Things are changing

[Devin Johnston]

Over the years I've seen countless threads about the one button render option and the reaction to those threads is usually the same, most people would say it's either a long way off or it won't never happen. I was one of those people who believed that my position as the lone 3d artist wasn't in jeopardy and no one click option would ever be able to compete with my work. In the last 12 months I've seen the first hints of this becoming a reality, with new tools like iray and vray for Revit as well as programs like Lumion, Twinmotion and Unreal we are closer than ever before to a one button render. As someone who's been doing things the same way for almost 2 decades I'm reluctantly beginning to realize that the old way may not be the best way anymore and I need to re-evaluate the way I work. In light of how quickly these programs are able to render it's becoming harder to justify the expense of maintaining a large render farm when a single PC can output animations and video in a fraction of the time and cost. I realize the quality may not yet be equal to what programs like Vray can produce especially for those very talented artists among us. However for the most part I think Architects tend to see CG as a necessary evil and I've found they are willing to give up some quality if it means faster production and potentially more imagery. Don't get me wrong I don't think this is the end of traditional rendering methods yet but it's not hard to imagine a day not too far off when they are no longer king of the hill. I'm eager to hear what the CGA community thinks about this and I'd love to know how you intend on dealing with this little problem especially those that work in house.

[M V]

Still not worried about my job. Revit renderings look like butt and every try Unreal. There's still skill and artistry that a button will never be able to do. Instead of fear, embrace it and see where it takes you as an artist/designer.

[Eliot Blenkarne]

"realtime", in whatever form, seems pretty obviously to be the future. It's which quiver you pull your arrow that's the question. Twinmotion/Lumion answers are, IMO, pretty average still, and they aren't particularly cheap nor flexible.

 

UE4/Unity are clearly an interesting option, but the learning curve can be tough (I personally don't think so for Archviz, but this seems to be popular opinion) and you need to carefully plan projects and be sure your fee structure is suited. You arguably wouldn't use this option for a single still of a complex building - but for a complete package of stills/animation/360s/full VR, it's hard/impossible to beat in terms of breadth of production and quality. Nowhere near one button answer and that render farm is crucial to cutting bake times, so don't sell it yet! The notion that this workflow is difficult to manage or hard to monetise is no longer relevant, provided you plan things well and have a means to throw people and processing power at a job if needed.

 

Traditional rendering is what it is. Your approach to it = how flexible and quick it is. I'm not personally interested in it much these days so I'll leave that to others to comment.

 

Stay fluid, basically.

[Scott Schroeder]

So I'll be the best button pusher ever. EVER!

 

Real time like Enscape is great for the design phase renders, terrible for the marketing level renderings. So what that means for me is less time dealing with the change this bulkhead 10 times in one day rendering, and more time for me to focus on creating the image to sell the public on the idea.

 

The other great thing about Enscape, hearing the Revit team bitch about how terribad their models are and why there are gaps and holes everywhere.

[Justin Hunt]

It a matter of working smarter, not harder. All the "one button" solutions mean is there will be less time to grab a cup of coffee while the computer renders.

[James Vella]

Things are changing you are right, I installed UE4 this week - and im speachless. If you spend 8hrs a day in 3dsmax like I do... then it feels like you were just dropped 30 years into the future. I can see massive massive potential, speedy workflows already. I feel like a kid again really, these tools were never here when I learned (but expected them to be!).

[Eliot Blenkarne]

So I'll be the best button pusher ever. EVER!

 

Real time like Enscape is great for the design phase renders, terrible for the marketing level renderings. So what that means for me is less time dealing with the change this bulkhead 10 times in one day rendering, and more time for me to focus on creating the image to sell the public on the idea.

 

The other great thing about Enscape, hearing the Revit team bitch about how terribad their models are and why there are gaps and holes everywhere.

 

This. Enscape was touted as the answer to realtime at my firm, but like you say, the quality isn't there for a finished product, and I think the VR experience is pretty average. Our interiors and architecture teams use it extensively for early proof of concept stuff. Nifty tool!

 

Has anyone had a look into Stingray (inclusive of the new realtime stuff in max 2018)? I found it severely lacking compared to UE4.

[Justin Hunt]

In many ways Max is way behind in realtime workflow development, just take a look at Modo11.1 and its unreal bridge https://www.foundry.com/products/modo/new-releases

[James Vella]

ah! very good to know thank you Justin

[Francisco Penaloza]

This. Enscape was touted as the answer to realtime at my firm, but like you say, the quality isn't there for a finished product, and I think the VR experience is pretty average. Our interiors and architecture teams use it extensively for early proof of concept stuff. Nifty tool!

