hockley91 Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 Hey all. I've seen the Fallingwater (half life engine) First person environment. I'm trying to figure out why Autodesk has not jumped on the UDK, Ogre and Unity engines for development inside 3DS Max and other Autodesk products. I've seen Project Newport, but I'm not sold on that yet. The online presentation went too smoothly and we all know things don't go that smoothly when we integrate different software with each other. I'm sure it'll get it's kinks out. I remember messing with Gmax a number of years ago and I was hoping things would progress so by 2010 we would all be using a first person environment for client and office presentations. It seems to me that this is the way to go beyond static 3D renderings and pre-determined camera paths for animations. So many times after I've rendered an animation, the boss or client would have liked to have seen other rooms and other areas of the project. I've been banging my head with the UDK development kit and it's been frustrating because it doesn't work the same way as 3DS Max does and it is very tempermental...at least for me it is. has anyone tried to progress this idea into a project pipeline and been succesful with it? I've seen some sites already that look promising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koper Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 do you have any links of refr. Very Interesting, we've just started doing some stuff with the crytek engine 3 for viz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 (edited) I've been testing scenes with the Quest3d engine, but if you're looking for the quickiest route, I would recommend to stick with the Autodesk Design Review software as opposed to other engines. I've been baking textures in max and then using the export to DWF option to create explorable files. The viewer is a free download from Autodesk if the client doesn't use autodesk software that would have installed it already. The following link is a stripped down version of a patient room that I've been using to demonstrate the capability to people outside the office since I can't release the full populated scenes. http://www.envisage26.com/dwf/patroom_example.dwf (3mb) (viewer download) http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=12423405 Edited February 22, 2010 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jinsley Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 VERY COOL Brian... I have used QTVR to produce something like this... but this would be great to use and a step beyond what I am currently doing... how much time does it typically take to do the texture baking? I have done a little in the past but nothing on this scale, only single objects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cupsster Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 VERY COOL Brian... I have used QTVR to produce something like this... but this would be great to use and a step beyond what I am currently doing... how much time does it typically take to do the texture baking? I have done a little in the past but nothing on this scale, only single objects. in good quality it usualy take too long to not lost sanity :DD fut farming can solve that.. usually most pain in the ass is unwrapping. quality unwrap is counting but it's nothing that can be fully automated.. look on polycount forums http://boards.polycount.net/ for examples of quality unwrap, texture space utilisation and general talk.. it's different from usual archviz techniques but they have many in common.. i'm also digging in it right now.. xD otherwise straightforward process... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 22, 2010 Author Share Posted February 22, 2010 Here's the Fallingwater animation and half life engine version: http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/2008/07/frank-lloyd-wright-fallingwater.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 22, 2010 Author Share Posted February 22, 2010 Brian, that looked great in Design Review! I have not even touched that yet, but I'm going to try and do a test in that also. Were all your textures all done through Revit? I just checked out Esperient Creator. That looks promising also. I can't get Quicktime VR to work in the 64 bit environment. I had been using that for visualization techniques, but it's just as well so I can check out some newer technologies. I meant to put this thread in the Real Time Viz...but I accidentally placed it here...but thanks for chiming in guys! I'd like to see what we can all do in the coming weeks and months! Anyone going to Siggraph this year in 2010? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 (edited) Texture baking is painless, once you develop a good workflow. I can prep most scenes in a day...optimize geometry, remove extra exterior faces that aren't seen, and collapse objects, render overnight and finalize the next morning. (maxscripting is your friend for repetitive tasks) As to not hijack this thread I'll leave it at that.... if interested I'll post another thread outlining the workflow I use. (PS. automatic unwrapping saves you a lot of time!) I can't get Quicktime VR to work in the 64 bit environment. Yup that's always been a hiccup to running 64bit. You can still generate your QTVRs on a 64bit machine but to play them back I would recommend using DevelVR (free player) http://www.devalvr.com/paginas/productos/index.html Were all your textures all done through Revit? Most of our models start in revit or archicad, are brought into 3dsmax lit and textured with Vray, and baked within max. Edited February 22, 2010 