HKS taking RT architecture to the next level .......

[mrcamper]

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 9, 2007

 

 

 

HKS LICENSES UNREAL® ENGINE 3 FOR

GROUNDBREAKING ARCHITECTURAL APPLICATIONS

 

 

DALLAS, TEXAS - HKS Architects, ranked among the nation's top five

architectural firms, announced a licensing agreement with Epic Games,

Inc. that will change the face of architectural design. Through the

agreement with the world's leading gaming developer, HKS adopts the

Unreal® Engine 3 for use in its architectural designs.

HKS ARCHengine, powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3

technology, creates functional 3D visualizations of architectural space,

complete with moving figures, operational elevators, and running

escalators.

The use of the new technologies, along with its 3D graphic editor,

provides a powerful tool that allows the architect or client the ability

to walk around their space at their own speed, experiencing the virtual

building in detail.

"This next generation game technology incorporates real-time

shadows, lighting, and people into our architectural projects," said Pat

Carmichael, manager, advanced technologies, HKS, Inc. and co-founder of

HKS ARCHengine. "When designing a stadium, the client - meaning a

life-like version of the client and their families - is able to walk

into a stadium, order and eat a hot dog, and interact as they watch a

baseball game."

"HKS is the first architectural firm to apply Unreal Engine 3 technology

to its designs," said Ralph Hawkins, FAIA, FACHA, president and CEO of

HKS. "We are pleased to offer our clients with the sophisticated tools

contained in this unique program. Its versatility and strength allows

us to powerfully portray our designs to clients."

And, HKS's clients are taking them up on the new technology -

including the Dallas Cowboys and Gatehouse Development (developer of the

W hotels), at a cost that ranges from $65,000 to $150,000 per project

based on the project scope.

When Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to select the

location of his owner's suite, HKS ARCHengine allowed him to decide by

offering a 3D look at each and every view and vista at the new $1

billion Dallas Cowboys stadium.

Before spending $1 million on a condo unit, potential buyers at the W

Dallas-Victory Hotel and Residences were given a full tour of their

building - from the 30-story view from the glass balcony of the GhostBar

to the picturesque city views from each and every one of the units.

"Epic is extremely excited to be working with HKS," said Mark Rein, vice

president, Epic Games, Inc. "HKS has a long history of innovation and

leadership in the architectural industry and we're honored they've

chosen to use Unreal Engine 3."

Traditionally, the only way to communicate a design in its early

phase is to build scale models, refer to concept sketches, or spend days

creating 3D computer renderings using commercial 3D modeling and

rendering applications. These 3D renderings restrict what the viewer

can see, only generating single viewpoint renders or pre-determined

animated walkthroughs frame by frame.

"HKS ARCHengine offers clients a higher level of graphic photo realism,

communicating multiple design concepts rapidly and cost effectively,"

added Carmichael. "It renders 30 frames per second instead of one per

hour - that's 3,000 times faster than traditional animation methods.

This makes it a first (and only) in the architectural industry."

 

About HKS, Inc. - ARCHengine - http://www.archengine.org

[bTW We're interviewing architects/interns with game development/programming experience]

 

HKS, Inc. is a leading architectural design firm ranked among the

top-five architectural/engineering firms, according to Building Design &

Construction magazine. Since its founding in 1939, HKS has completed

construction projects totaling more than $39 billion in more than 758

cities located in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and 41 foreign

countries. Headquartered in Dallas, the firm has 19 U.S. and worldwide offices with

projects including the Dallas Cowboys Stadium (Dallas, Texas); W Dallas

Victory Hotel and Residences (Dallas, Texas); The Palazzo Casino &

Resort (Las Vegas, Nev.), RadioShack Corporate Campus (Fort Worth,

Texas); Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center's Janet Sinegal

Patient Care Building (Seattle, Wash); Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

at Scottish Rite (Atlanta, Ga.); Whole Foods Market and Headquarters

(Austin, Texas); and the LEAR Corporation Headquarters (Southfield,

Mich).

 

About Epic Games, Inc.

