Vectorworks to Blender using FBX

[Mauro Pujia]

New to Blender figuring out a workflow.

 

Basically, I model and what I call "pre-render" my scenes in Vectorworks: a quick setup of lighting, cameras, and clown texture mapping. Importing my scene in FBX but for some reason, the cameras in Blender are not usable (can't make them active in my viewport) spotlights won't respect the values I gave in VWX.
Attaching images of the scene in both software.

 

If anyone here had figured out a good workflow for both software and wants to share it would be appreciated.

[Andy Broomell]

I've only transferred geometry to Blender, not lights or cameras, so I don't have any real answers, but here are some thoughts...

 

Do light values transfer differently if you use emitter instead of percentage values in VWX?

 

For the camera in Blender... Have you tried clicking the green camera icon to the right of Camera_1 in the Outliner, then clicked the white camera icon to activate the current camera? 

[Mauro Pujia]

hace 15 minutos, Andy Broomell dijo:

I've only transferred geometry to Blender, not lights or cameras, so I don't have any real answers, but here are some thoughts...

 

Do light values transfer differently if you use emitter instead of percentage values in VWX?

 

For the camera in Blender... Have you tried clicking the green camera icon to the right of Camera_1 in the Outliner, then clicked the white camera icon to activate the current camera? 

Hi Andy! Tried both procedures but had no luck. The camera will point to a gray area, not respecting VWX setup. Lighting when trying emitter increased from 1.5w to 2w.

[Mauro Pujia]

@Andy Broomell 

 

I continued with the troubleshooting, by assigning the emitter option and tweaking number on VWX you can get power on the spotlights at Blender. 1,000,000 in VWX = 1,000,0 in Blender (adding +2 "0" will get you the number you're looking for).

Still figuring out cameras, I think it has something to do with the angle you assing on VWX.

[zoomer]

I think for VW to Blender, FBX is currently the best Export.

But FBX is a proprietary Autodesk file format and it doesn't work lossless

for me in any App. C4D is quite good but there is even better C4D Exchange

with VW. FBX to Modo needs large rework of Materials, Cameras are off by

some digits. VW has no FBX import and so on.

 

FBX is usually still better than outdated 3DS or other formats.

But mainly FBX will bring in good geometry.

 

I hope for larger adaption of Pixar's USD format which is very hyped

as a exchange format in 3D Apps. I see all 3D Apps (Blender, Modo, C4D, ...)

working on it.

Maybe USD will one day get for 3D what ODA does with IFC for AEC CAD.

 

[Mauro Pujia]

En 29/6/2022 a las 15:24, zoomer dijo:

I think for VW to Blender, FBX is currently the best Export.

But FBX is a proprietary Autodesk file format and it doesn't work lossless

for me in any App. C4D is quite good but there is even better C4D Exchange

with VW. FBX to Modo needs large rework of Materials, Cameras are off by

some digits. VW has no FBX import and so on.

 

FBX is usually still better than outdated 3DS or other formats.

But mainly FBX will bring in good geometry.

 

I hope for larger adaption of Pixar's USD format which is very hyped

as a exchange format in 3D Apps. I see all 3D Apps (Blender, Modo, C4D, ...)

working on it.

Maybe USD will one day get for 3D what ODA does with IFC for AEC CAD.

 

 

I agree. FBX has been my main export format when modeling in VWX. I was using Keyshot for rendering at the last company I worked for, importing in FBX, and had great results with modeling, cameras, and materials, the only aspect that I could complain about was the fact that VWX and KS don't have a Datasmith plug-in like Twinmotion and this also affects the way you get your geometry organized on KS.

 

Now I'm back to freelancing, trying to migrate to Blender mainly because it's free and covers every aspect of the rendering process and animation, plus it has users of every industry and so many tutorials, open information, etc. You can do all rendering and animation in one software, and it also comes with a lot of free amazing 3D and material assets from third-party apps like Bridge. 

 

However I don't want to lose VWX on my workflow, so I'm considering and open to other options. Have you been a user of C4D? Nowadays from what I see in forums this and Twinmotion seem to be the more connected solutions for VWX users.

[zoomer]

Basically I still use C4D.

But I stopped upgrading when they went subscription only.

So I stick with R21, which does not run well since Big Sur or Apple ARM.

I think it doesn't even run as expected on Windows 10/11 or with my

AMD GPU.

 

My goal is realtime rendering.

I was interested in Enscape in the past because of the better quality.

They even start to offer Apple ARM support - but are subscription only.

 

So I am mainly focused on Twinmotion and am very happy with its progress

since being part of epic. But currently not yet in production.

 

I am also fascinated by Blender but did not manage to switch during the last

3 (?) years. I miss some features or do not know to convert to its workflows.

I was pretty happy with C4D's options to automate Visualization.

(VW Exchange, Render Takes, Batch rendering, ...)

 

That and not being 100% used to Twinmotion is also what made me stick with

my old C4D R21 so far. But compatibility problems get worse over time.

Maybe VW 2023 will no more work with my old R21.

So I am also still in a transition but currently did not reach as far as I would like.

Edited July 4, 2022 by zoomer

[frv]

I work with C4D, R26 and Coronarender v9. VWX 2022.  Mac Studio 128Gb. 

I think its the best to quickly get pro results. Here are a few not too old projects rendered with this combo.

https://francoisverhoeven.com/GR9-Voorst

https://francoisverhoeven.com/Trekviet-Appartementen

These where done on my old iMac from 2015 with 32Gb ram and a i7 4 core (8 threads)

 

The costs are there but I do some work for other architects as well and so I can afford this set up. 

The reason why I work like this is because I can easily get very good assets for Coronarender from Bentanji, Maxtree and so on. And the export from VW is flawless and super easy. Even the most complex models (over a Gb) export in seconds to C4D format.

 

I am considering to move to Unreal Engine 5 and buy a PC.  But I hear from Unreal users that its very buggy and crashes a lot for archviz. And I need to convert assets and resources. Not all that much available yet for Unreal 5. But to get Coronarender results out of Unreal will be a lot of work as I hear if not impossible.

 

I see very good stuff from Lumion and the export from VWX is also flawless and very fast. But still the results don't match my renders and my customers are used to that now. I am not sure though  C4D/Coronarender is future proof with all current developments in real time rendering.

 

Another thing to consider is that C4D is also a great modeller for terrains and anything organic. I think VWX is nightmare for terrain modelling. Especially large terrains with slightly sloping surfaces. VWX just can't do that. I only model buildings in VWX now and the rest in C4D. I have been doing a lot of designing/sketching in C4D lately and I like the workflow and speed and more or less real time rendering in C4D. VWX is so far behind in this. Redshift in VW is very slow compared to C4D.

 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by frv

[fabrica]

@frv would love to see your corona settings for those renders ! they look fantastic... (HDRI or sun/sky for lighting?)

[zoomer]

11 hours ago, frv said:

Here are a few not too old projects rendered with this combo.

https://francoisverhoeven.com/GR9-Voorst

https://francoisverhoeven.com/Trekviet-Appartementen

 

😍