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Twinmotion Plugin + Sync


Tom Klaber

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If C4D Renderer is good (?)

VW RW can't be that bad.

 

For me,

since VW (because of the Exchange to C4D) mostly switched to rendering in C4D,

(ignoring VRAY4C4D for my special purposes)

it was always great to be able to produce familiar similar looking Screenshots

and more often Elevation Viewports, while in design phase before the next deadline

for C4D renders.

 

But don't want hold anyone from developing  a direct Lumion Exchange,

or for any other Renderer, of course.

(FBX to Modo works OK, but real Exchange would be better 🙂 )

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On 9/30/2019 at 2:37 PM, chaz said:

Just came across this on architosh.com:

 

"Our LiveSync technology enables our support now of Lumion, and we are working on support for Twinmotion and Enscape as well." - Dr. Biplab Sarkar, CEO

 

Thanks for the link - that was a surprisingly informative read!

 

Based on the quote pasted below, there will continue to be parallel development for:

  1. Syncing with Cinema, Twinmotion, etc. aka the "VGS"
  2. Cinema and Redshift ports baked into VW

Likewise, the new VW fly-through animation feature is a massive improvement over the previous (virtually unusable) implementation but can't possibly compare to Twinmotion, and it's library of entourage, path-based vehicles, seasons (falling leaves, snow and rain), fish swimming in ponds... 

 

Quote

 

Are all the rendering models available? And how far will you take this animation system? Will you support pushing the scenes to third-party systems like Cinema 4D?

 

All rendering modes are supported. And you can create 360 panoramic rendered animations with one click. We will not do the object-based animation anytime soon because we are focusing on creating the plugins for all the real-time and interactive renders. Our LiveSync technology enables our support now of Lumion, and we are working on support for Twinmotion and Enscape as well.

 

The new animation overhaul is huge for users because it will empower them to build path-based animations quickly and easily and then save those animations as editable objects for further use downstream in the design-document process.

 

What you are asking about is setting up animation scenes in Vectorworks with the new tools and pushing those to other tools for more advanced work. We have created a system based on our VGM technology which we are calling the Vectorworks Graphics Sync or VGS. We are aiming to do that for you in a very efficient way. Additionally, Maxon’s Cinema 4D, our sister company product, has acquired the real-time engine called Redshift. I don’t know when it will be available for us to integrate but it will be something we will try to do as soon as we can.

 


So it seems like the intention is to provide VW users who don't want to pay for external render software with basic functionality (and the promise hope for realtime rendering with Redshift). Meanwhile, users who want to dive down the realtime rendering rabbit hole will have the option of paying for external render apps that sync with VW. Seems like everybody wins but I really hope syncing to external editors that already exist are a priority to porting watered-down versions someday.

 

The distinction I'm seeing in the entertainment industry is:

  • Sheet layers for drawing sets will always exist for plots, plans, perspectives, and paperwork
  • Sheet layers for presentation is going the way of print media
    • Realtime screenshots of Unreal/Twinmotion/Lumion have already been taking the place of Cinema renders for the past few years

Therefore, looking ahead and skating to where the puck will be, the old way of thinking "we need photorealistic visualization baked into VW so it can live on a sheet layer" is not something we really need anymore. Bids are awarded with realtime renders/animations more and more. The process begins with Cinema/Unreal/Twinmotion/Lumion to present the concepts (choose one), and ends with VW (modeling on the design layers, followed by plating on the sheet layers).

 

So I hope that old thought of "we need photorealistic visualization baked into VW so it can live on a sheet layer" isn't still driving VW development of how we'll present to artists and clients in the future.

 

Plus keeping renders out of the VW drawing keeps the file size down. 😎😎😎

 

In the meantime, please continue prioritizing development of a faster, multicore, (insert the usual gripes)... parametric BIM kickass plug-in 3D modeling and 2D plating app that syncs with the best-in-class realtime render apps (and leave the heavy duty render development to the best-in-class realtime render apps).

 

Speaking of kickass plugins, what's up with ConnectCAD? Bueller? ... Bueller? ... Bueller?