 

Epic Games, Inc., based in Cary, NC and established in 1991, develops

cutting-edge games and game engine technology for PC and console. The

company has created multiple million-selling, award-winning titles in

their Unreal series and their latest game, Gears of War®, broke sales

records on Xbox 360 selling more than 3 million copies worldwide in the

first ten weeks and awarded overall Game of the Year for 2006 by the

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, Game Developers Choice Awards,

GameSpot, GamePro and many others. Epic is also responsible for the

Unreal Engine, which is the underlying technology for a wide range of

games including, Console Game of the Year winner, "Tom Clancy's Splinter

Cell TM" by Ubi Soft; PC Gamer's Game of the Year, "Deus Ex" from Ion

Storm/Eidos; "America's Army: Special Forces," by the United States

Army, and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (PC) by Electronic

Arts. Epic's Unreal Engine 3 is the current holder, and three-time

consecutive winner, of Game Developer magazine's Front Line award for

Best Game Engine. Epic Games was also awarded Studio of the Year at the

2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards and Developer of the Year by Official

Xbox Magazine. Additional information about Epic can be obtained through

Epic's Web site at http://www.epicgames.com

 

* Unreal and Gears of War are trademarks or registered trademarks of

Epic Games, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other

trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

[aaron-cds]

This sounds very cool but if the result is like the portfolio images on your website that's too bad. Those renderings look like they were done with scanline 10 years ago. What would it take to incorporate CG techniques that would make the result photorealistic? Is it a question of horsepower? The recent games for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are starting to become more photorealistic. Is it possible to do that with arch-viz VR? It's great that you can find clients to pay such a huge price for mediocre visualization. If that's the resulting image quality, I'm not impressed. A CG movie from Neoscape is what I would spend my money on.

[DavidR]

I agree with Aaron -really unimpressive, and I think the utility is a bit confused -what I mean is: 1)for design exploration, you want something that allows on-the-fly changes with a serious database back-end to create a BOM, and all that not-so-fun stuff (a real configurator with menus, drag-n-drop textures, etc), but for impressive viz, you need 2)to either render stills/anim, or prepare assets for a realtime engine by baking, etc. The problem with option 2 is that you can't make changes to those prepared assets without going back and re-baking, so it allows realtime navigation but no modification. I don't think a game engine has any value unless the plan is option 2, otherwise, Bunkspeed, Eon, Virtools, Anark, and others cater to option 1. I've seen the same company do demos where project A shows off the configurator power, but looks like total crap, and project B has baked light/shadows etc, but nothing can be changed. People often think game stuff is all done in realtime, but it's not true (yet).

[Nic H]

I agree, I just cant get past the poor visual quality, until graphics catch up with games or 'conventional' animations I don't see any point, there is nothing alluring, informative or interesting about those images/environments.

 

Like Aaron said, would rather spend money on a neoscape animation that concentrates on showing the best parts of a building in a creative way rather than showing everything in a substandard manner.

[mrcamper]

I am reminded of an old MASH episode where Hawkeye told a joke about a circus performer that flapped his arms and flew around the big top.... the circus bossed then quipped, "that's it? bird tricks?"

 

It is true that the visuals arn't as compelling as stills and animations rendered out by the top end 3d applications. BUT at pushing over 15 million polygons (which BTW the complete model cannot even be opened in 3DS MAX but can be presented in Unreal), is very compelling to a client in that he can see every nook and cranny of his project from every view....

 

For us, it is all about design communication .....and the 3d visuals presented in the game engine communicate design in a unique and compelling way.

 

You can see the 15 million poly Dallas Cowboys Stadium model at http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2007/id20071221_129534.htm

[JamesTaylor]

using techniques such as vray proxies allows us to render many more millions of poly than your stadium example, so it is entirely possible to show every nook and cranny a client would antto show.

 

the fact that your system is "real time" does provide benifits in that a particular view can be generated at will, but i don't feel that this benifit outweighs the lack of image quality.

 

Its good that someone is pushing this type of thing as without development it won't ever reach the required standard, but until you can say "real time" and deliver the quality of images we see produced by the top artists here i'm not sold by the hype you give it, and felt let down when i saw the folio images... but do look forward to oneday seeing images that blow my socks off!

[BrianKitts]

We quit counting counting polygons when we moved passed scanline and into global illumination. The new measure is quality, and to be honest I'm more impressed by high quality images by someone who's such an optimized modeler that polycount isn't even thought about. I could create a huge poly model..... doesn't mean it's anything impressive. And if your machines are struggling with 15m scenes, I would beat your IT dept over the head for a decent computer, specially with how well max2008 handles heavy polyscenes with it's adaptive viewport usage.

 

(now to jump on to your side)

 

It was wrong that everyone cut you down out of the gate on quality, the real focus should be it's impressive that you are taking the steps to increase interactivity and understanding with clients, so I commend you in your ambition to use a game engine for presentation purposes.

