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2021 Public Roadmap


JuanP
Message added by JuanP

New Roadmap site is live HERE

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8 hours ago, JuanP said:

Okay, as promised, here is the latest from R&D on this topic.
Twinmotion (TM) Direct Link is built on Epic’s Datasmith Technology, and today we have scheduled the release of Unreal Engine Datasmith export in Vectorworks 2021 SP3 (03/2021), and then we will shift our development efforts to our Direct Link with TM.

What can you expect after the SP3 release? Well, Datasmith files exported from Vectorworks can be imported into Twinmotion or employed to deliver Vectorworks models and data into Epic’s Unreal Editor game authoring platform for interesting use cases like architectural visualization, lighting pre-viz, or VR.

Datasmith export is the new methodology that Epic Games is moving its partners to support, and we are told that Datasmith is the foundation for anyone wishing to do Direct Link to Twinmotion. The Direct Link to Twinmotion using Datasmith is something Epic will make available early next year. 

Our R&D team is actively working with Epic, and we are confident that in our next roadmap update, this item will be moved from “Active Research” to “In Development.” Our intention is to deliver Vectorworks Direct Link to TM with our September 2021 release.


I think it's worth having your statement readable here too @JuanP, and I'm pleased to hear you're "confident" the TM Link will move into development, but I've gotta say, this is a long way from where we previously expected the Link was at. There's a discordant chasm between Archicad having already integrated the Datasmith format, the actuality you've now detailed and what was implied, and left unattended, in the long running narrative of the Twinmotion thread. No matter the frustration of this (efficiency) slipping further off into the distance, I guess it's safe to say the Roadmap will prevent us from becoming similarly removed.  

 

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As I have been using Enscape quite a bit, I can see that the beauty of it is being able to set everything up in the VW model including all the add on stuff, people, plants, and cars.  Then the model can be used in the various modes to create rendered elevations etc.  and without leaving VW the model can be rendered in real time with Enscape.  Now I see it is not without a few limitations, but this should be the goal of any integration with other programs, Twinmotion or whatever.  It is time to realize that Renderworks is outdated.  VW needs to focus on making the basics work better and integrated the technology of others when it comes to rendering.  

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Agreed that having RW built in was a true added quality.

 

I could live with a decision that RW has become outdated, and hence we move to a different but fully integrated rendering engine. But would feel a bit disgruntled if it relied on paying for third-party software, while the price of VW remained the same.

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Agreed. It is absolutely imperative that a built-in rendering engine remains a core part of what Vectorworks offers. Third party connections are great, but I worry that they will become an excuse for Vectorworks to not keep Renderworks up to date. (An alternative to Renderworks would be fine as long as it's integrated the same way.)

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Renderworks,  I don't think I even hinted that they should do away with Renderworks.  But it cannot compare at the moment at least with what can be done with other products.  No reason to eliminate Renderworks, especially since as far as I know Enscape is the only one that works live with VW and it is not available for the Mac users.  And of course it would be far better to have a program like Enscape built in.  Although I believe that Enscape and the others do their computing in the cloud, the use of some heavy duty computers is the only way to it can work, which probably means even VW would want to charge extra for the service.  Also I find it a bit disturbing that VW only this year made Enscape available when I think it has been available for Revit and the others for a couple of years or more.  

 

As to paying extra for an outside rendering program, in a busy office the time/money saved or the cost of using an outside rendering service more than makes up for the price of it. 

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1 hour ago, Helm said:

 

 

As to paying extra for an outside rendering program, in a busy office the time/money saved or the cost of using an outside rendering service more than makes up for the price of it. 

 

For those of us that are small, perhaps one-person operations, this is not necessarily the case. In a bigger office with several employees and several jobs on the go, a license for a rendering programme can be shared around and maybe be in use most days.

 

For me, depending what stage projects are at, I might not really use renderworks at all for weeks or even months at a time. The calculations might be rather different.

 

VW has always been attractive to the smaller operator because of its price. At the moment, what I pay for VW covers my basic drawing plus rendering needs. If it becomes necessary to pay for a 3rd party applictaion to do rendering, effectively that's bumping the price of VW up, and that new "real" price would have to be compared to alternatives. Maybe VW would still come out best value compared to competitors, or maybe it no longer would.

