enscape use?

[John Dollus]

anyone using enscape for their workflow? We are finding it much easier to get our revit users to use it for generating navigable spaces than getting our Max/unreal users to produce similar work.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Well to be fair, Enscape is not the same than Unreal, it may look similar in some instances but it is a totally different tool.

Having said that Enscape can produce pretty decent images/presentations. We have used a few times here but most of our REVIT users do not put much time on materials inside of REVIT.

[Scott Dombrowski]

We just picked up an Oculus Rift and I've been doing some R&D with different ways to get models and scenes into the headset. The "one click wonders" like Enscape, Revit Live, and IrisVR do make it very easy to walk around your Revit model. The downside is that you get to see exactly how well (or not) your Revit model was created. Enscape's real-time rendering capabilities look visually better than IrisVR, but IrisVR lets you toggle your model's layers on and off and do markups on the model while wearing the headset. I haven't gotten a chance to muck around with Revit Live much yet, but the one model I converted seemed to work pretty well.

 

John & Francisco, you both use Enscape. What lead you to chose that over the other Revit VR plugins, or do you use more than one? How much do you use it for internal design review versus external presentations? If you make the decision to do a client presentation, how much extra time do you budget to polish up your Revit models?

[Chris MacDonald]

We have just invested in a single licence of enscape that we have hooked up in our main meeting room with an HTC vive - it's a very immersive experience, the motion tracking is spot on. The only thing I would say is that Enscape doesn't look great - it's like you're taking a step back 10 years in terms of graphical quality, but this is mitigated somewhat by the "immersiveness" of the experience.

 

We're rolling out use of IrisVR (we've got 3 Homido V2 headsets and looking to get more) which we're getting far more use out of as it's a portable solution and very easy for even the most computer illiterate people to use.

[beestee]

Just finished with the trial of Enscape and it is very cutting edge. We had a VR presentation last week and we tested with Enscape, IrisVR, and VRskope beta by Kubity. We actually ended up going with IrisVR since we were working with a SketchUp model and there is just not enough control over lighting with Enscape for SketchUp yet. Granted there is also very little control over lighting with IrisVR as well, but we were able to get a consistent appearance of the materials with it and avoided any snags in the VR presentation on that subject.

 

I did appreciate the ability to add a custom skybox in Enscape, that opens up a lot of possibilities.

 

I do think we will purchase Enscape soon though as the overall development seems to be moving in the right direction.

 

We're rolling out use of IrisVR (we've got 3 Homido V2 headsets and looking to get more) which we're getting far more use out of as it's a portable solution and very easy for even the most computer illiterate people to use.

 

IrisVR Scope is excellent. Enscape has the ability to deliver panoramas via cardboard as well although it is through a web interface and therefore requires an internet connection at time and location of the presentation, and I didn't see any options for adding panos from other renderers.

[Scott Schroeder]

We use Enscape and it has been a great addition to our tools. It has taken away the need for us as a rendering department to the "I just need to see it in 3D" renderings. Like others, our Revit team doesn't do a ton of materials so we use the white material override in Enscape.

 

You have to understand that Enscape is not for full visual fidelity. It is for those intermediate meetings where you are checking to see if you'll knock your head on the bulkhead or if you are showing some design ideas. It's true that exteriors are generally better looking in Enscape, but that is true for most of the "Fake GI" immersive apps out there. So far, we haven't seen much of a performance hit when putting our arenas in there so I'm pretty impressed how it can handle a lot of Revit geometry.

 

Unreal can't even come close to Enscape in terms of speed. In Revit, our team can click a button and be walking around their space within a minute. Again, you need to disconnect visual fidelity from this one as this is about speed and iterations.

[jonseagull]

The architects here are loving Enscape, particularly for the ability to cycle through design options and/or to make changes to the Revit model in something approaching real time. Some of the architects are just keeping an Enscape window open while designing. Having previously used Stingray and Live, Enscape requires much less in the way of technical oversight.

 

Where it's limited, though, it's REALLY limited.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Scott Dombrowski,

Pretty much what everybody mentioned here, we don't have a single tool, we use several of them and since this is a new tech I think that the wise thing to do, try them all and see what works.

The main advantage of Enscape is the tight integration with REVIT, it really help to see things that otherwise are very hard to detect with regular REVIT viewport shading. But is also limited,

The VR options are cool but far from being ready to use as a formal presentation.

 

Prospect VR, iris VR are great while designing, and even for early client presentation, the quick prep time is the winner here, and the usability of using layers.

 

As mentioned by Scott S. the main advantage here is 'quick' images reviews without the need to export to Max change materials for VRay and all that Jazz.

The big limitation that I see on any of those tool is, they are a close loop, after you put time placing trees and people and adjusting materials, if you need to take that further for a more specialized tool such 3D Max, then everything is lost, and that's why we should keep them as an alternative tool but not as 'the solution' as many marketing propaganda try to sell them

[John Dollus]

For us, it really has resulted in altering our workflow (ie. less dedicated viz staff for projects). We have several floating licenses of Enscape for less than one seat of Max+renderer of the month. Every Revit production grad can use it with an afternoon of training and it has proven to be far more beneficial when it comes to return of investment. Like Jon mentioned, having it up on the secondary monitor to review design options is incredibly helpful and we don't have to schedule time with another dept, meet to review, etc. For us, it's all about the integration with Revit and our clients have little to no need for beauty renders so it satisfies 80% of project imaging needs. For those projects that need to go the extra distance, The reference images from enscape are helpful in communicating the materiality to the viz team so it's not 100% starting from scratch and the revit models end up cleaner since the production team has to deal with it in Enscape before it gets to viz.

[Francisco Penaloza]

the viz team so it's not 100% starting from scratch and the revit models end up cleaner since the production team has to deal with it in Enscape before it gets to viz.

 

So now your team understand all 'those complains' and suggestion the Viz team was giving with those 'ready to render' REVIT file

[John Dollus]

So now your team understand all 'those complains' and suggestion the Viz team was giving with those 'ready to render' REVIT file

 

Absolutely!