Devin Johnston

Ok for those who are having this problem I've found a solution that works very well, it's a combination of a Max plugin and a script you have to run in Rhino when you export to set the correct scale. The Mirza Link Manager allows you to file link .OBJ files in max, it even cleans up the mesh so you don't have to deal with all those triangles. If your using 3D Studio Max with Imperial units you have to run this script in Rhino to convert the scale from Metric to Imperial. You have to use this scale factor (39.37) when exporting to make sure the scale is converted properly. https://www.mirarkitektur.com/mirzasoftwares/index.php?menu=presentationProduit&product=Mirza Link Manager https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/obj-export-scale-request/77567/7

My workflow until today has been either Revit or Sketchup file linked into 3d Studio, updating is a dream and necessary when dealing with constant changes. Now the office is beginning to use Rhino and I'm finding that every file format I save out of it has some problem when trying to file link. I've tried .fxb, .obj, .dwg and even .skp with no luck. I've been using Miauu's Manage Links for all my Sketchup file linking, when I import a Rhino exported Sketchup file the model comes in fine but when I go to update the model all of the materials are stripped off of it. This happens with the native Max file linking also for .fbx and .dwg files and so I'm left wondering if this is even possible. I've looked around the web and can't find any examples of this being done successfully and I don't even know if it's a Max or Rhino problem. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how this might be done?

I'm looking for an easy to use & reliable model asset library solution. I'm aware of the Autodesks 3ds asset library software and Turbosquid's Kraken, are there any others that I should be looking at?

You should really upgrade your version of Vray to the current version as there have been may improvements to both CPU & GPU rendering since Vray Next came out. It's hard to say why GPU rendering is slower without seeing what it is your rendering and what the GPU settings are, default settings are usually good enough. I don't remember what features are unsupported in your version of Vray GPU but it could be that you have materials or some other unsupported elements in your scene that's slowing it down.

It really comes down to the relationship between the people modeling and the Viz team, in some companies there is a real team environment where everyone is working together to make the project successful. In that kind of environment the modeling people will be motivated to go out of their way to make sure the Viz people get what the need, this is the way it should be. In other companies where the people modeling are separate and apart from the Viz people there is no since of teamwork and your lucky to get a model at all much less one that's been created with visualization in mind. This mentality truly comes from the top down and good luck trying to convince your coworkers that they need to step it up if management doesn't agree.

Render Buzz can be cheaper than Rebus it just depends on what your doing, if you render using GPU instead of CPU that can drastically cut your costs.

I use the Max file linking to Revit all the time and for the most part it works like a dream, you need to make sure your material assignments are 100% in Revit or you will have lots of problems in Max. File linking is the only way to go and it's worth spending some time to figure out a workflow because it will save you so much time in the end.

I'd say B but I don't think that means it's going to take more time to setup and get going when compared to Lumion \Enscape. 3d Studio's Revit file linking is pretty good, you can directly import Revit files into a scene you've already setup essentially taking away any advantage Lumion\Enscape had in the quick setup department. If your using Vray now you have a built in material and model library's which speeds things up even more and if you use Progressive rendering your render times are drastically cut.

In house renderer in the US since 2003, worked for one firm from 2003-2020 as the only in-house 3d guy and was laid off last year due to COVID. I spent about 3.5 months looking for another in-house position, found one in January and I'm back at it with a slight increase in pay and position. As far as whether the in-house position is becoming more rare I can't really say but I agree that programs like Enscape and Lumion are causing firms to re-think the way they produce visualizations. In the past before these programs surfaced the in-house guy was a vital part of the design/marketing/presentation process. Programs like 3d Studio & Vray were difficult to learn and use and as a result the in-house guy had a very secure position, that security is gone now especially if you work for a company that doesn't care about image quality. If you work for one of these companies I suggest you start looking for a place that does appreciate what a seasoned 3d artist can bring to the table. For all the new people who are just getting into visualization I encourage you to broaden your skill set to include things like VR & AR, video production, Drone operation and anything else you can think of to make yourself more valuable.

I decided to go with the video backplate option, I shot the site from between 100 & 75 feet and from that height I can overlay my new site without the trees getting in the way. I did photograph the edges of the site with the drone incase I needed to fake something, hopefully I won't need to do that. I didn't want to put all of my hopes onto a pictometry model, there's no telling how it would have turned out and since I had to fly to the location I would be able to go back if I missed something.

It's been a while since I used reality capture, my experience in the past was it did a pretty good job but the mesh was very dense. I'm concerned that the final model may be too large to use and will likely not have all the detail I need. It will also take a long time to photograph 100+ houses even if I use something like Litchi to automate the process.

I've got a situation that I've never been in before, I'm working on a golf course animation and the surrounding environment is very important. Normally I would use a drone to shoot video of the camera path and then drop my 3d model into the footage. In this case there are lots of existing trees in the way and there's no way to easily remove them from the footage so I think I'm going to have to do an all 3d animation. The course is surrounded by hundreds of houses so modeling them is out of the question. I was thinking of taking photographs of all of them from the same angle the animated camera will be moving and creating one long billboard. I was also considering trying to use pictometry to create models of the houses but I'm not sure the process is going to create models that are of the right quality. I'm just looking for alternative suggestions that I haven't thought of, any advice is welcome.

I just upgraded from Max 2019 to 2021 and I depend on the 2D pan zoom model to line up my 3d models to background video, apparently this tool doesn't work like it used to for reasons. I'm desperately looking for a way to work around this limitation but so far I haven't seen anything useful. Does anyone know a way to either make the 2D pan zoom tool work properly or a good work around??

I do use Lumion but the first example was done with Vray/Max, Lumion can't import camera tracking but if it could I'd use it. Philip are you asking what my workflow is for aerial composites?

I've been working on an iPad app using Unreal that's almost ready for use, it's taken over a year.