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jinsley Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 ... As to not hijack this thread I'll leave it at that.... if interested I'll post another thread outlining the workflow I use. ... I am definitely interested if you have the time... it would be much appreciated. I have found some video tuts on the net, but to get your perspective and work flow would help a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cupsster Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 (edited) (maxscripting is your friend for repetitive tasks) (PS. automatic unwrapping saves you a lot of time!) yep that's true.. i personaly develop and scripted my entire pipeline for unwprapping via maxscript.. its quite huge and complicated system right now but it's working like it should.. one thing to pass is still human factor and supervision over scripts that i can't somehow go over it can be very autonomous but not fully autonomous... keep that in mind.. also you can check my [not] first try here http://www.4blackcolors.sk/realtime-vr/2011/church-light Edited March 3, 2011 by cupsster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Buchhofer Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Yea, scripting is king for this one so far.. it should be automated enough soon though, seems to be at least steady progress on that front, but its not there yet! some of my experiments are at http://www.ewingcoledmg.com/labs/ some better than others, all depending on how long i got to play before work caught up again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonRashid Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 http://www.unrealtechnology.com/case-studies.php?ref=cowboys-stadium I am currently working with a student converting one of my larger projects to the Unreal Engine for his final year project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrogbot Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Have you tried blender's game engine? Blender is a free opensource 3d modeler, renderer and animation package. it also has a scriptable interactive standalone game engine. i think the engine is based on ogre, and the physics use bullet the website is at blender dot org chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 The following link is a stripped down version of a patient room that I've been using to demonstrate the capability to people outside the office since I can't release the full populated scenes. If you don't mind, or perhaps in your new thread... What is the max poly count with playing smoothly, and video card on which it worked? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 23, 2010 Author Share Posted February 23, 2010 -Cupsster- That Tadao Ando site was impressive. How long did it take to model and create that interactive model? That is perfect for a client and here in the office for people to navigate throughout a project. -Dave- Your experiments have turned out pretty successful in my opinion. Have these actually been used with the client and your office? Has it helped with new ideas on the building design or was it already passed that point. I haven't messed with Blender at all. I have it on my machine though. I was messing around with Design Review last night and I was trying to get the "wiimote" tool to work with my wii controller. I checked it out at Autodesk Labs and I followed the instructions and everything, but it just didn't work for me. So, I researched some more and found this program called "Glovepie" and it's supposed to allow you to customize any input device with Windows. So, you could customize the "wii" or some other controller to work with your 3D interface. I have a PC game controller at home and I'm going to try and mess with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braddewald Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Has anybody checked out UNITY? I remember somebody on the forum bringing it up a couple months back. I messed around with it, but it seemed kind of shaky when it came to importing geometry. Anybody have any luck? What would you say is the best way to make a first person arch-viz game-style walk-through? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 I have the UDK Development kit. It's free, but now I'm messing more with Design Review at the moment and we're attempting to create some type of workflow with Revit/3DS Max/Design Review for our projects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 Texture baking is painless, once you develop a good workflow. I can prep most scenes in a day...optimize geometry, remove extra exterior faces that aren't seen, and collapse objects, render overnight and finalize the next morning. (maxscripting is your friend for repetitive tasks) Does it take an entire evening to texture bake? I was messing with that yesterday and it's been taking a long time. Do you end up reducing the texture sizes to speed things up a bit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jinsley Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 I have the UDK Development kit. It's free, but now I'm messing more with Design Review at the moment and we're attempting to create some type of workflow with Revit/3DS Max/Design Review for our projects. After looking at Brian's project in design review, and having it spotted by a passing partner, we are currently investigating this also... here is my first quick little attempt to teach myself baking and try and get a feel for the process. I can see were maxscript becomes your friend very quickly with this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 Yep, some of us here got really excited about that patient room in Design Review. Now, I got my Logitech Dual Action gamepad connected to my PC and I'm using it to navigate through the environment via Logitech gaming software! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cupsster Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 (edited) Now, I got my Logitech Dual Action gamepad connected to my PC and I'm using it to navigate through the environment via Logitech gaming software! Connecting HID devices is usually effortless no big deal cause they have native support in os's for long time now.. Texture baking is painless, once you develop a good workflow. I can prep most scenes in a day...optimize geometry, remove extra exterior faces that aren't seen, and collapse objects, render overnight and finalize the next morning. (maxscripting is your friend for repetitive tasks) That could be true but for simple scenes with very few geometry and final game logic.. How is your polycount in that case when quoted message is true and what 3D package are you using Brian? Edited February 24, 2010 by cupsster typo :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted May 24, 2010 Author Share Posted May 24, 2010 Thought I'd give an update here. I've stopped messing with UDK at the moment. Our office has been pleased with the results created with Autodesk Design Review 2011. What I've been able to do now (with quite pleasing results) is importing the REVIT file into Max and texture baking. Right now, I'm re-texturing in 3DS Max. It's just easier at this point in time to do it that way. I was using the flatiron plugin, but the 3DS Max built in plugin seems to be working just fine also. (I have been playing with the Revit 2011 trial and the 3DS Max 2011 trial and have found that they have worked out many kinks and file linking with the exported FBX file has been working great. The texture options in Revit are much more useable now and I will be texturing in Revit once we get the new software.) Being able to navigate a texture baked building and site in realtime has been breathtaking for those at the office and consultants that we have been showing it to. We are really pushing realtime Viz into our production pipeline. At the same time we are developing integrating building information into these environments through Design Review. So, not only will you be able to navigate through the environment, you will be able to extract building information from it as well. So, owners will have a better idea of what materials will be used and such. We have been working on this since January and we're trying to implement it officially into the office pipeline, but we are still testing it out with current projects. So the 3D model has a more active role in the project development and not just a toy or animation for the client. It is actually useable and serves a function towards the actual development of the project. I have to thank Brian Kitts for some inspiration there. The hospital room really helped us open our eyes to the current state of what we can do with current technology. Really pushing the limits with what we currently have has been really great for our thinktank here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted May 24, 2010 Author Share Posted May 24, 2010 Thought I'd give an update here. I've stopped messing with UDK at the moment. Our office has been pleased with the results created with Autodesk Design Review 2011. What I've been able to do now (with quite pleasing results) is importing the REVIT file into Max and texture baking. Right now, I'm re-texturing in 3DS Max. It's just easier at this point in time to do it that way. I was using the flatiron plugin, but the 3DS Max built in plugin seems to be working just fine also. (I have been playing with the Revit 2011 trial and the 3DS Max 2011 trial and have found that they have worked out many kinks and file linking with the exported FBX file has been working great. The texture options in Revit are much more useable now and I will be texturing in Revit once we get the new software.) Being able to navigate a texture baked building and site in realtime has been breathtaking for those at the office and consultants that we have been showing it to. We are really pushing realtime Viz into our production pipeline. At the same time we are developing integrating building information into these environments through Design Review. So, not only will you be able to navigate through the environment, you will be able to extract building information from it as well. So, owners will have a better idea of what materials will be used and such. We have been working on this since January and we're trying to implement it officially into the office pipeline, but we are still testing it out with current projects. So the 3D model has a more active role in the project development and not just a toy or animation for the client. It is actually useable and serves a function towards the actual development of the project. I have to thank Brian Kitts for some inspiration there. The hospital room really helped us open our eyes to the current state of what we can do with current technology. Really pushing the limits with what we currently have has been really great for our thinktank here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted May 24, 2010 Share Posted May 24, 2010 can we some images or the dwf file ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share Posted May 26, 2010 I'll post some progress shots. It's still developing so I can't show all of it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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