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2 hours ago, Helm said:

Enscape is the only one that works live with VW

Actually Lumion also works live w/ Vectorworks- really well in fact. It is also windows only.

The Lumion LiveSync updates the Lumion project as your VW Model is built - it's amazing how quickly renderings can be tested & generated, think in seconds and minutes instead of quarter hours and hours. It also has a huge library of included materials, 3d grasses, trees, plants & entourage objects which you can add to your model in Lumion. Keeping all of that out of Vectorworks if you choose.

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38 minutes ago, bcd said:

Actually Lumion also works live w/ Vectorworks- really well in fact. It is also windows only.

The Lumion LiveSync updates the Lumion project as your VW Model is built - it's amazing how quickly renderings can be tested & generated, think in seconds and minutes instead of quarter hours and hours. It also has a huge library of included materials, 3d grasses, trees, plants & entourage objects which you can add to your model in Lumion. Keeping all of that out of Vectorworks if you choose.

Good to know, thanks, I will have a look at it.  As I have been saying this new technology is amazing, and a game changer.  I now include a sheet of rendered views with a few notes on CDs submitted to the building and planning departments.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

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So I reviewed Lumion for VW and as a total rendering program it does seem a lot more capable than Enscape.  The main difference I see is that Enscape is more integrated with VW.  In other words with Enscape you can add trees etc to the VW model directly and save it within the same file.  The problem at the moment is that Enscape assests show as polygons in the VW model.  

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I think this rendering discussion is important.   I have been doing a little more studying.  It seems Enscape assets do not render or even show well in 2D in VW.  Some VW symbols, maybe most will render in Enscape but the quality is limited, no reflections for example.  VBvisual plants seem to render well in both systems.  We need a VBvisual group of people, cars and other objects.  

 

 

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Regarding Twinmotion.  

I had tons of fun messing with it one day when I took it for a basic test drive.

There is most definitely a place for it within the whole paradigm of 'communication of design concepts' arena.

 

My question:

I created a short movie, but unless I am missing something (which I most probably am) when doing a fly thru I could not get the camera to look off to one side or the other while moving forward.  Is this possible in Twinmotion and maybe I just missed that option?

 

Here is a dropbox link to my burnt offering, first attempt.

Certainly not as cool and sophisticated as other Twinmotion examples here in the forums, but as mentioned, it was a hoot creating it.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/29khzj6sm3w2hkf/Twinmotion Test Video.mov?dl=0

 

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9 hours ago, Kevin K said:

Regarding Twinmotion.  

I had tons of fun messing with it one day when I took it for a basic test drive.

There is most definitely a place for it within the whole paradigm of 'communication of design concepts' arena.

 

 

How much time do you reckon I'd need to invest in it, to have a mess around and get an idea of how it works?

 

An afternoon, or a couple of days?

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Rendering seems to be the hot-button issue, but I'm going to hijack the discussions to a different topic... I didn't see any specific references to ConnectCAD in the roadmap pdf.

 

I've been a user for several years, and love it. Bit of a learning curve, but we've got past that and now it's a key element to our workflow.  @Conrad Preen and his team have done an awesome job. 

 

One thing I've always wished for was to get manufacturers onboard with the platform, and they create (or outsource the creation of) devices. That seems to be the trend within Vectorworks for truss, lighting fixtures, furniture, flooring, etc. The "community database" aspect is great, but I'd love to have the manufactures supply their specs, i/o, images, variants, etc.

 

Thoughts? 

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1 hour ago, line-weight said:

 

How much time do you reckon I'd need to invest in it, to have a mess around and get an idea of how it works?

 

An afternoon, or a couple of days?

Just import a vw model as c4d file type with textures- you’ll be getting 3ds out within hours- it really is easy to use..

If anything looks missing (like window frames) it probably needs 2 sided material setting switching on in materials editor (vw exports faces wrong way round a lot)

Edited by neal-2002
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@line-weight  

i created that movie that I posted within a day, so I imagine for you, you should allow about a week 🙂

Just kidding 😉

Honestly, seems to me you could get a good feel for how things work in Twinmotion by spending 3-4 hours with the program.

For the most part, I found it pretty intuitive. 
I downloaded it when it was free, so I really don’t know what the situation is presently regarding the cost of the software.

 

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