LongMozart Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Hi. We all know that real-time architectural visualization has become more popular than It was a few years ago. However, I would like to hear some serious opinions from the people who work in the field. What I would like to discuss in this thread is the potential of realtime arch viz. Do you think that one day it will replace the traditional type of arch viz (pre-rendered images)? Currently, there are two main "disadvantages" of using realtime arch viz: The first disadvantage is that since the rendering is done in real-time, the visual quality has to be compromised. This means that real-time rendering tends to look much less photo-realistic than offline rendering using V-Ray and Mental Ray with full global illumination enabled. But as computers are getting more powerful according to Moore's Law, we will soon be able to achieve the V-Ray-like quality at strictly real-time frame rate. There are two products called V-Ray Realtime and I-Ray out there that can do real global illumination (not precomputed), however they are quite not strictly "real-time" yet unless the scenes are relatively simple and being rendered by many powerful processors working in parallel. The good thing about V-Ray RT and I-Ray is that even though they are not fully real-time at the moment, the frame rate is still high enough for the user to interact with the scenes. The second disadvantage concerns the workflow. Now if we don't use V-Ray RT and I-Ray but use some real-time 3D engine like Quest3D, Unity3D or CryEngine, the workflow tends to be time-consuming, since these engines are game engines or general-purpose engines, not architecture specific engines. This means that all the architecture data (i.e B.I.M data) are not interpreted in these engines and the designers have to do a lot of things by hands like setting up interactive animations, writting script ... The good news is that Autodesk is working on a project called Newport, which is basically a real-time game engine but it can work well with Revit and make uses of the BIM information within the Revit models. This can save a lot of time for the users. Unfortunately, I have not been able to found much information about project Newport. I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think that "real-time" is the future for architectural viualization? Do you suppose that clients should be given more freedom to interact with the designs and whether real-time arch viz can do this better than "pre-rendered" arch viz). Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spooner04 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 A good quest 3d artist can make a model that looks better than about 75% of the visualization and animations that get made. I think quality is almost a null argument at this point if someone wants to put in the time to get good enough in a real time app. I think the big hurdle right now is you've got a bunch of 40-50 year old architects and developers who's time was a bit before video games gained serious traction. As newer generations move into the market place interactive technology will gain more of a footing, imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Yes real time rendering is the future and it will become faster and cheaper as the hardware and software develops. The viz field has been moving in this direction since the first render engine came out, we're only now able to take advantage of everything we've learned and make it work. Next year we will see several different approaches to this problem and within a year or two I'd expect every render engine to have some kind of real time solution. Quality isn't an issue as everything I've seen looks just as good as an off line engine and really what would be the point of a real time solution if it's inferior to off line rendering. The only limiting factor in the near future will be resolution, interactively you don't need large resolutions but for print you will and that will probably mean switching to an off line engine to get your final product out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongMozart Posted November 21, 2009 Author Share Posted November 21, 2009 Thanks for your opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
postite Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I'm interested in Quest3D and I know the basics. But my projects are still a bit flat and not really attractive. Are there here some Quest masters that can tell how they learn this program? Is it like 3ds Max that we mainly learn by our self? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tayrona Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 This article is a little about this... http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/article/Architects-gear-up-for-real-time-visualisation/506534.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tayrona Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Another one http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/Article/Real-time-fly-throughs-to-slash-design-amends/507357.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Wonder what engine they were using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongMozart Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 Thanks for you responses. It seems that Quest3D is currently the most popular tool for real-time arch viz. I have not tried it myself but I have heard quite a few opposite opinions about its visual programming. Some (mostly people with no programming experience) says it is very hard to grasp, but the others say it is very intuitive and a very clever way to program without actually having to type the codes. I am using Esperient Creator at the moment, which is very easy to use but quite buggy. The development team is small but supportive. However, I have not seen any project done with Creator that has a huge number of polygons like some of those done by Quest3D so I am not quite sure about Creator's scalability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongMozart Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Wonder what engine they were using? If you are talking about the video Tayrona posted, they used Unigine, a very new engine developed on DirectX 10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcamper Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Hi all, I post from time to time to add to the discussion of real-time game engines being utilized in architecture and to share some of our experiences in the real-time architectural presentation arena. We are an entirely in-house development group using the Unreal engine (we are licensees) and not many people get the chance to see what we do. We started with version 1 and are now working with Unreal 3. That said, I am posting to answer a few of the points brought up in the first post. Our view of the two disadvantages "LongMozart" brought up: 1. We compete head to head with the Vray and Mental ray all the time and I believe we compare well next to them; all three produce visuals special in their own way. Considering we are rendering hundreds of views per second based on client input and their desires (the client typically does the driving) puts the client satisfaction level over in the real-time column. 2. This is a big issue, we have had to spend a lot of our time streamlining the workflow to make the 3d model input process into the real-time environment as seemless as possible and that is a definate budget consideration. Anyway, just some thoughts. Here is one of our recent Unreal 3 real-time environment images of the Dallas Cowboys stadium.... Good Luck in real-time!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongMozart Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 MrCamper, thanks for sharing your thoughts . I have heard about real-time Dallas Cowboy stadium a while ago but have never had a chance to see it, until now. The image you attached looks really nice, almost V-Ray/Mental Ray quality Is it possible to let us try the interactive file? I would love to see other works of yours as well. I am having a look at your blog and websites now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcamper Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 LongMozart, Here's a start showing some of the standard and real-time visualization stuff we do and as I get time I'll post more of the specific RT examples..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rFvSyBSIqI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 Which part was real time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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