Jump to content

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


Recommended Posts

I must admit, I began visualising in 3DS and Vray, when I only had a fundamentals licence. I got an upgrade to Designer w/Renderworks, and played with RW only a couple of times, but abandoned it pretty quickly. Occasionally I'll have an openGL viewport here and there, but generally I'll render in 3DS+Vray.

I think it would take an amazing engineering feat, or a ground up rewrite to get RW to compete with these other packages. There's an awful lot that these packages offer that RW does not.

That being said, I have seen some people's RW renders and they look very good. I stayed with what I was accustomed to at the time but I've not seen anything making me want to give RW a second go.

RW rendering is a CPU process at the moment, so when I put Vray through a twin GPU they're both in a different class. I've a file that takes 25 minutes/frame on CPU, but 45 second/frame on GPU. If RW could utilise the GPU then that would be a good step forward.

Maybe there's a reason they gave it away to everyone a few years ago.... I've not noticed much dev time being pushed into the RW module in recent years. Would love to be proven wrong for the 2020 release!

  • Like 2
Link to comment

Agree with the need for improved rendering in RW.  It still cannot compare to renderings from a dedicated rendering program.  BUT I applaud RW's ability to breath life into drafting pages.  

I feel like the needs of a rendering package are dictated by the industry the VW user works in.  If you are a lighting designer for entertainment, your path is Vision and maybe some of the RW rendering capabilities. I can see the appeal of the real time rendering engines for architecture work. But I work in scenery and visualization for events and television. As breathtaking as the realtime renderers look, I will never use them because I don't need 99 percent of their off the shelf things.  GPU rendering via C4D seems the most viable path, and I hope that VW continues to strengthen their pipeline between the two programs.  In fact I would argue that the pipeline for C4D is the ONLY way to go for entertainment professionals, as C4D has a very heavy presence in motion graphics used for broadcast.  

 

I would hope to see VW recognize the shortcomings of adopting only one strategy for rendering, and instead work on letting the user pick and choose from a variety of options to suit their needs.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
19 hours ago, Matt Overton said:

Maybe it's the scale of work we do but finding high quality renders are turning clients off. They feel like they are too far resolved and they haven't had a chance to input.

 

 

 

Client's IMHO can get grumpy if they think they can't change stuff. So we often share the first couple of iterations of SD (especially floor plans) using  a Foreground Sketch for that very reason. That said, it would be nice to have some of this candy to play with.

Link to comment
On 2/12/2019 at 5:24 PM, Zeno said:

No way without real time render Mac compatible in my opinion.

 

I'll go Blender Eevee for that.

 

I have pre-bought a nice Interior Tutorial for that.

(When I find the time)

Pro Workflow Feature wise I feel still more comfortable with Modo and C4D.

But for not too large Projects, Blender 2.80 became a gorgeous and beautiful App.

There are such nice little details for Arch Viz.

Edited by zoomer
  • Like 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

 

Client's IMHO can get grumpy if they think they can't change stuff. So we often share the first couple of iterations of SD (especially floor plans) using  a Foreground Sketch for that very reason. That said, it would be nice to have some of this candy to play with.

 

Candy will be nice, but I'd suggest if they want to get ahead then understanding there will be a backlash and keeping an eye on ways to improve what we do in the sketchy styles as well would be good positioning. 

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Cinema 4D plays very well with Vectorworks and has all the capabilities of what you mentioned being concerned with. Any reason you have not explored that? Cost is what it is. From my experience there is not a True one stop shop for Design and all its visualization needs, though Vectorworks does a good job of attempting to be that.

 

Vectorworks/Rhino w/Cinema 4D for the Money Shots can quickly achieve anything those others can. If you have your working pipeline established, that system can take a ton of hours to create but it can kick out Photo Real Renderings quick once its down. 

 

I have worked on each and everyone of the possible systems, AutoCAD, Revit, Rhino, 3DS Max, Adobe Suites, PCs vs Macs.

They really are all comparable at a certain level of hardware, workflow, and talent.

Like I said I do not know of any one box application that is able to do what all these other can together. And I have used nearly all of them at one point or another, including Large Int Firms and the Single Practitioner Scale, the Large Int Firms are not as far ahead as their work forces seem to indicate, at least in my exp, I was in the belly of the beast at a few. Its not nearly as organized and intelligent as one may think. Their marketing just makes them appear that way.

The Vectorworks and Cinema 4D Pipeline is great once set up. And add a touch of Rhino Nurbs Modeling and Accuracy Depending on the needs of Project/Clients.

 

Anyways thats my 3 cents... Good Luck!

Edited by our spaces between
my terrible typing :-)
  • Like 1
Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
13 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said:

The end result is 80% as good as Lumion/Cinema but takes 20% of the time (and hardware cost), so it's a no-brainer.

This is the absolute key to these add-on rendering solutions, they can take you incredibly far for a minimal time investment. I love working with rendering engines and playing with materials but not everyone has the luxury of time to experiment with and learn them. You can go much further into photorealism with a formal rendering package, but not everyone wants or needs to go that deep.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Lumion LiveSync was added in 2019 SP3. (To be fair we planned it before this post, but ill absolutely take credit for a 2 month turnaround on a major wishlist request 😉 ) There are also plans to support other major similar rendering packages.

This is the installation and basic usage video made by Lumion themselves:



I will be creating some in our style with some additional information and tips shortly.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
4 hours ago, jeff prince said:

What is the Twinmotion/vectorworks workflow currently?

Sounds like it does not sync currently... so what do you do if you import a model into Twinmotion, spend a bunch of time making it look pretty, and then have to update the model?  Do you lose work?

 

Take a look at this YouTube tutorial video from @JRA-Vectorworks-CAD on Vw2018 / Twinmotion workflow—

 

Also check out the webinar linked in this post

 

Edited by rDesign
  • Like 1
Link to comment
17 hours ago, rDesign said:

 

Take a look at this YouTube tutorial video from @JRA-Vectorworks-CAD on Vw2018 / Twinmotion workflow—

 

Also check out the webinar linked in this post

 

 

Thanks for the information/commercial.

I learned that Twinmotion does not currently have a link to Vectorworks, but it is "in the works".

 

I must have missed something, but I still wonder what happens once you have invested a bunch of work in Twinmotion decorating your Vectorworks model and then have a design change that needs to be incorporated.  I'm left with the impression that you might lose some or all the work created in Twinmotion.  Does anyone know how you handle updating the Twinmotion file with an revised Vectorworks model.... without having to reapply textures or entourage?

Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On 3/24/2019 at 7:49 AM, jeff prince said:

I must have missed something, but I still wonder what happens once you have invested a bunch of work in Twinmotion decorating your Vectorworks model and then have a design change that needs to be incorporated.  I'm left with the impression that you might lose some or all the work created in Twinmotion.

It's possible to minimize that work, but yes this is the main reason a live sync was requested.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Andrew Pollock said:

Lumion looks like a great fast rendering program and the live sync plugin seems to integrate it well into VW, unfortunatly it is a PC only program. Is a live sync plug-in in the works for twinmotion?

The tech we developed that allows us to sync with Lumion is the base tech needed for us to work with Twinmotion and other external rendering programs. Lumion was simply the first we completed work on. More projects like this are planned but there is no timeline for them yet. I would not expect to see any additional integrations like this added until Vectorworks 2020 at least however.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...