Michael J. Brown Posted October 28, 2008 Share Posted October 28, 2008 I have a client that is intertaining the idea of having me produce an interactive architectural walkthrough - instead of a typical multi-media one. I have never created one before. Can someone please give me a basic "Interactive Media 101" crash education on this? What type (and specific title) of software do I need to be working in? Is this something I can create the base file of in 3dsMax, then export to some 3rd-party title for translation into interactive media? What are some of the common down-sides to interactive presentations? Will my scenes look are real in this format as they would in a traditional walkthrough of photo-realistic quality? Thanks a ton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieLeon Posted October 28, 2008 Share Posted October 28, 2008 We have used Quest3D in the past. This is an exporter for 3ds Max. The results are pretty good. I think there is another post here that mentioned VRay has a real-time version also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael J. Brown Posted October 28, 2008 Author Share Posted October 28, 2008 We have used Quest3D in the past. This is an exporter for 3ds Max. The results are pretty good. I think there is another post here that mentioned VRay has a real-time version also. Thanks. I'll look that up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antisthenes Posted October 28, 2008 Share Posted October 28, 2008 (edited) I've used Cult3d to do this before http://cult3d.com linking camera paths, packing textures to objects, defining a bounding box of limitations, adding interactivity to objects, letting users freely peruse around use exporter or just save as .co(cult object) and then add interactivity in designer sophie3d is something new to view OBJ's in a real-time flash environment http://www.sophie3d.com/website/index_en.php Edited October 28, 2008 by Antisthenes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael J. Brown Posted October 29, 2008 Author Share Posted October 29, 2008 Thanks, Jonas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophie3D Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 From Sophie3D support: Sophie 3D currently works best displaying a model's exterior surfaces. It can work with interiors but we are currently trying to improve this aspect of the program. We will have this function ready for the next release of the free web player. The principal advantage of Sophie3D is that for your client they would not need to download an additional browser plug-in to view your model as the program runs in flash. A good advantage for you is that the client would have to go to your website to view the model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael J. Brown Posted October 29, 2008 Author Share Posted October 29, 2008 From Sophie3D support: Sophie 3D currently works best displaying a model's exterior surfaces. It can work with interiors but we are currently trying to improve this aspect of the program. We will have this function ready for the next release of the free web player. Hmmmmm. When will the next release drop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 The best I have seen so far is Quest, though I have only seen it in these YouTube videos, so maybe it looks like crap on full screen.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieLeon Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 Nope. They also look great at full screen. I saw some jaw-dropping demos at the Quest3d booth at Siggraph 2007. The atmospherics are amazing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Buchhofer Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 (edited) yea Quest can be pretty sweet, its got a low barrier to entry in terms of programming for the basics (importing, baking, camera usage, and has good tutorials, even though the documentation is pretty weak), but it allows you to get as deep in as you want into "taking it to the next level" in terms of shaders and whatnot. and its relatively cheap! Also on the horizon is Unity3d.com still only mac authoring based (But plays on all platforms) but they announced recently the windows development version. ^thats the one i've got my eye on. until then I'm pretty invested in Virtools but i do more along the lines of 'configuration and product sales tools' irregardless of the fact that i'm based in an arch firm lol.. go figure Edited October 29, 2008 by Dave Buchhofer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieLeon Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 Wow...that Unity3d iPhone app rocks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophie3D Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 From Sophie3D Support: The next release is programmed for January. This should include the interior modeling and interactive aspects. Sophie works on Adobe's Flash as a universal web platform and so you will not achieve the results you can achieve with a closed system such as Quest3D. Quest3D have a good examples page that shows what their impressive software can do - sorry I can't post the link yet (even though it is for another software company) but I found it by going to architecture, products, demos and movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjornkn Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 What about Wirefusion from Demicron? I think it looks pretty good. Never used it for real, but tried it a few years ago; it seemed to work fine for interactive walk-arounds, both interiors and exteriors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronll Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 Wow...that Unity3d iPhone app rocks! What am I missing here? I don't see that at the Apps store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-rockZ Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Hello... I am excited that there is a 3D community out there that has so much useful info. I am looking forward to contributing and learning through future posts. I also want to take our client presentations to the next level. I have a few questions for any quest 3D users. 1.) what are hardware requirments to run this software. For modeling and to generate walkthroughs. 2.) How long does it take for Quest 3D to generate interactive walkthroughs? 3.) I am a self taught formZ user. How easy is it to import/export models with Quest3D 4.) besides the website what are some other resources that would help a beginner. Thanks again all! ~ Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Buchhofer Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 (edited) the basic problem inherent in all of these interactive 3d software is one that there is currently no realistic solutions for 'realtime' high quality lighting. so what you end up doing is "Baking" your lighting into textures that are applied to your mesh, or baking radiosity into your mesh vertex's. there are different levels of quality that you can work this out at. the most basic being automatic unwrapping and using max's Render To Texture command. working up from there to manual unwrapping and painted textures on TOP of the output from the render to texture at the "high end" (What they do for games type work) while also maintaining a lower resolution "collision volume" when working in larger projects. Now, by default this isn't exactly a very easily repeatable process, and is pretty destructive to meshes and materials in general. so for architecture, which has a very very high turnover rate for design changes, you (I) find yourself in the basic problem of lead time, and the difficulty of freezing a design early enough to allow time to process an interactive scene, and import it to your package of choice. Now, from there, different packages have different options available in terms of "default" realtime camera navigation. from what i've noticed, the better default cameras available, the less customizable both the camera and the overall system is to adding interactivity. let me specify that interactivity is a very very wide term and can mean to me anything from opening doors, to realtime IK and character control. theres more problems and issues that have caused this to not really take off.. because, truthfully, the options available now for interactive 3d are nearly identical to the options available for the past 6 years, the difference? the statistical low end video card has gotten faster, which allows us to push interactive 3d much further now than say, when we had to fit all textures within 32mb of vram on a salesman's laptop. Edited October 31, 2008 by Dave Buchhofer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieLeon Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 What am I missing here? I don't see that at the Apps store. It's not at the Apple app store. It's at http://www.Unity3d.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now