 

I would be curious to know what percentage of people on cgArchitect work as freelance and dedicated rendering companies versus being the renderering department for an architecture firm. IMO your images aren't half bad for an architecture firm, the bar has really been raised in the last couple of years and architecture firms are starting to get quality visualization from in-house as opposed to outsourcing. What I'm getting at is that the majority of criticism you are getting are from people who are really good at what they do and never get to see some of the REALLY BAD renderings coming out of architecture firms that get major projects and whose renderings actually impress the client.

 

I just started a new position in a large architectural firm as a visualization coordinator and the focus of my position is to raise the quality of the firms technology and knowledge for creating quality visualizations. Because to be honest, so far the stuff I've seen in house from our company (over 300 people) isn't anything I would post on here for fear of the backlash you recieved in the first couple of posts. (but we are working on it)

 

So good luck to you with the new engine, and keep posting with updates I'm sure many would like to see it. And make use of the forums for tips on raising that quality, because the realtime viewing with quality renders will be a extremely powerful client tool.

 

 

A CG movie from Neoscape is what I would spend my money on.

You will probably never see an architecture firm with a budget for a Neoscape (or likewise) production. Those are geared towards property developers with big pockets in the real-estate markets. We work on multi-million dollar projects, and although it would be great to have such a marketing piece, it's not worth the budget. We do primarily healthcare so I'll speak from my world.... it would be a bigger asset to allow the head of hospital explore his entire new million dollar project and workout any flaws before we actually break ground as opposed to blowing 40gs on a an amazing marketing piece.

 

You'd be amazed how far a great still image can go towards pulling in donors!

[mrcamper]

Hey guys, thanks for the great input, in reference to some of the above comments here's some more info about what we do with our RT program.

 

In our RT 3D environment presentations we are required by our designers to keep everything operable, so polygons are necessary to open every door, window or whatever moves. The typical game engine Jedi texture tricks (normal maps, etc.) don't allow us to keep everything functional.... you cannot open a normal mapped window.

 

Over the last 11 years , in reference to RT being a useful tool, we are 93-2 (yes, I keep score) in winning the job over other firms when we use the real-time environments for presentation to potential clients as opposed to about 50-50 using traditional 3D animations coupled with power point slides and static images mounted on boards.

 

Also, it is not so much the speed of our machines (they are special order Alienware ALX, dual AMD 2 core CPUs, 16 gb ram, quad nvidia sli) it is the fact that we typically export the models from Automess' Revit and in the Cowboys Stadium's case it produced over 350,000 objects...

 

MAX cannot handle that many objects at one time no matter what hardware you throw at it as it is a limitation of the internal MAX object database. (now we have input into MAX over 40m poly environments, but in order to do so we have to collapse all the objects based on texture which messes up the file link to Revit for the 3D environment updates).

 

I would love to see more of what anyone else might be doing in architectural RT and would be glad to correspond with anyone interested.

[BrianKitts]

.....Automess' Revit....

 

..... that's great I'll have to remember that one!

[mrcamper]

yes, i have been using AutoDESK products since 1984 .... familiarity breeds contempt.

[aaron-cds]

You will probably never see an architecture firm with a budget for a Neoscape (or likewise) production. Those are geared towards property developers with big pockets in the real-estate markets. We work on multi-million dollar projects, and although it would be great to have such a marketing piece, it's not worth the budget. We do primarily healthcare so I'll speak from my world.... it would be a bigger asset to allow the head of hospital explore his entire new million dollar project and workout any flaws before we actually break ground as opposed to blowing 40gs on a an amazing marketing piece.

 

And, HKS's clients are taking them up on the new technology -

including the Dallas Cowboys and Gatehouse Development (developer of the

W hotels), at a cost that ranges from $65,000 to $150,000 per project

based on the project scope.

 

This was what I based my comment on regarding the Neoscape animation. Of course architects are cheap, myself being an architect. All joking aside, architects usually don't have it in their fee to produce marketing renderings. They still need to show their design to the clients. This real time solution would work for that purpose. I'm just shocked at the notion that someone pays $65,000 to $150,000 for something so lifeless.

[oluv]

ever considered crytek's cryengine2 for interactive archvis?

cryengine 2 has some more advanced dynamic lighting features with convincing realtime shadows and even some realtime ambient occlusion which really improves visual quality a lot.

