Vray RT concerns

[rhodesy]

OK, really not wanting to be a doom monger and I know this type of thing has been discussed before, most recently with the introduction of Mental Ray into Revit, but I do have some mild concerns with the up and coming release of Vray RT. Firstly I love being a visualiser and I love Vray, so the prospect of having near real time feedback as I tweak and test my scene is mouth watering.

 

As render engines get 'easier' does the visualiser profession suffer as architects or office juniors can produce quick and cost effective images for planning and possibly marketing that the client is satisfied with? When MR was integrated into Revit concerns were raised at the time that this would be the start of the end but it still relied on some rendering knowledge/skill and a lot of patience on the part of the user to get 'acceptable' results. How i feel vray RT differs is the fact that the realtime feedback may short cut the need for patience and lengthly trial and error and the user will be able to quickly stumble upon acceptable results rather than give up and hand it to a visualiser as they haven't the time. This is compounded by the fact that Vray itself produces beautiful GI results with a few simple presets as it is, so architects will instantly be able to use it as a light simulator and get good results. There's nothing like getting decent instant results for sparking interest in learning more rather than getting nowhere after half an hour and never touching it again!

 

There will always be a need for architectural presentation and it's our job to stay ahead of the pack and offer more advanced services but the fact remains that it will reach a point when anybody with half an interest in rendering will be able to produce useable photoreal still image results that the client can use and possibly all rolled into the fee for architectural services. I think this RT incarnation is definately a landmark along this exciting but slightly risky path for those in this profession.

 

Feel free to roll eyes and say here we go again!!;-)

Rob

[mattclinch]

"visualiser profession"?

 

if you label and market yourself as a "visualiser" are you not just saying you can use the tools commonly used to "visualise" projects? you worry that if the tools get simpler and easier to get good results then anyone can "visualise", so label yourself with something more in keeping with your abilities and talents. distiguish yourself from the office junior with a copy of vray. this profession is full of artists, not button pushing monkeys.

[LordRaven]

I think that this evolution has been quite predictable. In a few years from now everything will be rendered in real time, with a touch of a button.

This means that a lot "mainstream" clients will not ask for the services of a professional illustrator since the will be able to obtain acceptable results in-house.

I remember that when I first started doing this, there where no gi renderers and if you wanted to achieve a photo-real result you needed to use hundreds of omni lights, making use of the exclude option, ambient only, color etc.

There weren't to many around that could do this, so finding work was really easy back than.

Shortly after the first versions vray and brasil came out, things got a little harder; many architects started doing renderings in-house with acceptable results, and also freelancers from all over the world started to appear like mushrooms after the rain. This caused the prices of renderings to drop and finding work became a little bit more difficult.

 

I think that launch of real time renderings will have a similar effect, so it will make things even harder for architectural illustrators.

 

This profession will become more and more similar to photography. Everybody can make pictures (given the fact that the digital cameras are quite affordable) but not so many have the knowledge and artistic skills to make professional photos. Finding clients that understand this will be quite difficult though.

Needless to say that if you want to survive in this business you will need to focus on more artistic aspects (composition, color scheme, etc.);

 

Just my 2c

[rhodesy]

"this profession is full of artists, not button pushing monkeys"

 

Of course this is true that we are also artists but many artists die poor! You can be brilliant but if the client can get what he needs from an office junior for peanuts then money often talks. What im saying is that I think this RT functionality will make it much easier to reach that 'it'll do' stage. Also many architects are naturally artistic as thats probably what led them into the profession in the first place. Many also will be photographic hobbiests so I think that these people are more than capable of making artistic judgements, especially if the tools they can use are that much more accessible.

[Alex York]

agree with what's been said already. will add that the "it'll do" stage, rather than being just around the corner, was already met a while back, in my experience at least. you really do have to work hard to convince some clients these days that anything beyond a simple render will do. money really does talk. especially at the moment. in a year or so who knows what the situation will be.

 

we all need to find a USP, because with all these legally and ethically questionable chinese companies getting stuck into the UK market (and abroad of course), offering average quality work (which is adequate for many clients) at an insultingly low cost, devaluing our profession, we should all be worried. it might only be a passing fad during the recession, or it might be a long-term thing. either way it's a problem.

 

that said there will always be clients who want the best and are willing to pay for it. just a case of finding and keeping them.

 

so long as software never reaches the stage where it is suggesting compositions and times of day there will always be the post-render work that architects lack the skill to do or simply the time to do. even with a photographic, design AND architectural background an architect will still have to have the necessary post skills to pull off a great image.

