Lumion and Cinema 4D

[Acadia]

Hello,

I am evaluating Lumion (which now has this great livesync) and Cinema 4D so to get amazing renderings and maybe walk-troughs.

 

From the 2 latest Demo versions I have these issues and wanted to hear your opinion about them.

 

Lumion demo: Almost always the imported VW model is way far off somewhere in the horizon. I understand, modifying the origin in VW will help

but it seems finicky. I already have every texture assigned in VW, but when I select a wall with a particular texture so to replace it with a Lumion one,

it only selects that wall, not the other walls with the same texture (or color). Is this how it is supposed to be? I recall trying this with the old Bryce 3D and it

would select all the elements which came from same color or texture.  Also, have almost no nice textures to choose from  and test (but this is due to the Demo version).

Moving around (I know, you can use the W A S D etc keys plus shift) seems not very smooth and natural.Can't you just pan and zoom and rotate with the ease of VW? Or is just me not knowing the software yet?

 

Cinema4D demo: It is beautifully integrated with VW and the imported model comes right away at the center of the window (as it should...) and with the same textures

already assigned in VW and maybe lights. But the rendered image (without any in depth setting changes because I am too new to really understand the multitude of options)

seems identical to the Renderworks one more or less.  Would knowledge of C4D make for much more realistic renderings than Renderworks, or because

they share the ray trace engine, you will only get better libraries, better mapping options and natural elements but the overall photo-realism of the rendering is similar

and less convincing than Lumion (or Vray, but that's not an option yet I understand)?

 

Thanks for any advice

[EAlexander]

For Cinema 4d, yes, you need to educate yourself on the render engine settings and global illumination to get better results. The default settings are set quite low overall for speed, not quality. 

 

You'll want to get up to speed on using the physical Renderer. I suggest looking at the YouTube channel of 3dfluff as well as Greyscale Gorilla's older beginner tuts on their website. 

 

If I'm honest, using Cinema 4d opens you to an option of 3rd party render engines. I realize this is above cost of an already pricey piece of software, but you can get dramatically better and/or faster renders. I use Corona and Redshift exclusively and haven't rendered with the default Cinema engines in over three years. Not necessary, but worth mentioning. 

 

I only demoed Lumion and while I see the appeal, I find Cinema gets me to a better place, albeit with more work. Just my opinion. Worth looking at Twinmotion too if you like Lumion. 

 

e. 

[Acadia]

Thank you very much, and Twinmotion is free right now. I'll give it a try.