 

Has anyone had a look into Stingray (inclusive of the new realtime stuff in max 2018)? I found it severely lacking compared to UE4.

 

I would not say, this is the best tool ever or this quality can't compare. We as Arch Viz always strive for best quality, but IMO this is can hurt us too, we need to learn to be flexible. Projects do not always need the highest quality to get the point, and most of the time there is no time to make it great, in those moments is when you really need to prove that you are a professional that can deliver what is need it in the time they give you.

Having said that we are living in an incredible technological time, and all this new tech involves changes and a change is that, get used to the new thing because our old way will not work anymore.

I work in house and I use everything I can, lately, we are using Stingray more just because the close interaction that gives us with REVIT and 3DMax. It is same quality than Unreal?? nope, it is Horrible? I don't think so, it depends on how much time you spend on it. But clients and designers really like and find useful the quick turn around that I can provide for VR design review sessions. Other designers in our company use Prospect for VR, and they just love it, graphic wise it looks like SketchUp and really they don't need more than that for their work.

 

Could I get 'better' image quality in Unreal, of course, but I could not be able to deliver on time when changes are made and most of our clients are not impressed by DOF or glowing lights. We don't build white loft

 

At the end as always it all depend on who is your client and budget, now you have so many tools to choose from, and that's great.

 

Also as Scott mentioned, you don't need to worry about the little closet rendering or dark classroom 100 variations rendering that you used to do, that can be done in Enscape or Lumion or whatever by the designer itself right in front of the client if they like, you only need to worry about the money Dusky shot that you always rather do anyways

[Ernest Burden III]

...you only need to worry about the money Dusky shot that you always rather do anyways

 

There is always a point of parity with new techniques or tools where everybody has it, everybody can do it, that removes that advantage from the calculation for success or what's 'better'. Once everyone has a mobile phone, the question becomes who has the best phone. The realtime and one-button tools are not yet commonplace, but they will be. With rendering, and what could keep us relevant in the workforce, it is still going to be how good or effective our work is vs. that baseline of what everybody else is showing. Yes, much of the work will be done in a production-line by non-skilled people (in the finer arts of rendering architectural subjects), but it will be as special as a floorplan.

 

In many circumstances it will still be advantageous to have your project photos by Peter Aaron over a summer intern with an iphone.

[beestee]

Don't view it as a problem, take the bull by the horns and learn the new medium. If an unskilled artist can get decent results with such little effort, imagine what a skilled artist can do with near instant feedback from a render engine. A lot of an architectural visualization artist's skills translate and hold value.

 

You no doubt have noticed poor textures, camera composition, and post processing in some of the work coming from these new engines. If you don't see it then you can't fix it...but we can see it, and already have all the knowledge necessary to fix it and make it better.

[Eliot Blenkarne]

Yip. You pretty much repeated exactly what I said. A tool for every job.

[Lupaz]

Over the years I've seen countless threads about the one button render option and the reaction to those threads is usually the same, most people would say it's either a long way off or it won't never happen. I was one of those people who believed that my position as the lone 3d artist wasn't in jeopardy and no one click option would ever be able to compete with my work. In the last 12 months I've seen the first hints of this becoming a reality, with new tools like iray and vray for Revit as well as programs like Lumion, Twinmotion and Unreal we are closer than ever before to a one button render. As someone who's been doing things the same way for almost 2 decades I'm reluctantly beginning to realize that the old way may not be the best way anymore and I need to re-evaluate the way I work. In light of how quickly these programs are able to render it's becoming harder to justify the expense of maintaining a large render farm when a single PC can output animations and video in a fraction of the time and cost. I realize the quality may not yet be equal to what programs like Vray can produce especially for those very talented artists among us. However for the most part I think Architects tend to see CG as a necessary evil and I've found they are willing to give up some quality if it means faster production and potentially more imagery. Don't get me wrong I don't think this is the end of traditional rendering methods yet but it's not hard to imagine a day not too far off when they are no longer king of the hill. I'm eager to hear what the CGA community thinks about this and I'd love to know how you intend on dealing with this little problem especially those that work in house.

 

I don't see this as a problem either. Not technology at least. Someone has to do all the rest: It's not just rendering.

 

If anything, what worried me the most was that architects were outsourcing to china or other countries where there's armies of people in a place where the cost of living is much lower. This seems to be proving to be not efficient at all for what I heard. Phew!

And the new technology in rendering lets us lower our prices too to be more competitive.

