Interactive Visualizations and You...

[tehquickness]

I have worked with two firms recently regarding interactive architecture visualizations. One of these a very very large architecture firm, and the other is a pretty small firm.

 

I know that interactive vizualization and real time rendering is going to be a big up and coming concept for this industry, but what I dont know is how many people are looking to make the jump. I am currently developing methods and strategies to put 3d models into game engines like Unity3d or UnrealEngine.

 

I am primarily wondering how interested the archviz community would be in learning these processes? Is this something that would be valuable for you to learn and be able to offer clients? What is your prefered way to learn? Ebook? Screencasts, both?

 

Any comments questions or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[XKP]

hey ryan,

 

I am investigating the same question, right now i am doing an internship for a game studio that is looking to develop a software product especially for the architecture branch to do just that (make interactive visualizations). Maybe we can help each other out here by exchanging some information. I put a small 10 question survey online to try and figure out what it is that people expect from such a software product. The better this is defined the easier it is for other companies, and i know there are a lot of them that are either working on something already or are thinking of doing it, to make the step of investing and developing a great new product that can take our visualization capabilities to the next level.

[troymcclure]

I myself have been planning on doing this in my area (NC). I have quite a bit of experience in unreal 3 engine and maya/photoshop.

 

I think this is a natural evolution, from static 3d renders to flythru animations, and now to interactive environments..

 

I would be interested in checking out the survey you complied if possible.

[XKP]

Hey wes,

 

I made a seperate post on this forum where I link to my survey

 

here:

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/39144-what-do-you-want-architectural-vr-software.html

 

I am happy to hear you'd like to participate.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me

[hkbasravi]

I'm also very interested in this. I await the day that a visualization deliverable is an interactive walkthrough environment. Probably would require a lot of rendering to texture, and the raytracing quality wouldn't be what we're used to seeing in animations,

 

but it would be great to add subtle details of an environment, like the changing sound of footsteps between a hardwood and a carpetted floor. Or the ability to turn on a radio that's set up as an interactive prop. Or to give the option for the viewer to interactively pick his/her own finishes and light filters.

 

I can totally see a software being developed as we speak that will integrate true acoustical characteristics with interactive 3D environments.

[XKP]

hey Haider,

 

Well like you said "I can totally see a software being developed as we speak that will integrate true acoustical characteristics with interactive 3D environments." as we speak I am doing an internship for a game studio and a visualization studio who are thinking of developing such a product. It's my job to find out if there is any demand from the arch viz branch and if so what it is they would want from such a software product. It's for that exact reason that I am holding a survey here on CGA.

 

The input we receive from the community is very useful for any company that is trying to get a product out there, or thinking about it, that is focused on the arch viz market.

 

So if u haven't allready and u'd like to contribute to the development of such a software product then please fill in my survey.

 

[Devin Johnston]

I think arch viz is naturally going to gravitate to this type of technology once the image quality is at an acceptable level. The problem with the game engines right now is they are to difficult to use and they don't fit in with the work flow of most illustrators. You also need to consider how you will distribute the VR, it needs to be usable by anyone without having to preload software. The ideal situation would be some kind of plugin for your 3D app. that would at least use some of the work that was already done to a model for a rendering or animation. Minimizing the amount of additional work and reusing existing assets would be very important.

[Dave Buchhofer]

How useful it is really depends on how you use it. (did i really just type that out?) As to how I prefer to learn, by breaking things, and fixing them!

 

for straight visualizing of static geometry, I tend to agree the visual fidelity isn't quite up to par, nor is the workflow in most use cases I've tried. workflow and re-usability of existing content being much more of an issue than the visual looks in my opinion. (Good news, as many many things can be automated via scripting of one sort or another, Bad news [or good!], this leaves a lot of people out to dry while toolset providers start to see that we can have a market here.)

 

but if you can build yourself around a method where either:

A: the Client is providing the content, and you are providing a service (See: Autodesk Showcase/Newport type projects)

B: You are also providing a useful service (Be it space planning, layouts, configurations, etc) (3dvia Space type system)

C: quick visualization of "options" and the easy ability to view many viewpoints of various designs