[Iain Denby]

What's interesting is that this 'fear' occurred several years ago, when us oldies were concerned with the new whippersnappers coming into the profession and pressing buttons to get good results easily.

 

Technology has moved on since, but those whippersnappers have now taken our place and are now the ones with exactly the same concerns.

[Hugh_Compton]

your concerns are well warranted but not just because visualisation is becoming easier. i'm a water feature CAD operator who has done some fairly basic animations for clients. developments in CAD software is giving me the ability to produce drawings much faster. as i become more efficient at producing drawings and thus have more time on my hands it is my intention to do more animations. i'm sure there are lots of CADies hoping to move in on visualisations as they are fun to work on

Edited May 21, 2009 by Hugh_Compton

[kippu]

if i remember correctly , maxwell and after that evermotion arch scenes were supposed to "kill" the arch viz people

[axezine]

My answer to all of these concerns has always been: "Bring it on!"

 

I mean, if these new tools allow pretty much everyone to make images that are "good enough" then it should allow a seasoned visualization artist to push the envelope that much more. It's true that some of the work might be "lost" to the architects doing their own studies and what not, now that it's easier, but the new tools also allow us to redefine the high-end - no matter how cheap those new chinese or indian cars might get, I'm pretty sure Mercedez' and BMW's will keep selling. Sure, the market might get a little smaller but at the same time clients keep needing better and better tools to differentiate themselves from the "mass" and that's where high-end visualization will always have a role. I think if one worries about the new and "improved" low-end eating into one's business it's only because you're not pushing the envelope and innovating enough.

 

Just my $0.02

 

Jorge

[BrianKitts]

Another new product shaking up the industry is nothing new, and I only see it as something that will change the direction of the industry not something that will end it. If you don't evolve with the changing of times then you will die out, that's just the nature of evolution (yes I'm speaking to technology)

 

As if the poor economy isn't enough the prevalence of the "good enough" mindset is something that I see shrinking the market for solo freelancers and smaller visualization firms. More and more firms are staying in house for visualization which means only the best are going to stay afloat. I like the BMW metaphor, the underlying tone that must be realized however is that BMW survives because of quality design. As the market has become flooded it's just more important to stand out above the rest.

 

This all leads to my final point about the term visualizer that's getting thrown around. I hate it. When people ask me what I do I tell them I'm an architectural illustrator, for the specific reason that I feel it carries a tone the alludes to artistic side of what we do. My company title is Visualization Coordinator, such that I manage the workflows and standards of rendering for all of our offices, because that's the technical software side I'm okay with the term in that case. But as for the task of what I actually create for projects I don't feel visualization is the right word to cover it. Monkey's pushing buttons to me is what I think of visualization, such that it has become easier for anyone to generate a renderings, and yes the straight out of the box quality of rendering applications is growing but it's dire to remember that it's the artistic side of what we do that can set you apart from the masses.

 

Just my 7 cents.

Edited May 21, 2009 by BrianKitts

[Devin Johnston]

It may be that because of this new technology we do fewer stills but luckily animations are still very hard for the average architect to produce. In the last few years the number of animations I've done has increased steadily while renderings seem to have leveled off. I see this trend continuing and VR will only help me produce better imagery in either case.

[John Dollus]

this isn't even really a new product or methodology - it just means you get faster feedback. in over 20 years, there have been much more significant changes and yet there's still a good demand for quality work. Funny, I started doing a lot more animation work after Lightscape was ported to NT from SGI as it seemed so easy to get photoreal results that everyone would be able to create stunning renderings.

[manta]

I think Devin makes a great point...the reason we (everybody) don't do animations is because they take too long...well if they don't take too long anymore, then they will replace still pictures as a whole...and who is better qualified to do animations...that's right we are !!

[rhodesy]

Yes that is a good point and i do hope this sort of tech translates through to animation production. It will breath some fresh air into animations which can be soul destroying at times as the frames become painfully slow the more bells and whistles we stick in.

 

Hopefully planners and clients will see the value in animations and start to ask for more of them and this would indeed help, and premiums could be charged for this service. It's also a lot easier to get animations wrong so that should help our domestic markets as communication is key. It's a lot harder to mark up/red line a movie than a still! But there is also the danger of them making do with half decent stills if they can get away with it.

[Iain Denby]

then they will replace still pictures as a whole...

