Fast GPU Rendering?

[MGuilfoile]

I've been exporting FBX files out of VW2023 to be imported into FormZ. They export fairly well as long as I make the necessary changes to the texture maps. When I bring them into FormZ I need to adjust the mapping and lights. I then check how they render. FormZ is no longer the cutting-edge app it was in the 1990s, but it does implement Vray (or V-ray, or V Ray, whatever...). I was playing around with it and was impressed with the GPU rendering. I'm using FormZ on a Windows 10 machine with an i9 processor and 8GB video card. I rendered an 11"x17" image at 150dpi with the same number of lights as the VW file (since the lights came with it) in about 10 seconds...as in 1/6 of a minute. The quality was very close to what I get with the same model rendered in VW using Realistic Interior Final, but it took 45 seconds. That's 4.5x as long! This was a simple rendering, but scale that out for the renderings that take 15 minutes or longer and it begins to be a big advantage. I have read that VW is very GPU dependent now, but I'm not seeing this kind of rendering speed with nearly the same image quality. I'm not sure I'm comparing apples to apples here, but I'm curious if VW is working on improving its use of the GPU to create the time savings I'm seeing in the V-Ray rendering. It's definitely on my wish list!

Thanks,

MH Brown

[MGuilfoile]

OK, so I tried another rendering in FormZ imported as an FBX from VW2023 and it is taking forever to render. It seems to have stalled out on rendering pass 105532. So not I'm not sure what to think, although FormZ is not really supported anymore and perhaps its implementation of Vray was not great.

MHBrown

[BartHays]

I used to love FormZ it was a great hybrid modeler with really great technical support. 

it was sad to see the upgrade from 8 to 9 take YEARS.

 

it feels like abandon ware to me. 

look into enscape or Twinmotion

 

I hate to say it but it is time to move o from FormZ

 

Bart

[grant_PD]

VW has gpu rendering from redshift, although it is nowhere near as fast as redshift in other modelling programs.  Depending on your field (landscape, architecture, entertainment,....) you might find it better to head toward twinmotion, enscape, or a dedicated 3d modeller that has gpu rendering in the form of redshift or something like it.  

[MGuilfoile]

I only use FormZ to create models for my colleagues who use FormZ. I can work with it, but, as you say, it has pretty much been abandoned. There are no tutorials less than 12 years old and the user forum is a ghost town. I can't even get anyone to let me join, not that it would help if no one is there. Both of these constraints make it hard to learn the software. It does, however, make good use of Vray.

 

In my experience, Redshift in VW is not only slower than Renderworks, but the quality is awful...beyond awful. It has an even larger gap between what lighting looks like in shaded and a final rendering mode than Renderworks as well (and Shaded is practically useless in setting light levels in Renderworks). I've found the rendering quality in TwinMotion is poor for stills and only good for walk-throughs. I don't want a third-party anything because that just leads to problems ("almost-all-in-one" is the top feature of Vectorworks.) I don't want to create two sets of lights and texture maps, and apply them twice.

 

I suppose what I'd like to see is VW to embed more of the Cinema4D rendering tools since they are both owned by the same company. They may think that that would rob sales from one or the other product, but they have that exactly backwards. It would increase the sales of both.

MH Brown