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Best Imac pro setup?


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Ahm, no.

Strange ...

 

Reflection has Still also its own individual Sampling Settings too.

The Physical Renderer has its Global Sample Settings to clamp individual Materials.

 

So VW Blurriness should either influence both Transparency+Reflection or none ?

 

BTW

I haven't tested that in VW myself so far, I was just on the trip that all modern

Render Engines found options to control all Quality Settings globally over the years,

from one place, and that tedious individual tweaking is less and less needed

for simplicity.

Edited by zoomer
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I've found in early testing (I'm not done yet, ill pursue this after Summit) that the Blur setting does seem to affect render times, but that the AA setting almost always supplants any difference seen in the Blur quality, at least as far as Blue applied to a Glass shader goes, for both transparency and reflectivity. I'll test with the other blur capable shaders to see if its the same, if so we may have a UI change to make.

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well, still a bit on topic?! €6k for a pro or €2k for C4D? (corona currently free as its in beta)

 

I just imported the vectorworks file into C4D, this converts vectorworks materials to C4D materials.

Changed the sun light to a corona sun/sky, changed the wall material, one of the chrome materials and the stone counters (they were very shiny when imported into C4d) , all the other materials are unchanged from vectorworks. (took a couple of minutes to do)

Specified a 5min time limit in Corona and done...

 

I like using renderworks in OpenGL to see how materials and lighting works in the design process etc ... but it can't compete with the dedicated render engines out there for speed/quality,  I'd still like a iMac pro though myself!!!

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Everyone's tips have really helped, I've just rendered this with fairly high settings in about 40 mins, so a big improvement. I also realised I was rendering files that were sat on our server, so as soon as I brought them across to my local pc, its made a big improvement. Still a bit of experimenting to do but I'm getting there.

12924 - Fusion Beech Hill - Flat 1 - REV2 02.11.17.jpg

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Oh there's no question there. Dedicated renderers that Grant access to all of their underlying settings will now and likely continually be able to trounce Vectorworks on its own. The rendering team has indicated it wants to focus on making the routs to these programs smoother because of this.

 

We do a LOT of different and incredibly useful things in Vectorworks, but trying to go round for round with the dedicated rendering applications is not in our future most likely, we'll collaborate with them instead.

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I appreciate that Jim. And to be clear, I do a fair amount of design development and output with Renderworks, so I like using it and am glad that you are continuing to push it forward. 

 

But when we start getting into photo realism, or people talking about 40 hour renders when 6-12 minutes is easily obtainable, granted with considerable financial and time investment, I think the conversation changes. 

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Back to the original question what is the best Mac option for running VW 2019/renderworks. For me it’s the preview time that is the killer. The render-time can happen at night but the back and forth previews absolutly kill productivity and patience. I downloaded steve’s interior and my head was spinning after the first 20 min of waiting to see sometjhing. I need a new IMac Pro or MacBook Pro 2018 ASAP. I really like the quality that renderwork is capable of producing but I have never used them due to the time spent time waiting for a previews, let alone a full render.

 

On the issue of different imaging software. Investing in new software is fine but think of it as just another bill to pay to keep the process going. I have recomended and supported Vectorworks for my self and my clients because VW can do a lot of jobs well and it’s only one mouth to feed.

 

PS. Back in.the day when I started using Minicad I also used Strata Studiopro. It had a built in export out of MiniCad via text file export.It was terrific 10 years ago before renderworks ect and its still not that expensive.

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Mac Mini,

would need an eGPU, best i7, RAM add yourself, SSD size of choice.

 

iMac,

best i7, I would go with best GPU too, RAM add yourself, SSD size of choice.

Better wait for the Update - if there will be ....

 

iMac Pro,

10 core, 32-64 GB RAM, Vega 64, SSD size of choice, if affordable.

 

Macbook Pro,

max CPU should be faster for Previews, nearly no difference when longer rendering though,

32 GB RAM, better GPU or eGPU later, SSD size of choice.

Edited by zoomer
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1 hour ago, rjtiedeman said:

Back to the original question what is the best Mac option for running VW 2019/renderworks.

 

This article has some good info comparing the current top of the line iMac, MacBook Pro and the low end iMac Pro - https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/15/compared-2018-i9-macbook-pro-versus-imac-5k-performance . The iMac is the one to beat for price/performance.

