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

[JRA-Vectorworks-CAD]

@JuanP Thanks Juan for the update. Thats very positive news indeed. There certainly some great new improvement coming for Twinmotion 2020. I made a short video on the Twinmotion teaser for those that are interested. Note the Xmas jumper!

 

 

[EAlexander]

Chaos Group also owns Corona Renderer which they ported to Archicad last year (as well as Cinema 4d).  That might also be an avenue to explore with Chaos group.  Just tossing that out there.  Any and all external rendering options for VW would be welcome.

Edited January 9, 2020 by EAlexander

[Amorphous - Julian]

I wonder if, for us Mac users, there can be an option to ‘live sync’ or ‘direct line’ from our Vectorworks on Mac to the Lumion / Twinmotion that runs on virtual machine (on the same computer terminal)?

 

I understand Virtualisation is not officially supported by both Lumion and Twinmotion. But being about to cross the Virtual Machine border like this would just make life so much easier. 

[Kevin K]

Speaking of Twinmotion....I downloaded the curent version with the thought of taking it for a little test drive.

i exported a c4d file and imported/opened it and could not seem to find any of the assets, like trees, vegetation, etc

that appear in many of the Twinmotion tutorials.

Either I am a complete idiot or perhaps the current free version of Twinmotion does not include anything but a few basic

materials, etc.

Somewhat frustrating too that it seems fairly impossible to contact Twinmotion/ Epic/ Unreal Engine by phone to respond

to any support questions, etc.

Anyone have thoughts about this?

[Hans-Olav]

@Kevin K the liberaries are all on the left pane in the main window. 

 

Its a good idea to play through some of the videos here:

 

[Tanner Shelton]

I noticed the other day that Unreal Studio can use datasmith to import Cinema 4D files. https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Studio/Builds/4_23/index.html I tried exporting a Cinema 4D file from Vectorworks but it wouldn't let me load it into Unreal. So I think you have to export directly from Cinema 4D for it to work. But this could be a good way to get it into Unreal now while we wait for twinmotion integration. 

[Tanner Shelton]

Looks like it actually does work! You have to enable the plugin. To recap, I exported directly from Vectorworks with the export for Cinema 4D option. I think it might be a good idea to export with some lower settings though. And some normals are flipped which is a problem I know has been brought up before.

 

[Kevin K]

Thanks Hans, but I can see from your video attachment that you are not using the current version of Twinmotion?

The left side of my Twinmotion screen looks nothing like yours. There are no Library items/assets that I can see.

note the attachment....

 

[Tanner Shelton]

@Kevin K That is Unreal Engine you have open. You need to open twinmotion from the epic games launcher > Unreal Engine > Then the Twinmotion tab up at the top then launch, or install if it hasn't been installed yet.

[Kevin K]

Tanner

Apparently I am an idiot   🙂

I can't believe I missed that step.

 

Thanks

[M5d]

The content in this thread really needs a dedicated home! Something more, possibly of interest; while trying to find some use based info on the graphics options Apple's offering, I came across this AMD guy instead;  Brian Savery, who's starting a series on Pro-Render. Twinmotion Unreal gets a mention in the opening video, which possibly explains why the next version is still pending. When TM 2020 does arrive however, the videos he's promising could be handy for in-depth tips on the renderer underneath.

 

  

Edited January 22, 2020 by M5d
* I assumed Unreal = Twinmotion, might have been presumptive.

[Diamond]

On 1/9/2020 at 8:31 AM, JuanP said:

Enscape: The plug-in must be available soon, this was announced also in the Enscape forums. Maybe SP3 do not know. 

 

Another PC only rendering option. Why was not a Mac version given higher priority, when Lumion already existed?

[Amorphous - Julian]

@JuanP thanks for your attention and updates to this topic. 

 

As our conversation focuses on GPU renderers (Lumion, Twinmotion, Enscape... ), and which one of them would support Vectorworks.

 

It occurs to be that elephant in the room is REDSHIFT , and it's potential to integrate with Vectorworks. 

 

REDSHIFT is part of the Nemestchek family. And according to most of the forums I have came across, gives incomparable results to any other GPU renderers (by far). 

So, I have a few questions on this:

- Will Vectorworks get a REDSHIFT plugin?

- Has this conversation for REDSHIFT plugin been had between Vectorworks and Maxon?

- If Vectorworks will get a REDSHIFT plugin, when will this happen?

- If Vectorworks will NOT get a REDSHIFT plugin, why is this so?

 

I'm more than willing to pay the $600/licence for REDSHIFT (and I'll get a few!). Moreover, if such a plugin can allow us to do EVERYTHING within Vectorworks, instead of porting our model in to Lumion/Twimmotion/Enscape, that would be the most ideal workflow. 

