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Vectorworks rendering sadly lacking


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Re my previous post about 'how good is Vectorworks' I have never been happy about the rendering quality, however I've just come across a posting in Architosh forums which mentions Vectorworks Interiorcad which I've never heard of before. The images on the website look brilliant, the down side is that the software is around ?2000 in addition to Vectorworks!! It stinks doesn't it as Vectorworks rendering should be that good as well. The technology is obviously there but NNA seem to have found yet another way to split off a prime function and then ask us to pod out for it at a huge price- see http://www.interiorcad.com/gallery.php

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Interiorcad is built on top of VW. It is not produced by Nemetschek.

I don't know how they did the renderings on the website, but if they were done in Renderworks you can achieve the same quality without Interiorcad.

Interiorcad is designed for kitchen/bath design especially cabinets. Depending on what version you get, it will give you a complete cut list (and maybe export to a CNC cutter) of all the parts you need to build the cabinets.

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I had a look at the various galleries and whilst a lot of it is so-so, there are some very good visuals visuals there. It's a shame that there isn't anything to say which VW release they were created in though. Re modelling the green fighter aircraft and watch by Daniel Smith are impressive. There are some visuals with good lighting, again it would be good to know if this is all VW or whether add on progs have been used.Andrew Norris has some nice interiors on his website.

Seems like I need to try more for myself.

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  • 1 month later...

I have to be honest I just haven't been able to find free time yet to get to grips with Vectorworks 2008 modelling and rendering, but just came across this company in Swansea who turn out amazing visuals and fly-throughs. Please would someone check out their gallery and say if you think this quality of imaging is possible with VW2009. www.3darchitecturalrenderings.co.uk

thanks!

AJ

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if you really want a better quality renderer then go with something like C4D or Vray, they have far better render engines. VW rendering is useful for basic rendering, but for high quality photo realism, then you will need to export your model to something else to render in, its a shame, but its true, just the way it is.

Im sure if you really tried hard, you could produce something in VW that looks great, but i think it would be really really time consuming, especially getting to grips with all the render options.

im still on 2008, so things may have changed for the better in 2010, but i doubt it that much.

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AJ, I don't think that it's possible to get that level of photorealism out of RW. As monkey said, you'd need a dedicated modeler/renderer for that.

However, I use RW all the time as a design and communication tool. I find that I can get some really beautiful renders out of RW that allow me to convey my ideas to my clients much more clearly than I can with plain 2d or 3d sketch drawings. The integration of RW into VW also means that I can iterate a design without having to export/import in/out of external rendering software.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see better rendering capabilities in RW and I'd like faster performance (it seems like RW is at least a couple of generations behind other rendering software.) I just think that RW is a competent renderer that I have found to be quite useful.

If/when I need to improve my rendering capabilities, I'll probably go to C4D because there is a plug-in for it.

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I'm on V2010 (Designer) and find Renderworks delivers quality results for my needs. Rendering should be calibrated to your end goals. If you want the best, pay up for C4D or any of several other rendering specialist programs. If you produce working drawings which do not have a secondary budget to justify the (very) extra time to develop a model to be fully detailed, textured and lighted, then Renderworks should be your first stop. With HDRI being more accessible in V2010 we should see many more people developing their models using this important tool.

Regarding reviewing models on the NNA website, NNA is not supporting the import of new models and I don't believe there is any content therein created using V2010. To see V2010 creations you'll need to find sources off-site.

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thanks for your responses, I used to use VW11 to render exhibition stands and with a lot of fiddling around you could get half decent results, I suspected that things hadn't move on since then and it's a real shame to find that they haven't to any great degree.

These days clients expect far more and I just don't understand why NNA haven't realised this and developed the modeling and rendering capabilities to compete in the market place.

As most of my work is 2D based I simply don't think purchasing VW 2010 makes business sense if it's limited in this way so I will probably investigate an alternative stand alone 3D modeling programme such as Rhino for my 3d work.

Having said that does anyone know of a really good user training manual for VW modeling and rendering so I can give it a last shot?!

AJ

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So, AJ, you've never used Vwks for 3D modeling let alone rendering, are using a product 5 revisions back but now you are concerned since "Vectorworks rendering sadly lacking" as your your thread title has announced. I think your reasoning is sadly lacking.

Edited by tguy
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AJ16 for modelling you could try these:

For rendering you could try these:

Note: To see examples from the Vectorworks 3DCG Visualization Book have a look at Eiji Shibata's Teko Design website: http://www.tekodesign.com/pg376.html )

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  • 3 months later...

I've found RW to be adequate, except for a few renderings which I touched up in Photoshop. My main disgruntlement is the time it takes RW to achieve the result, not the result I get. (I can't drop 5G's on a render farm, tho.

It really does depend on what you want for your end output. I do renderings to give the craftsmen in my shop an idea of what the final outcome of the project is, more than just 2D build drawings.

I also do the occaisonal rendering of a project for a client, which go into far more detail, but RW does just fine.

I'm not making movie quality renderings, but I don't need to.

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