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Swift Action Needed: Rendering integration so VW companies can stay Competitive


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I would think that for most users who do not already port via c4d for their renders, they will use the in house mapping VW supplies, just like they have always done.  VW somehow exports the UV tag for all of its objects, since they show up in Cinema that way.  And unless I'm mistaken, you can tweak the textures  in Unreal, using the material editor's nodes.  

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Just now, grant_PD said:

I would think that for most users who do not already port via c4d for their renders, they will use the in house mapping VW supplies, just like they have always done.  VW somehow exports the UV tag for all of its objects, since they show up in Cinema that way.  And unless I'm mistaken, you can tweak the textures  in Unreal, using the material editor's nodes.  

 

Materials are editable, yes (I love the node editor), but the UV maps are not, unfortunately.

 

Yes, some sort of UV-mapping is indeed exported from Vectorworks, but there is zero control over it. Some objects work fine, but many others don't, and there's nothing you can do about it in Unreal. Even if the texture looks correct, that UV mapping might not work properly for the lightmaps (which are an additional, separate channel of UVs that need to be configured in a certain way).

 

Unreal can Auto-Generate lightmap UVs when importing the FBX, but I've not found it to be fully reliable. So to be successful, you need the ability to control UVs outside of Unreal. I just hope we're not expected to go VW > C4D > Unreal.

 

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I would think that is exactly what you are going to be expected to do.  Or go the "lite" version and just work through twinmotion or lumion.  Both of which are pretty lite in their control but can catapult your rendering output/quality if all you ever did was true renderworks.  

 

I think the possibilities of Unreal are inspiring, but I'm not sure if it warrants VW doing a whole rework of their mapping process just for those that want to build in it.  I'm still waiting for them to get the light to fall off correctly 🙂

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@Andy Broomell - here’s a LINK to an old wishlist thread requesting improved texture mapping functionality: I’ll be happily surprised if / when Vw addresses this problem, as that wishlist thread is almost 5 years old (as of today).

 

In that thread, @PVA - Jim posted THAT: “I think we need to replace the current one completely, it's so far from being able to do the detail needed for advanced product modeling and interior design that I'm firmly in the Start Over camp.”

Edited by rDesign
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6 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

 

So I have a relatively important question regarding this, having played around quite a bit recently with current methods of getting a Vectorworks model into Unreal (via FBX).

 

When this new integration debuts, how are we expected to work on UV maps? Unreal Engine, as fabulous as it is, doesn't let you edit UV maps, as it's expected that you finesse those beforehand in your DCC (digital content creation) software, which in our case is Vectorworks. There is currently no capability to edit UV maps in Vectorworks, so unless there's some additional UV functionality coming, I'm not sure how a link with Unreal will be usable?

 

It's important to note that Unreal relies on well-constructed UV maps not only for texturing, but for lightmaps and shadowmaps as well. All UV-based.

 

I want to make sure the folks working on this connection with Unreal are thinking through a complete workflow, not simply the file connectivity aspect which alone might not lead to usable results.

 

That being said, I'm really looking forward to further progress in this direction. Thank you for opening up more avenues for us!

 

 

 

 

 

Upvote.

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On 6/1/2020 at 2:19 PM, rDesign said:

@Andy Broomell - here’s a LINK to an old wishlist thread requesting improved texture mapping functionality: I’ll be happily surprised if / when Vw addresses this problem, as that wishlist thread is almost 5 years old (as of today).

 

In that thread, @PVA - Jim posted THAT: “I think we need to replace the current one completely, it's so far from being able to do the detail needed for advanced product modeling and interior design that I'm firmly in the Start Over camp.”

 

Looks like I've already upvoted 😂

 

By the way, the more I've worked with other 3D modeling packages, the more I actually really like many aspects of the way Vectorworks handles textures (particularly in regards to size, scale factor, and tiling). But two things should happen:

  1. Finesse existing functionality simply from a UI/UX standpoint.
  2. Add one additional level of mapping ability: custom UV Mapping. As I watch many industries swiftly move towards programs like Unreal, this will soon become imperative for Vectorworks to keep up and not lose market share. 
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  • 1 month later...

If you are going for hyper realism, especially in animation, you need a render that allows separate passes that you can later on retouch in either 2D such as Photoshop or 3D/Motion compositor such as Fusion. That's utterly important for our school anyway. So far we've figure out few workarounds thanks to VW's extremely flexible export options.

 

Here are few renders we use

 

Keyshot - great for fast and quality interior shots - great for hyper realistic cloth material render thanks to new Realcloth material - superfast with RTX GPU support - Supports passes (limited compared to other renders)

Vray Next - for very obvious reasons if you are into product or presentation industry

Octane - the best I've used so far personally - ultrasonic fast - unbiased - PBR - volumetric lights and scattering in blink of an eye - render out all the passes you can imagine - because it's ultrasonic fast rendering custom camera motion is so simple.

 

I'm pretty sure all three renders would pick up VW as soon as VW opens up. Happy to hear about Redshift, even though it's significantly different from Octane in workflow but we would never miss out on the opportunity to learn new tools

 

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  • 4 months later...
On 2/27/2020 at 3:24 AM, JuanP said:

 

  • Redshift - We are working on getting Renderworks "REDSHIFT Ready" for the 2021 cycle.  Even though this is not a realtime renderer per se, It is a faster RW rendering.  It will be a quantum leap for Vectorworks built-in rendering.

  • Twinmotion - We are working with Epic Games to connect Vectorworks with Unreal Studio, Twinmotion, and any other Unreal-based applications.  Ready for the 2021 cycle.

 Hi @JuanP if I may follow up on some of these answers:

FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS 
(1) When Redshift arrives for 2022, will it have full functionalities of Redshift? Or would it be a 'lite' version that doesn't give us full control. 
(2) We can't wait to see the Twinmotion Direct-link released, can you give Epic Games a gentle nudge to hurry them along?

A SUGGESTION - Redshift and lighting IFC 
I'd like to end with suggestion for VW/Redshift, which will make the process of rendering in VW faster and easier, particularly when working with lighting designers (I do for most of my projects). 

Lighting designers generally give us a 2D drawing with lighting points, and we have to meticulously re-create these lighting in our 3D model in order to create a render. This process takes a lot of time, and we are basically doing the job that the lighting design should do. 


So, we've developed an alternative workflow, where we ask our lighting designer to provide lighting points as 2D/3D hybrid symbols, complete with IFC information for the 3D part (as you'd already know, the IFC part describes the luminary for rendering purposes).

With these 2D/3D hybrid symbols, we can have correct 2D symbols appearing in architectural RCPs, and the 3D contained within has IFC data, which can light our 3D model for the purpose of rendering. This workflow (for lighting designers to give accurate 2D+3D information) can save us a lot of time in re-creating what the lighting designer proposed. 

So, ny suggestion is for Redshift to be able to read these 2D/3D hybrid lighting symbol, and pick up any IFC lighting information inside the symbol for rendering. 

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