 

What, like film and television did to photography? Don't think so.

[LordRaven]

In an economy where the construction industry is booming, this would make a valid point.

However, if the current state of the global economy doesn't improve, we would probably see a lot less animations around.

[Ricardo Eloy]

I think all this is kind of funny. I mean, there's tons of apps and tools out there that had the "potential to kill our industry". You see, Modo has had its real time renderer sind, I don't know, 2 years? Fry has this cool RT app where you can change materials, light intensity and all... Not to mention that when radiosity/GI was first introduced, many thought it would be the end of all the hard work, that anyone would be able to press "render" and voilá!

My point is: what we do is a kind of art. Not everyone is an artist. Architects don't have the time/will to sit in front of a computer and create a viz piece as we do. The clients will never take the time to model that specific damn couch model they want in their project, they will never spend hours unwrapping something to make the texture look good. That's our job and will always be.

On top of that, all RT apps take a lot, a real lot of work to be done prior to the RT goodness. I really don't see how all these advances could eventually kill us.

[Justin Hunt]

the easier it gets to get results , the harder we push it to get better results, this has been true since the beginning of time.

 

Mental ray in Revit didn't kill our industry , even though it was considered a one button push and your done. I am yet to see a truly acceptable render out of Revit. It is possible.

 

Why do you devalue your skills by letting software dictate how good you are?

 

There is a popular question about what Mozart would have thought or done with synthesizers? Personally I think he would have embraced and mastered them and continued to create the truly amazing works he had the genius to produce.

 

jhv

[mahorela]

Lighting quality is just the beginning, I and I assume most others here can set up a decent lighting rig in Vray or MR in a matter of minutes. There is so much more to producing great renderings than lighting.

[M V]

Wouldn't an architect ask themselves the same question when they go into a Best Buy and see 3D Home Architect software for $50 on the shelf? Just because there is software out there that does cool amazing things in 3d, doesnt mean we are going to all be in the unemployment line. The work you lose out on, you aren't going to want anyway (clients that dont care, just need something to 'get er done').

 

I think clients are not only buying into our technical skills, they are also purchasing experience in perspective concepts, layout, art composition, etc. My goal(s) is to keep producing stuff that a client couldn't get "out of the box". Stay one step ahead, and you'll have plenty of work.

[dean@pikcells]

Threads like this make me laugh! Not because I arrogant or stubborn, but because they appear after any major leap in technology.

I think people who worry that their jobs are at risk because of advances in software need to probably look at what they are producing, and maybe shift direction or services they offer.

Until there's a computer that can read minds, and translate my imagination, understanding and skills straight onto a monitor, I wont be losing sleep.

[Nic H]

i will not lose sheep over this plugin

doenst work with layer visibility.

[WAcky]

Vlado's already got it down as a fix. I reckon a lot of major updates will be done by the end of june.

 

My reseller said the earlybird offer lasts for about a month and since I'm cashed up and the govt. is paying for half of it, i'm making sure I get it now...

[maryam]

This is why i always encourage people who does not have architectural degree, to not to think of going into archvis industry,as their permanent job.

 

forget about the experienced ones which their services will be respected and used by companies, new comers would face difficulties.

 

With majority of architectural students interested in 3d and visualization and architects realizing the importance of 3d softwares and rendering methods and graphics, on the other hand rendering methods getting more and more easier and more user friendly.

 

Architectural companies eventually will have all their staff inhouse, look at the books published by Ballistic there is always new names and they are all excellent individuals, there are so many individuals and many of them architects with architectural degrees, passionate for cg.

 

 

In past,Architects were avoiding to be called a renderer as they are designer,but it is going to be that, designers(young ones) should be good in renderings and 3d as it concerns light, material, proportions,graphics,especially as rendering is getting easier.

 

I think its just the matter of time.

[dean@pikcells]

This is why i always encourage people who does not have architectural degree, to not to think of going into archvis industry,as their permanent job.

 

Why? I don't have a degree in Architecture and in now way has this stopped me producing my work. Occasionally there may be some terminology that stumps me, but the architect client is only a phone call away.

 

Architectural companies eventually will have all their staff inhouse

 

This is only true to an extent. I doubt very much that every single architectural practice would be able to sustain a whole visualisation team for their own projects. They may have 1 or 2 people with knowledge of 3D to do in house visuals and to assist in the design process, but I would think they would struggle with the high end, high demand work that current visualisation studios produce on a daily basis.