 

Yes, interns could do what we do, but you get what you pay for.

 

Unless Revit or a newer alternative for BIM can allow rapid sketching and convert the sketch automatically to a well done model, with automatic vegetation placement and everything, and auto nice lighting and camera... I don't know.

I think there's still room for us, regardless the one button rendering.

[Sketchrender]

So Having read all the above.

 

~ How are you future proofing your company?

~ Are you investing in R&D?

~ Are you buying Twinmotion or Lumion?

 

The time line of modelling and rendering a project in 5 days, is not an option with Unreal, everybody knows that.

So with little money to spend , where are you putting your money?

 

Phil

[Scott Schroeder]

We're future proofing our company by listening to the client's wishes. Sometimes, we just need to drop the "But we're zee artists!" schtick and just crank out a so-so quality render. You make quite a bit of profit on these so-so renders and they usually lead to bigger and better quality marketing level renders.

 

We're trying to R&D as best we can, but times are quite busy right now and we haven't had any measurable downtime in the past year. With the small staff we have, we need everyone working on billable projects.

 

Lumion is nice, but an expensive investment as you only really should be using the top-tier package. The lower tier packages don't come with enough stuff to make Lumion worth it. Also, you need to invest in a pretty nice computer. However, Lumion is always going to look like a step-child to UE4 and I'm still not sure on Lumion's ability to handle a complex scene. I'm still on the fence about Lumion since we now are using Enscape office-wide, but after seeing the Lumion 7 features video I'm getting some interest in it. I just wish they had a better trial period than 7 days. As we all know once you think you have time to test out a new software, that's precisely the time 10 projects come into your schedule. 7 days isn't enough to fully evaluate a product that costs $3,400.

[michaelkhoo]

I'll list down what the pros and cons of Twinmotion,Vray, Lumion and even... artlantis based on my experience with all of them.

 

Vray

Pros

-you can never go wrong with Vray if you know what you are doing

-it is the standard in the archviz industry.

-tech support and asset libraries are widely available as the user group is so huge.

-provides extensive control over render elements

 

Cons

-learning curve is rather steep

-long render time if you dont have a proper machine, dont even think of doing animation

-lack of live feedback(RT is not that reliable sometimes)

-material and lighting tweaking and experimenting can be a tedious process

 

Artlantis

Pros

-very easy to learn and use/ drag and drop

-good exterior base renders

-render elements

-lighting and material can be adjusted really quickly

-good realtime feedback

 

Cons

-no distributed render(v5 below),animation is a no go without using their private render farm service

-caps out at a certain point in terms of time spent vs quality(cant really do photorealistic)

-lack of tech support

-interior and lighting is very very limited

-new version(6 and above) is a disaster that killed half of the advantage they had.

 

Lumion

Pros

-super easy to learn

-acceptable output that will amaze clients and the general public

-made working feel like gaming

-super fast renders and realtime feedback, renders in secs, animation in hours

-huge library of 3d assets

 

Cons

-render elements is flawed and bugged out most of the time

-undo/redo button is so limited that it disrupts workflow(cant believe this can be an issue in 2017)

-material applying is easy but also can be pain in the ass to be edited

-limited control over most of the assets and library textures

-moving,scaling, transforming,and referencing option is terribly scripted that you can never be accurate.

-output size is extremely limited, you can only frame your views in their 1920x1080 screen.

-tech support is limited and a team that never listens to the general public.

 

Twinmotion

Pros

-similar to lumion

-programmed so well that you can almost work on your design even in the program

-Overall control is heaps better than lumion, xyz coordinate move and transform, model exported in layers, texture animation and customizations etc

-good render elements and render output size customization

-upcoming 2018 version is powered by unreal engine, which is definitely opens up new possibilities

 

Cons

-quality is subpar compared to Lumion (twinmotion 2018 however, is worth keeping an eye for)

-limited tech support

 

 

In short, i think in terms of potential, this new Twinmotion 2018 is right on top now(Just imagine having the power of UE, with the simplicity of Twinmotion), but in terms of stability and support availability, Vray still has its edge. Ultimately, it all goes down to the time x cost x quality factor.

[Chris MacDonald]

So I'll be the best button pusher ever. EVER!

 

Real time like Enscape is great for the design phase renders, terrible for the marketing level renderings. So what that means for me is less time dealing with the change this bulkhead 10 times in one day rendering, and more time for me to focus on creating the image to sell the public on the idea.

 

The other great thing about Enscape, hearing the Revit team bitch about how terribad their models are and why there are gaps and holes everywhere.