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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@Mark Aceto Great points Mark. For me the benefit of realtime rendering is about creativity, atmosphere, movement and animation rather than photorealistic still images. Renderworks is great as an inbuilt renderer for creating sheets directly with Vectorworks and can achieve some amazing results with the right techniques, but it may never allow you to create a night scene with snowflakes drifting down from the dark skies above, an animated sunrise on a misty morning, or shoal of fish swimming in a pond with the stare gently ripping in the breeze. It's a bit like the difference between a text book or manual and a piece of poetry or a short story! (See what I did there in italics)

 

We need both but no one program can do everything perfectly and its better to focus on core strengths of each, and make the interaction as smooth as possible. What does anyone else think?

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@Mark Aceto, sounds like we're in similar industries. I'm a production designer for a company that does corporate events. Personally, I work more on the trade show aspect of these; we have other designers who work on stage productions. As such, I won't make much use of rain, snow, setting suns, moving cars, etc; though sometimes I do a little outdoor work. Decent people in renderings is very welcome, though.

 

Thinking about it, I agree that using an external renderer for presentations is fine. I use OpenGL and Custom Renderworks a lot that live on sheet layers but very often my high end renderings are used in live presentations where sheet border and title blocks aren't desired and get cropped out if I include them.

 

Thanks for the help and tips all.

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Whoa - hang on. No one suggested removing RW altogether.

 

My points are simply:

  1. A realtime screenshot of Unreal / Twinmotion / Lumion looks just as good as something that takes an hour in RW
  2. Prioritize syncing with external apps

As of 2017, realtime rendered still images are a must-have (real-time animations are a nice-to have).

 

By “photo realistic”,  I meant GPU -biased.

 

I stopped rendering anything other than OpenGL and hidden line in VW years ago because it’s a waste of time.

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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Mark, you and I are on the same page, didn't mean to freak anyone out about removing RW

 

I was just thinking that from a development point of view, you have to have a Not Great RW package to do all of the 3rd party syncing we use and enjoy.  Otherwise the textures need to be mapped externally, geometry needs to be optimized externally etc.  So by necessity we can do renderings in VW, even if they are not worth the time/effort.  

 

The Lumion sync is the best sync of all of the 3rd party products I have seen so far.  C4D is good and while I haven't implemented Redshift yet (C4D's gpu renderer) I'm guessing it's going to be pretty good and getting better.  

 

I build scenery for dark rooms with lots and lots of lights, internally lit scenery, I love the environmental add ons of twinmotion/lumion but I would rarely use them, and shudder at the thought of having to re-light every time I update a file.  

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2 hours ago, chaz said:

@Mark Aceto, sounds like we're in similar industries. I'm a production designer for a company that does corporate events. Personally, I work more on the trade show aspect of these; we have other designers who work on stage productions. As such, I won't make much use of rain, snow, setting suns, moving cars, etc; though sometimes I do a little outdoor work. Decent people in renderings is very welcome, though.

 

Thinking about it, I agree that using an external renderer for presentations is fine. I use OpenGL and Custom Renderworks a lot that live on sheet layers but very often my high end renderings are used in live presentations where sheet border and title blocks aren't desired and get cropped out if I include them.

 

Thanks for the help and tips all.

 

Yep, I work on a mix of everything from concert/tour design to events/festivals, so the outdoor entourage is only applicable to half the projects. I have yet to have a need for swimming fishes or falling snow (and massively regret adding that to the conversation lol).

 

Working with everyone from production and scenic designers in Rhino/Cinema to lighting designers and video engineers in VW, production riggers in VW/Braceworks, production electricians in VW/Lightwright, venues and vendors in AutoCAD... I spend most of my time pulling all of that together into VW. As of 2020, I'm finally able to pull a GIS basemap into the drawing for the project I just started this week which is beyond epic.

 

There's literally no competition to VW for that work. By "literally" I mean no other 3D app out there can do all that, and that's why I'm a huge VW nerd, and a constructive critic. I have a lot of skin in this game.

