Microstation V Autocad & Viz

[steven martin]

I have recently started a new job.

 

The firm currently uses microstation for their cad work and are adamant that it will suffice for the 3d work as well.

 

What I need are some hard facts about why we need to use max/viz for the rendering process rather than Microstation.

 

Can anyone help me with some valid facts/reasoning that I could present to them to help me "persuade" them go down the Max/Viz route as I am of the opinion that microstations render engine/lighting methods are simply not up to the task

[monkeysee]

Why do you think microstation is not up to the task? Have a look at this link:

http://www.bentleyuser.org/features/Features.asp?ID=59

Personally, I think microstation is both a very capable modeling and rendering CAD package. The argument you will always get back is why invest in the cost of max (£2600) or Viz (not sure how much its cost to be honest! but i know its over a grand!) and the additional cost of vray or another 3rd party renderer when microstation will do the job more than adequately - using only microstaion also fits in with their current work flow - introducing max doesn't just bring that file format into the equasion, you'll have to convert the dgn files to dwg. Then there is the cost of training everybody else... In short the benifits are outweighed by the negatives, sorry...

 

Besides, it's not the software, its the artist that produces the work...

[steven martin]

The reason i ask is I have used max, viz & autocad for the past 10 years. I did some searching on the internet and couldnt find one good image generated by Microstation.

 

Yes it can do it, but commercially the quality of the end product is not good enough.

[chuck]

I agree with you steve, microstation doesn't seem up to creating the really high end images, or atleast i haven't seen excellent work come out of the package. I guess I'd start with some comparison images and hope that was enough. I'm sure by now you've explained your familiarity with viz...

I also like viz (with vray free and maxwell) because it gives me more room to grow. That is important to me and my superiors.

 

We use microstation at my firm and it isn't a big deal to convert to dwgs everyonce and a while.

 

Here's a site with images created with microstation:

 

http://studio4d.net/

 

Chuck

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

simply because you feel comfortable in the AutoCad enviroment is probably not a good enough reason to switch. i have drafted in Microstation, and i have drafted in autocad. Accudraw in Microstation, when used properly is an extremely effecient drafting tool.

 

AutoCad excels as bringing a lot of information control together, but I think it is overkill in many cases.

 

as for the quality of images produced, has very little to do with Viz/Max, and more to do with the rendering engines such as Vray/Mental Ray/Maxwell/etc.. of coursemany of these engiens are really only available or usable in the Viz/Max enviroment, but i think this is slowly changing. these companies are working on, and slowly releasing there plug-ins for other software.

[steven martin]

Autocad is not really the issue here.

 

It is not the draughting of the projects but more the production and quality of final images and animations that concern me.

 

I am willing to give anything a go (stop sniggering you filthy people), but I simply cannot find any images produced in Microstation that look anywhere near the finished level of the max/viz ones (not even the amateurish images that I produce.)

 

I will do some further research as regards lighting, materials & render time in microstation but so far I am not convinced and I think it is the actual render engine that is used in microstation that may be limiting the quality of the images being produced as well as the increasing in rendering time.

[manta]

I'm not all that familiar with Microstation, so maybe I shouldn't even butt my nose in here, but, and I may be wrong about this, My thinking is that Microstation is a BIM software, and I'm sure its really capable at what it does, but on that note I wouldn't use AutoCad or Revit to do my renderings or animations, so maybe its just not suited for that, no software can do it all...

 

By the way what rendering engine does it use ?

[AJLynn]

I was actually just helping somebody with a Microstation render - she knows Microstation and I know rendering, but not Microstation - and was really underwhelmed. This is some dark-age tech. The material editor alone was enough to make me miss Viz 4. It does have a radiosity setup and something akin to light tracer, an automatic sun and a sky light, and it can raytrace like there's no tomorrow, but just try to get a reasonable lighting scenario and then edit it, I dare you.

 

On the bright side, I'm starting to make some C4D converts here.

[thinice]

Microstation is a very good CAD software but not for rendering and animation.

 

Actually, it really depends what is your company's expectation. If you are talking only about raytracing, simple lighting and basic materials, Microstation is capable of quite decent output.

 

If we are talking about real production quality rendering and animation, these are some of Microstation's disadvantages. (either not available or not good enough as Max's)

 

(I haven't use Microstation in a long time so I may be wrong in some of the points here)

 

1. Procedural shader

2. Multiple layered textures

3. Motion blur

4. Animation path control and keyframing

5. Camera setting (aspect ratio, zoom setting, DOF et)

6. Support for Archvision's RPC elements (cars, people etc)

7. Support for third party tree generators.

8. Support for 3rd party renderer

9. Network rendering

10. Particle and volumetric effects

 

You see, I could just go on and on and on. These are the daily staple of the production environment. However, if you are not very familiar with things I mention above, I think it will be very difficult to convince your bosses to spend a few thousand dollars on a new platform.

[robsnyder]

Thinice is correct on only 2 of the ten items on the that list about microstation rendering capabilities. That means incorrect 80%. Microstation is an excellent rendering engine that uses Bentley's own implementation of the monte carlo lighting algorithms. Their particle tracer produces excellent results. I'll post some recent examples of mine this week, when I get back to the office.

[thinice]

Thinice is correct on only 2 of the ten items...

 

Not saying they are necessarily unavailable. Just a suspicion that they may not be as flexible as dedicated animation packages such as Max.

 

The above list is drawn from my experience when I switched from Microstation to Lightwave for my animation and rendering platform. But that was in 1997, for goodness shake..

 

Anyway, it would be very good if Robsnyder can give us an update on Microstation rendering capabilities.

 

If all those features are decently implemented, I would say that Steven Martin's task at convincing his bosses to switch platform has become 10 times more difficult than I initially thought.

[woolsgrove]

I find Microstation very capable, it;s changed a lot since 1997! - I don't have many images online but see http://www.richardwoolsgrove.com/cad/pagePhotoCatList.php?pid=1&cat_id=16 - see the photo comparisons, most prefer the renders!

these are pretty old images. These are using Particle Tracing - the monte carlo algorithms. The engine is good when the settings are correct. It's like any render software, you need to learn how to render!

Camera controls are good and modelling is very fast when you get up to speed.

Richard

[steven martin]

Very impressive images, I would be interested to know how long they took to render as compared to other programmes.

[woolsgrove]

TBH not quick, they were done ages ago an a 933mhz (shows how old!). I don't know the exact times but it was done overnight (I'd guess between 4-8 hours). 2500 pixels height.

[stefkeB]

Might be worth to take a look at the new Microstation Rendering book:

 

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Training/Books/Rendering+With+MicroStation.htm