 

Kevin

 

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After seeing all the comments about Corona, I downloaded a trial version of C4D and the Corona plugin, and I am really impressed with how easy and quick it is to render. I've only played around for a couple of hours, but managed to do these renders which only took 15 mins to complete.

interior.jpg

chair.jpg

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1 hour ago, chris said:

After seeing all the comments about Corona, I downloaded a trial version of C4D and the Corona plugin, and I am really impressed with how easy and quick it is to render. I've only played around for a couple of hours, but managed to do these renders which only took 15 mins to complete.

interior.jpg

chair.jpg

 It`s pretty amazing indeed, did some testing as well.

A shame you cant buy a license, but that they have a subscription model.

I read that in 2019 they are going to drop the beta version and change it to the subscription model.

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6 hours ago, chris said:

After seeing all the comments about Corona, I downloaded a trial version of C4D and the Corona plugin, and I am really impressed with how easy and quick it is to render. I've only played around for a couple of hours, but managed to do these renders which only took 15 mins to complete.

 

When you export your Vectorworks file to CD4 and Corona do your VW textures transfer. The chair fabric is really nice.

 

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I like it but. How is drawing in Vectorworks. Exporting to Cinema 4D and rendering in Corona --- interactive rendering. We can only hope that Vectorworks will hook up with Corona. The Corona web page is over the top. Images are better than real.

 

PS. Cost of Cinema 4D Studio R20 + Corona = Cost for a 18 core fully loaded iMac Pro.

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2 hours ago, rjtiedeman said:

I like it but. How is drawing in Vectorworks. Exporting to Cinema 4D and rendering in Corona --- interactive rendering. We can only hope that Vectorworks will hook up with Corona. The Corona web page is over the top. Images are better than real.

 

PS. Cost of Cinema 4D Studio R20 + Corona = Cost for a 18 core fully loaded iMac Pro.

I think he is just referring to the lighting, material and camera work part of the process.  You are getting near real time feedback when you are lighting or developing materials (size of scene pending).  Yes, the modeling process is a separate part of the workflow.  Once you light a scene interactively, it is really hard to go back.  You stated earlier in the thread that preview time is what kills you, not render time.  I get it - that is what made me move to this workflow - not final render times, but how quickly I can set it up to get to final render.

 

Yes - there is a significant cost there.  I run Cinema Broadcast which is about $2K less then Studio and while missing Hair, sculpting and Dynamics, it covers about 97% of what I need it to do.  I also look at it this way: How much cost is there for your time and how much time can you save per render, per project, per year?  If you are getting a render into your clients inbox in 1/4 of the time multiplied by x number of renders per year, then the overall cost isn't crazy.  I realize this isn't for everyone and I am running a visualization business, but in the bigger picture you are talking about more then just software or hardware cost.

Edited by EAlexander
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7 minutes ago, EAlexander said:

I think he is just referring to the lighting, material and camera work part of the process.  You are getting near real time feedback when you are lighting or developing materials (size of scene pending).  Yes, the modeling process is a separate part of the workflow.  Once you light a scene interactively, it is really hard to go back.  You stated earlier in the thread that preview time is what kills you, not render time.  I get it - that is what made me move to this workflow - not final render times, but how quickly I can set it up to get to final render.

 

Yes - there is a significant cost there.  I run Cinema Broadcast which is about $2K less then Studio and while missing Hair, sculpting and Dynamics, it covers about 97% of what I need it to do.  I also look at it this way: How much cost is there for your time and how much time can you save per render, per project, per year?  If you are getting a render into your clients inbox in 1/4 of the time multiplied by x number of renders per year, then the overall cost isn't crazy.  I realize this isn't for everyone and I am running a visualization business, but in the bigger picture you are talking about more then just software or hardware cost.

 

^ The preview time is what kills most of us working in entertainment. Even if its just waiting on rendered sheet layer viewports for drafting. Various iterations and checking things takes time. Its hard to bill for the waiting time especially if it becomes significant.

 

Kevin

 

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1 hour ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

^ The preview time is what kills most of us working in entertainment. Even if its just waiting on rendered sheet layer viewports for drafting. Various iterations and checking things takes time. Its hard to bill for the waiting time especially if it becomes significant.

 

Kevin

 

I agree completly it’s the previewing and adjusting that 1. kills budgets, 2. kills enthusiasm, 3. slows the creative process. Nothing kills a meeting like lets try this and ...........nothing happens and everyone has to take a call. That is not productive.

 

Can C4D replace Vectorworks? is ther a more direct render option than Corona that works directly with VW?

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