 

Are you able to shed some light on this? Many thanks. 

 

[fabrica]

I can't see redshift in vectorworks anytime soon, they haven't got it on macs without nivdia cards yet in C4D. 

They might make an attempt at Pro Render integration next !

 

 

[zeno]

Sorry for the simply question, but..

 

I don't remember Apple that actually have Nvidia Graphic Cards.. so how can people try the Mac version?

[Amorphous - Julian]

Hi @fabrica @Zeno I hear your concerns, but I would let the nay-saying come from the official channels.

 

Our job as users is to push them- and not give them excuses. 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but:

(1) REDSHIFT itself does say if you have a MAC with the correct CUDA-compatible NVIDIA graphics card, and the right OS (10.13), it will work [see screen shot]
(2) NVIDIA has MAC OSX driver for OS 10.13, and older Mac Pros  [see screen shot]

(3) The NVIDIA OSX drivers does indeed support some of the CUDA-compatible NVIDIA graphics card [see screen shot]

(4) Two examples are QUADRO K5000 and GTX680

 

I would hope to get an official answer from Vectorworks @JuanP, before we as users enthusiastically apologise on their behalf.

 

[Diamond]

Redshift are about to release a Mac version that is Metal 2 based. That is, Radeon graphics compatible. They have been showing demos of this at recent Mac events running beta versions on the new Mac Pro. Apparently it is screaming (faster than CUDA) fast. 

[Amorphous - Julian]

1 minute ago, Diamond said:

Redshift are about to release a Mac version that is Metal 2 based. That is, Radeon graphics compatible. They have been showing demos of this at recent Mac events running beta versions on the new Mac Pro. Apparently it is screaming (faster than CUDA) fast. 

 

Yes @Diamond I saw this article from last year that Maxon are developing REDSHIFT for Mac too. 

 

So, back to the questions to @JuanP :

 

(1) - Will Vectorworks get a REDSHIFT plugin?

(2) - Has this conversation for REDSHIFT plugin been had between Vectorworks and Maxon?

(3) - If Vectorworks will get a REDSHIFT plugin, when will this happen?

(4) - If Vectorworks will NOT get a REDSHIFT plugin, why is this so?

 

[Diamond]

The other rendering engine that makes complete sense for Mac is AMD Radeon ProRender. It is a CPU and GPU rendering solution, and would be both Mac and PC compatible. It is also already in C4D so should be readily compatible with Vectorworks.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-prorender

 

[zeno]

 

There is an old iMac with min spec request by Redshift where you can try the demo

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Zeno

[Amorphous - Julian]

I just noticed the following post by @Tom Klaber back in 2009, expressing a similar thought to this thread.

 

THAT MAKES THIS WISH 11 YEARS OLD.

I’m honestly my current wish to get GPU renderers for Mac Users will not also take 11 years.

 

@JuanP I note that you have moved this current Wishlist item to ‘wishes granted’, which is slightly cheeky because apart from Lumion, which is only for Windows users, we don’t have a solution for Mac Users (a significant part of my original post).

 

So, can we move this thread back across to ‘Wishlist’ until we have at least ‘Twinmotion direct link’, or REDSHIFT plug-in released and available for both Mac and Windows?

 

Many thanks.

[Diamond]

11 minutes ago, Amorphous - Julian said:

I’m honestly my current wish to get GPU renderers for Mac Users will not also take 11 years.

If you look over on the Redshift Forums (sign-up required) there, an employee making it known there is keen back and forth between Apple and Maxon in getting C4D optimised for Metal 2. Maxon typically loves the MacOS platform, and it think it will be a point of pride for them to have one of, if not the fastest rendering workstation solutions available.

The Mac rendering scene has been lean on options for years, and thankfully with the release of the Mac Pro, that is changing.

[Amorphous - Julian]

That’s really awesome to know @Diamond I’ll sign up to follow the news. 

 

I’m open to getting C4D + REDSHIFT for our office, but than everyone have to learn another software (C4D) just for rendering our models, it would be so much better if a REDSHIFT plug-in was available for Vectorworks directly.

 

Lets hope the guys from Vectorworks will shed some light on this.

[JuanP]

@Amorphous - Julian Howdy, I'm just getting the time to read all the comments and questions here. Please give me a day or two, so I can get you answers from our R&D team. 

[Amorphous - Julian]

Thanks @JuanP, we look forward to some good news. 

 

But the way below is the 11-year-old Maxwell wishlist I referred to above, but forgot to link.