think the magic or fails of an exchange happens when you synchronize the

Datasmith inside TM again (?)

AFAIK a Datasmith contains separate files of each single object or texture.

No clue where it is exactly saved, when there come in  new objects in Datasmith

or ones that got deleted or edited.

 

Enscape is no standalone App.

It is only a Plugin that works inside or on top of an App like VW.

AFAIK, when adding Enscape Objects, you will add them into VW.

As dummy representation for CAD performance needs but final appearance

only in Enscape Window.

 

[line-weight]

34 minutes ago, zoomer said:

Enscape is no standalone App.

It is only a Plugin that works inside or on top of an App like VW.

 

I see. had not appreciated that. Thanks.

[Ross Harris]

Enscape is 100 'in' VW. It doesn't manage its own geometry or textures - it just renders what's in your VW model - it's basically a floating window (dual monitors are a must). In recent versions you can manipulate assets in the Enscape window, but any change you make there happens in VW as well. You have the choice of placing assets from the Enscape library into VW or if through Enscape window, the asset will appear in VW as well as a low poly proxy.

Same with textures - if you download an Enscape texture via the texture library it appears in the resource manager to apply to the object; editing a texture also edits it at the RM level. Some of the best grass I got in Enscape was using the VW grass shader.

[line-weight]

That sounds much tidier than the Datasmith export system to me ... if it works.

[Ross Harris]

11 minutes ago, line-weight said:

That sounds much tidier than the Datasmith export system to me ... if it works.

Oh it is... it's a brilliant workflow. It's just not quite there for me compared to the output I get in TM.. If you need to do renders on the fly I can't rate it highly enough; I usually wait until I get to a point in the project where its 'set' to render in TM, and any changes afterwards that will affect the render, I'll budget an hour or two to do a new TM render. That shed render above was literally 5 mins of work.. and that was just to drop trees, cars and landscaping assets plus adjusting the specular setting on the glass; so for clients who don't expect that sort of work for small  jobs like that, it's a bonus and blows their socks off for virtually no work. To do that in TM is probably 30 mins or so swapping textures, painting grass and finding/placing assets.

Gotta say, I love the depth the built in Enscape sky projects. Just adding some Cirrus makes it feel huge.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Ross Harris

[zoomer]

9 minutes ago, line-weight said:

.. if it works.

 

I think it is meant to work.

If something does not work, I am sure they will fix it.

[line-weight]

So if your enscape subscription lapses, and you have a VW file with various enscape assets dropped into it, what happens, do those objects disappear or is it just that you can't perform a render operation?

[Ross Harris]

Funny you should mention that... mine has lapsed and in the VW screengrab above is exactly what you are left with - all the resources (low poly proxy's, textures) that were inserted into the VW file. Once you renew it'll render as normal.

[GregG]

 

In support of Ross Harris' point regarding Enscape in Vectorworks. A small project done two years ago.  Used Enscape in Vectorworks 2022.

Any of these images took seconds to generate.  A couple were screen grabs from a high quality setting in the Enscape preview window.

 

Kind regards to all in this tread.

 

GG

[line-weight]

This thread (note most recent addition to it) illustrates why reliance on an exporting-the-model workflow makes me nervous.