 

a french company IMAGTP http://www.imagtp.com/uk/ had already licenced cryengine 2 for realtime visualisations and their results so far are really impressive. look at their yacht-show-video. the realtime shadows are really stunning, and there is nothing prebaked. also have a look at their demoreel:

http://www.imagtp.com/videos/IMAGTP.mov

 

i think the subtle light/object interactions are the most important factor for making a visualisation more life-like. although cryengine 2 doesn't support any realtime GI-lighting, the approximations with ambient occlusion etc. are already a big step forward in visual quality compared to the other 3d-engines.

[Vince Paske]

Ok, being a gamer I have to ask - Do you guys ever take some of those projects , load them up with guns and do a little deathmatch at lunch to blow off steam? It'd be a blast blowing out the windows of the luxury boxes with a rocket launcher.

 

Another (more serious) question - who runs the camera during the presentations? I know that clients and most of the architects I work with would have the world flipping upside down and quickly be out of control using w,s,a,d and mouse-look.

 

The herky-jerky motion and transitions on the demo video on the web site can cause motion sickness in most viewers (at least the 3 I've shown). You may want to smooth it up a tad.

 

Unreal 3, Gears of War and Bioshock are beautiful games with wonderful lighting and texturing (that use that engine). However, they take a long time (year ('s)) to develope with large teams pounding on them. How many people and how much time did it HKS take to do the Dallas Stadium for instance?

 

Most of the environments in those gorgeous games are in smaller settings, not large stadium sized environments. How does that factor into working with the engine, especially in regards to lighting? When I first read the article I was expecting to see quality achieved in those games and was dissapointed with what I saw, but I suspect it's because of those reasons.

 

The last section of the Business Week article states "Visualation may even become part of the design process...". I'm not sure how using an interactive approach with a game engine facilitates the process better than what many of us are doing in-house with VRay and a render farm. In fact, because I use a system where I can achieve very realistic materials and light fast, from any view, render, remote view it along with other designers as it renders (usually under a minute), tweak - the design process is amazingly fast.

 

I think its great what you are doing - pushing the envelope. I think all of us have thought about the possibility and "what-if's" regarding using game engines for AEC visualizations, and you are doing it and that is awesome. However, like the article also states, it'll be a while before our industry masters these engines to the level of a game developer. I guess that's why you are looking interns with game develp/program experience ;-)

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

all very interesting.

 

you mentioned pulling information from Revit. i am curious to how streamlined your workflow is?

All very interesting.

 

You mentioned pulling information from Revit. I am curious to how streamlined your workflow is? What steps do you go through, and how much post Revit work is done?

 

As everyone who works in a firm, or has formal architecture training knows, ……design happens up to the last minute, the design is never finished, it is only frozen at certain points. How long is the process of taking the Revit information and transcoding it to the game engine? If it is more than a week tops (and I do mean tops,) the validity of real time as a interim presentation tool is not yet feasible.

 

The other concern I would have ……do you really want to give the client that much information? Everyone thinks they need all the information they can get, but often the less information presentated in a eloquent manner is better than lots of information pushed because you can.

 

Even with my concerns, I realize it is only a matter of time (10-20 years I would guess) before we are doing true virtual environments in architecture. They early work that your firm is doing will be provide vital information for how this develops. I think we will see game engine developers that are similar to the Mental Ray/Vray/Maxwell engines of today. Where the game engine is highly integrated in the process at all stages. For it to truly work, applications like Revit and other BIM programs need to have objects that can work directly with the engine so you are not spending time coding door swings, and window swings. …and even better if the suppliers provide models of their equipment with everything already set up. Great artists and film makers never had to spend the time programming whether a door was open or shut, they simply open or shut the door.

 

I realize everything I mentioned above is already in development, but it is so complex that the development process is in its infancy. How many consultants do you have that can barely provide you with AutoCad drawings that are usable.

 

To make truly interactive environments flow seamlessly into design it is going to take a lot of people getting on board so we are not reinventing the wheel everytime we roll out the door.

 

Keep on truckin’.

[Spooner04]

In defense of the group at HKS....not that they need it.

 

 

IMO, HKS has always been doing some pretty interesting and cutting edge things. They did a presentation several years ago at the university I was attending and were pretty pivotal in my decision to pursue Arch. viz.