 

That said, I've seen important pivots in the past few years:

  • The end of Moore's Law
    • GPU performance has picked up where CPU performance plateaued
    • Multiple slow cores is the CPU trade-off from hardware manufacturers
    • VW is still choking on single-core performance
    • OpenGL is about to be sunset, and Metal is in the VHS or Beta lead but... 
  • GPU-biased realtime rendering
    • Render farm stills lost the render war
  • Smaller design teams/studios are breaking out rendering from technical drawing

So as much as I love the utopian idea of Cinema/Redshift baked into VW:

  • The reality of that watered-down port teased in VW 2022 will probably be outdated by 2022 when Apple releases ARM CPU's on MacPad Pro's, or MS Surface Pro Morpheus folding 27" hybrid, or whatever flying cars and hover boards we're using by then
  • Cinema/Redshift exist today, and VW syncs with them 
    • Same with Lumion
    • Excited about Twinmotion
  • I cannot overemphasize the paradigm of keeping the file size down when collaborating with other teams (whether Project Sharing or not)
    • Most collaborators are working on laptops, so I cannot sandbag them with a 300MB file cluttered with entourage and textures

The old paradigm of the all-in-one is splitting in two:

  1. 3D model and plates in VW
  2. Renders and animations synced to external GPU-biased app

Therefore, please PRIORITIZE VW development according to those shifts in the software and hardware industries instead of putting resources on releasing the killer feature of 2017... 2 years from now.

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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1 hour ago, grant_PD said:

Mark, you and I are on the same page, didn't mean to freak anyone out about removing RW

 

I was just thinking that from a development point of view, you have to have a Not Great RW package to do all of the 3rd party syncing we use and enjoy.  Otherwise the textures need to be mapped externally, geometry needs to be optimized externally etc.  So by necessity we can do renderings in VW, even if they are not worth the time/effort.  

 

The Lumion sync is the best sync of all of the 3rd party products I have seen so far.  C4D is good and while I haven't implemented Redshift yet (C4D's gpu renderer) I'm guessing it's going to be pretty good and getting better.  

 

I build scenery for dark rooms with lots and lots of lights, internally lit scenery, I love the environmental add ons of twinmotion/lumion but I would rarely use them, and shudder at the thought of having to re-light every time I update a file.  

 

Hahaha cool totally on the same page 👍🏼

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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I just came across this article from June 8, 2019, shortly after the Unreal's acquisition from the Budapest Business Journal.

"Hungarian software developer Graphisoft SE is collaborating with Epic Games, the company that launched the world’s most popular video game design program, Unreal Engine, and Twinmotion, a real-time architectural planning software. As a result of the cooperative effort, the new version of Twinmotion, which is expected to be released towards the end of this year, will be available for ArchiCAD 23 users for free." https://bbj.hu/business/graphisoft-collaborates-with-us-software-designer_168160

Is there going to be any such love for Vectorworks?   Hopefully, a least a sync feature will be coming soon.

 

Edited by Brian H
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@JRA-Vectorworks-CAD Hi Jonathan, our PC's run VW ok most of the time, get the occasional hang or rare crash, our models aren't huge, interior/furniture etc, never more than 100mb, most I would guess are half that. Hidden Dashed Line can take a few minutes (this so needs improving), we do some basic OpenGL perspective views in viewports on our sheet pages which are fine. As for Twinmotion that runs good on our machines, fast jpeg output, and impressive short animation speeds. We just find the workflow between VW and Twinmotion to be a bit clunky, hopefully they will link much better soon 👍

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@JRA-Vectorworks-CAD the new AMD Ryzen 3950x 16 core cpu dropping in November looks to be a beast of a cpu - faster and cheaper than anything Intel can stump up. Pair that with a rtx2080 or rtx280ti it should chomp through anything thrown at it. I’ve currently got a 12 core AMD threadripper and a gtx1080ti and it blasts through VW renders and Twinmotion considerably faster than my 2019 MBP with an egpu.

Edited by Aspect_Design
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