Form-Z, Sketchup or 3D Max?

[klausscheppe]

Hello everybody,

 

I am new to this forum and I am not a 3D modeler myself but just invested in a 3D studio in China.

We now have a client who wants us to produce visuals in the style you find attached attached to this post.

They already have an freelance modeler making these retail shop renders for them and he uses Form-Z to produce them. He is however way too busy and that is why they contacted us.

The renderings are not used for presentation purposes but rather as a design tool and that is why they need them fast (within a day or 2 max.) and in high quantity.

We normally produce all out renders with 3D max & V-Ray but it seems we can not get the exact same look and definitely not as fast as the client's freelance modeler. We are experiencing that V-Ray is creating the renders "too realistic" and that is not what they want to go for. Sometimes they don't want to show certain things in reflection and lighting wise they want a look that has no direct light sources (see samples).

According to our experience with Max & V-Ray it seems that the rendering is taking way too long (Their own modeler seems to do it much quicker).

 

Our question is:

Is Form-Z really the best software to serve this client or would this be possible with for example SKP or 3D Max as well?

Please note we need to have the fastest production and rendering time and achieve a look like the reference images.

As there basically no one in China that knows/uses Form-Z we would welcome advise or alternative options.

 

Thanks in advance!!!

 

Klaus!

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45610[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]45611[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]45612[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]45613[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]45614[/ATTACH]

[Sketchrender]

I used Formz for 5 years loved it, but had to move to the industry standard to keep up with the latest technology.

Animation used to be a big no no in Formz.

My advise if the budget is there, is go for max and stay with it, as the user base is massive and the libraries are commercially available for it too.

[klausscheppe]

Thanks for your quick response!

 

We will definitely stick with Max but I am wondering whether we can server this particular client with Max as we have difficulties with:

1. The speed of rendering with V-Ray and speed of modeling for this particular client

2. Achieving the same style as the client has sent us. Seems we can't render the same style with V-Ray....

3. Form-Z apparently renders the images of the clients very quick and is also very suitable for renderings to serve design teams.

 

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!

Thanks!

[RyderSK]

Form-Z is just more accurate CAD modeller, with less complex rendering system in it.

 

You can achieve same style in Vray fast too, those images aren't anyhow different from basic vray renders without proper shaders

[klausscheppe]

Form-Z is just more accurate CAD modeller, with less complex rendering system in it.

 

You can achieve same style in Vray fast too, those images aren't anyhow different from basic vray renders without proper shaders

 

Thanks RyderSK!

It seems though that there are also no direct light reflections. All materials look like they don't have any lighting reflection or impact. They just show the way the material looks under evenly spread light somehow. Sorry for my ignorance but really could use some advice on this as we normally don't produce this type of "low realism" renders.

[RyderSK]

Well, from what I see at those images, there are both sharp and glossy reflections, although both very bad quality.

 

I think the look you're mentioning is from very large top lights, providing very diffuse overbright lightning to the space.

Try using large vray area shadows wherever you can to emulate the look. If you really want it to be non-photorealistic, you can also turn off direct light, reflections at vray settings. Or just under certain objects on scene in properties.

[Pictor]

using a vray ambient light with vray dirtmap nested in the lightmap slot and turning off indirect illumination should give you a similar look.

[klausscheppe]

Thanks a bunch!!

Any more advise is welcome! We are going to try it tomorrow!

How long rendering time you estimate for images like this made in this way in Max? We work with an i7 2600, 3.4 Ghz.

With Form-z the render time was apparently very short and that is why we were considering in using that software.

Thanks a lot already!!!

[Frosty]

I've used FormZ since 1997 and render has always been its weak point - poor quality and EXTREMELY slow. I have no idea why you think its faster than VRay.

 

Anyway, if you want to bridge the gap at a lower cost check out Bonzai 3D.

[klausscheppe]

Cost is not really the issue here. The problem is achieving this "look" / "style" which is the exact look this client wants. And we are struggling with doing it in the shortest possible time as it seems to take us too long compared to how fast their freelance guy does it with Form-Z. Not sure if it Form-Z modeling is faster or if the render time is shorter. We have no experience with this software but it does achieve the look and the speed for our client.

We would prefer to achieve this with Max if it can do it as fast and with the same look/style.

 

As I said before, all the help is welcome here!

[Sketchrender]

You will get a much better look than the images you have shown with max and vray.

As for accuracy, max is the same there is no difference , snaps and units , all the same .

I went from Formz to max and had no trouble with accuracy.

[Trick]

I really can't see the problem. I use FormZ, VRay/MAX and although VRay can do way better then FormZ, the FormZ style can be simulated perfectly using VRay, rendering images around a few minutes. You could simply place the whole scene in a Studio-Lighting setup with non-shadow casting lights and use ambient occlusion. But this is just one way to do it. You can even try simple standard rendering or a combination of both. VRay is not JUST a renderer for realistic images, you just have to use it's basic features a bit more creatively .... and then there is also Photoshop and rendering in layers

 

I've had clients who liked screengrabs straight from 3dsmax more then perfectly realistic renders :)

Edited November 9, 2011 by Trick

[Exellite]

Why use vray at all? These renders are terrible, I would use scaline renderer, standard materials, and a few crappy Max lights! Should produce a similar quality and render out very quickly.

 

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[Scott Schroeder]

Why even use Max? SketchUp Free. Awful renders, awful fast.

 

Seriously, Vray is overkill to use to produce quick and dirty renders like you want to.

 

I think it'd take you less time to ditch this client and find one who actually cares about image quality. This is more R&D into making a turd than most studios put into making photo-real.

[Justin Hunt]

In early design stages it makes no sense to go photoreal, designs change and are decisions are influenced by the images, therefore becomes a very important tool. As such being able to offer this level of quality and speed as a service can give you a foot in the door for the more pretty marketing images. Based on an hourly rate can also be quite a nice earner.

 

Now Vray can work very nicely in these situations, just dial down the settings to give the speed and simplicity. Have basic material settings (ie no glossie reflections etc).

 

Later down the line when its time to do the pretty images, just crank up the quality, tweak the materials and away you go.

 

jhv

[Trick]

...This is more R&D into making a turd than most studios put into making photo-real.

 

Now that's why I have all these great and thankful clients

[Fernando Lino]

The look of the renderings is one part of his question, for the second one I would use SU, It's super fast for modeling and pretty easy to learn, you could export to max or using those rendering engines inside SU.

 

Fernando

[M V]

My vote is SketchUp and one of the cheaper rendering engines like LightUp so you get that less accurate feel. I could model and render those images in 2 days in SU. It does come down to proficiency though.

[paulhunnicutt]

You have probably made a decision already as this thread is old. But give the FormZ 7.0 beta version a try. Still a few kinks to work out, but it works quite well. Models very fast - think Sketchup, but with real solid modeling and much better controls. Plenty of quick and dirty render options. Also the beta is free to try out. Very different than the previous FormZ versions (6.7 and below). Exports fine as a DWG file to 3DSmax. Though exporting NURBS is difficult, but that is the case with any NURBS to Quad mesh translation I believe.

 

 

Paul Hunnicutt

As One Architecture Boulder Architect

www.asONEarchitecture.com