 

Arch Viz. firms all over the place have been doing RT for several years, so I think most people know that RT in arch viz is nothing new. I think where HKS is really knocking it out of the park, is with the scope of these projects. It's one thing to do RT of a blacony or the inside of a room, but HKS's projects are huge. I've seen several of their RT projects and they are very cool. Especially when seeing them on a large screen and not some rinky dink monitor. Its not fair to judge them by the stills that you see on their website. I drive by the under-construction stadium twice a day and it blows my mind to think of its complexity and the man hours that must have been put into developing that project. Design Developement, Marketing, Construction Documents, HKS Viz, etc. It will be interesting to see what you guys do with the unreal engine. Believe me when I say that there will be plenty of people watching.

 

 

The problem that we face is convincing the client to pay for it. I appreciate the offer "to correspond with anyone interested." Will anyone from your sales and marketing department be available? : D

[mrcamper]

Ok, being a gamer I have to ask - Do you guys ever take some of those projects.....

 

.....Yep, but they will never see the light of day in the public domain ......

 

Another (more serious) question - who runs the camera during the presentations?

 

....we do most of the driving, but there are clients that are very familiar with the games and "Get behind the wheel" so to say.

 

The herky-jerky motion and transitions on the demo video on the web site can cause motion sickness in most viewers (at least the 3 I've shown).

 

....slow is the name of the game there. If you get a "queezy" client keeping the motion slow alleviates the motion sickness affect.

 

Unreal 3, Gears of War and Bioshock are beautiful games with wonderful lighting and texturing (that use that engine). However, they take a long time (year ('s)) to develope with large teams pounding on them. How many people and how much time did it HKS take to do the Dallas Stadium for instance?

 

.....31 people in the 3d modeling/lighting/etc., 12 in 3d design support and 2 in Real-Time development and production

 

Most of the environments in those gorgeous games are in smaller settings, not large stadium sized environments. How does that factor into working with the engine, especially in regards to lighting?

 

....boosting polygon counts is where most of our 10+ years of in-house customization to the engine and development tools comes in and we have specially in-house developed tools to help with lighting

 

When I first read the article I was expecting to see quality achieved in those games and was dissapointed with what I saw, but I suspect it's because of those reasons.

 

...yep, we don't have the team size and we typically only work on the RT version of a model for a week or less

 

The last section of the Business Week article states "Visualation may even become part of the design process...". I'm not sure how using an interactive approach with a game engine facilitates the process better than what many of us are doing in-house with VRay and a render farm. In fact, because I use a system where I can achieve very realistic materials and light fast, from any view, render, remote view it along with other designers as it renders (usually under a minute), tweak - the design process is amazingly fast.

 

...having been in the design process for many years, this process speeds it along considerably

 

I think its great what you are doing - pushing the envelope. I think all of us have thought about the possibility and "what-if's" regarding using game engines for AEC visualizations, and you are doing it and that is awesome. However, like the article also states, it'll be a while before our industry masters these engines to the level of a game developer. I guess that's why you are looking interns with game develp/program experience ;-)

 

...yep!!! we are continually on the lookout for uber gamer architects

[mrcamper]

.........Will anyone from your sales and marketing department be available? : D

 

note: that would be me ......

[mrcamper]

You mentioned pulling information from Revit. I am curious to how streamlined your workflow is? What steps do you go through, and how much post Revit work is done?

 

......we are four years into our Revit processes, but we are still defining the way we use and integrate the "new" Revit way and will be for some time to come. As far as the Revit to Game Engine issues we are wortking directly with Autodesk on this and they are being "Very" responsive to this and our gmae engine efforts.

 

As everyone who works in a firm, or has formal architecture training knows, ……design happens up to the last minute, the design is never finished, it is only frozen at certain points. How long is the process of taking the Revit information and transcoding it to the game engine? If it is more than a week tops (and I do mean tops,) the validity of real time as a interim presentation tool is not yet feasible.

 

....the iterative nature of architectural design is exactly why we work like crazy to limit our "build" time to a week or less in the production of our RT 3d environments.

 

 

The other concern I would have ……do you really want to give the client that much information? Everyone thinks they need all the information they can get, but often the less information presentated in a eloquent manner is better than lots of information pushed because you can.

 

....hehe, a continuous debate here.... at the highest levels, but the more open and complete design communication designers are winning out due to more sophisticated clients.

 

Even with my concerns, I realize it is only a matter of time (10-20 years I would guess) before we are doing true virtual environments in architecture. They early work that your firm is doing will be provide vital information for how this develops. I think we will see game engine developers that are similar to the Mental Ray/Vray/Maxwell engines of today. Where the game engine is highly integrated in the process at all stages. For it to truly work, applications like Revit and other BIM programs need to have objects that can work directly with the engine so you are not spending time coding door swings, and window swings. …and even better if the suppliers provide models of their equipment with everything already set up. Great artists and film makers never had to spend the time programming whether a door was open or shut, they simply open or shut the door.