 

My thoughts exactly. We have just adopted Enscape in our office and one of my directors called me over to look at an image he'd made and quipped "we don't need you any more"; of course he was joking and they very much do still need someone dedicated to visuals - but the feeling in my gut for a brief moment was one of panic.

 

What if in the next 5 years it does become a push button exercise? Then I just remember how many crappy camera views, badly rendered trees, people and materials I've seen in images produced in-house over the years and remember that I am not just a button pusher and there is a certain amount of skill in what I do.

 

So far it has only benefited my workflow in much the same way as Scott's - there's more time for me to keep doing what I do, rather than fussing over minute design changes and crappy models that need to be rushed out within the next 30 minutes.

[CliveG]

but the feeling in my gut for a brief moment was one of panic. What if in the next 5 years it does become a push button exercise? Then I just remember how many crappy camera views, badly rendered trees....

 

I think this is a pretty key point, that there will always be "cycles" in the industry that are fuelled in part by the latest "push a button" vogue - otherwise known as "the emperors new clothes" that seems to blind middle managers at semi-regular intervals. I've been around for too many of them through the last 32 years.

 

Unfortunately these flights of fancy can actually cost the wrong people their jobs because of stupid decisions from wishful thinkers (I believe our disciplines are unique in putting people ill equipped to make such decisions in positions of power - the Peter Principle), but anyway it always seems to come back around that they're hiring again a short while later because the latest thing was just that - the latest "thing" and business goes back to what it knows and needs - reliable results. That is not much reassurance if it's you who get's the flick, but is just to suggest that it's perhaps not necessary to change career entirely just yet, just try and stay ahead of the wave

[Lupaz]

My thoughts exactly. We have just adopted Enscape in our office and one of my directors called me over to look at an image he'd made and quipped "we don't need you any more"; of course he was joking and they very much do still need someone dedicated to visuals - but the feeling in my gut for a brief moment was one of panic.

 

What if in the next 5 years it does become a push button exercise? Then I just remember how many crappy camera views, badly rendered trees, people and materials I've seen in images produced in-house over the years and remember that I am not just a button pusher and there is a certain amount of skill in what I do.

 

So far it has only benefited my workflow in much the same way as Scott's - there's more time for me to keep doing what I do, rather than fussing over minute design changes and crappy models that need to be rushed out within the next 30 minutes.

 

You should be as worried as a video editor when the company where he works starts using iMotion.

Or as a photographer when the client tells him he can use his iphone.

Or a web designer when their client tells him they're using wix.

[philippelamoureux]

Don't forget vray is coming to ue4 and octane is coming to unity and ue4. Octane unity is in closed alpha right now iirc.

 

The killer feature is lightmap progessive baking. No more waiting 6 hours for a bake just to end up with something ugly/broken. Chances are that octane is going to be faster than ue5 lightmass and whatever unity's renderer is.

 

Baking in unreal (for use in games, real-time scenes) is also on vray's potential features list.

[Rodolfo Tanno]

For architectural visualization used for real estate ventures, most of the time, a HOllywood hyperrealistic render is not necessary.

Companies need a lot of agility and low price.

For this, Lumion is an excellent alternative, because in it, it is possible to render videos in minutes, using a computer of U $$ 2000. It is not necessary a renderfarm, or hundreds of hours of rendering.

Just as a reference, Gui Felix, from Brazil, has been doing an amazing job with Lumion, as well as 3D Cordoba from Argentina.

http://Https://pt.fr.facebook.com/homedesignint/

http://Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NBuNftWw2A

[creasia]

One thing that you can't replace in Asia is an onsite photographer. I have taken up Real Estate photography and I print out my CAD plans and am starting to build furniture. It's a blast!

 

All that and I don't have to pay a yearly subscription!

[James Vella]

...I print out my CAD plans and am starting to build furniture. It's a blast!

 

Can you elaborate? How do you bulid your furniture without a subscription?

 

Also what are you doing once you print the CAD plan?

[John Dollus]

Can you elaborate? How do you bulid your furniture without a subscription?

 

Also what are you doing once you print the CAD plan?

 

I think he means 'real' furniture. Table saws are still using the antiquated 'buy it and use it forever' business model. Sears should have switched to a subscription model years ago for their tools and then they wouldn't be going bankrupt. Buy a hammer for the low, low platinum subscription price of $5/month auto-debited from your account for your convenience*.

 

*auto-debit can be cancelled at any time by submitting your blood sample in person at the corporate HQ on Mondays between 6:00 and 6:10 during a lunar eclipse.

Edited July 27, 2017 by John Dollus