 

yea buddy! there are a lot of people in a lot of adjacent industries all tied to the ttechnologies that will make all this happen already working on solutions to all these criteria.

 

I realize everything I mentioned above is already in development, but it is so complex that the development process is in its infancy. How many consultants do you have that can barely provide you with AutoCad drawings that are usable.

 

....few. very few.

 

To make truly interactive environments flow seamlessly into design it is going to take a lot of people getting on board so we are not reinventing the wheel everytime we roll out the door.

 

Keep on truckin’.

 

...will do, but in RT.

[mrcamper]

ever considered crytek's cryengine2 for interactive archvis?

 

yes... we could not easily (quickly) import the model sizes we have, but the engine does offer VERY compelling imagery

 

cryengine 2 has some more advanced dynamic lighting features with convincing realtime shadows and even some realtime ambient occlusion which really improves visual quality a lot.

 

a french company IMAGTP http://www.imagtp.com/uk/ had already licenced cryengine 2 for realtime visualisations and their results so far are really impressive. look at their yacht-show-video. the realtime shadows are really stunning, and there is nothing prebaked. also have a look at their demoreel:

 

http://www.imagtp.com/videos/IMAGTP.mov

 

i think the subtle light/object interactions are the most important factor for making a visualisation more life-like. although cryengine 2 doesn't support any realtime GI-lighting, the approximations with ambient occlusion etc. are already a big step forward in visual quality compared to the other 3d-engines.

 

...I have seen the Cryengine technology hands-on, but we deceided to stick with Unreal. We have spoken to the Crytek people at length and I will certianly be keeping an eye on how they progress with the engine in regards to 3d model presentations

[mrcamper]

And, HKS's clients are taking them up on the new technology -

including the Dallas Cowboys and Gatehouse Development (developer of the

W hotels), at a cost that ranges from $65,000 to $150,000 per project

based on the project scope.

 

This was what I based my comment on regarding the Neoscape animation. Of course architects are cheap, myself being an architect. All joking aside, architects usually don't have it in their fee to produce marketing renderings. They still need to show their design to the clients. This real time solution would work for that purpose. I'm just shocked at the notion that someone pays $65,000 to $150,000 for something so lifeless.

 

well....not once in the last 10+ years of showing these little worlds has anyone described the presentation as lifeless. I have never had a negative reaction from a client. I have had the project design architect and/or the project manager be massively, unbelievably critical, but, oddly, never the client.

 

However, I must say it is a different perception being at the live show, in front of the screen and interacting with the client. The stills on the website just don't convey the ""presence"" or what ever you'd call it and I have not found a good way to demonstrate that online on the website. The avi's on the portfolio at http://www.archengine.org is the best that I can offer to date..... any suggestions??

[oluv]

The avi's on the portfolio at http://www.archengine.org is the best that I can offer to date..... any suggestions??

 

give us some executables!

[aaron-cds]

The avi's on the portfolio at www.archengine.org is the best that I can offer to date..... any suggestions??

 

The avi's are fine. It's the still renderings that look like scanline / accurender renderings from 1995 that are completely lifeless. That's the weak link in your product. As others said, it's good that you're breaking new ground. If you could do this with realistic lighting and textures, I would be impressed.

[mrcamper]

The avi's are fine. It's the still renderings that look like scanline / accurender renderings from 1995 that are completely lifeless. That's the weak link in your product. As others said, it's good that you're breaking new ground. If you could do this with realistic lighting and textures, I would be impressed.

 

 

We never distribute still renders from the real-time environments. Any stills that might be printed or displayed come from the normal 3DS MAX or MAYA production pipeline..... we only display the interactive environments from the game engine.

[frazer]

All looks very impressive. Definitely looks like the way things should head, and alot more useful for clients to understand how the building could work.

 

I think it would be nice to see what could be produced on a smaller scale project, after what you have learned/developed so far.

 

Also do you use it for early concept ideas so as to show clients around different variations of the building, I imagine since you are using revit, quick and simply early development models from revit would be of great benefit to clients. If you so, is there any eamples of early development work.

[mrcamper]

frazer,

 

yes, here is an example of a Sketchup model brought in using our in-house application, the "APE" (automated programming environment), this allows first person visuals to be used at the earliest stages in the design process.....