How to get my team beyond flat Revit Renderings

[ivanjay]

So here is my dilemna.... I have a group of talented interior designers that do a nice job with their design. They do a really nice job with renderings, but they are Revit renderings and lets face it revit renderings are a bit flat and just dont look like Max or other high end rendering engines.... they have tried everything and gotten it really good, but not up against one of those others.

 

We have looked into outsourcing visualization work but it gets pricey when we can do it in house plus we are depending on others schedules.

 

I challenged them with Max and that really fell flat. Although I know it they have the software very cumbersome and most importantly the workflow of working in Revit plus Max slowed them down tremendously.... I get it.

 

So we are now looking at rendering plugins for Revit. ALL of our renderings are commercial interiors. Sometimes windows with natural light, but always inside a building. We are looking at Vray, Enscape, Lumion, etc. but wanted to throw it out on a forum....

 

Any ideas or suggestions? We work on very short term projects so it is critical we can crank out the work, but we want to up our game on quality for sure....

[Scott Schroeder]

Enscape is going to be best for you. Get your Revit team to really understand materials and how they react in Enscape. Lumion is good as well, but it requires an extra step to get from Revit to Lumion. Enscape lives in Revit and therefore can give you the fastest feedback possible without adding an extra hurdle of exporting to another software platform.

 

The other big plus for Enscape is that most clients will get excited just being able to talk through their model, even in the gray model override in Enscape. Throw that experience into a VR headset, and you'll knock their socks off with a model that only has one material.

 

Speed / Quality / Budget (How much money and/or time are you willing to devote). You can only pick two to make a great rendering. If you want fast feedback on fast turnaround times, you have to drop your quality expectations. That doesn't mean the render has to be a pile of crap, but don't expect quality like you'd see from MIR or Brick Visual.

 

The other factor is that people in Revit can get fixated on the world view of their rendering. They want to show it all in one shot and do not realize that this is the worst possible way to make a compelling image. So while the rendering engine is important, understanding the basic building blocks of art will go a long way.

[ivanjay]

Thanks Scott. Enscape does look promising as we want to step up the quality but want the fast workflow. That is what we are currently exploring so glad we are in the right direction.

[heni30]

Hey Ivan,

 

In an interview a while ago they were asking one of the principals of Dbox if they weren't worried because software was coming out that made it easier to produce PR images. He just laughed.

 

As Ernest Burden keeps saying - you make your money in Photoshop.

 

The rendering is not software dependent. Maybe having an in house 3d person would be the answer.

Edited December 21, 2018 by heni30

[ivanjay]

Hi George, I appreciate the response and dont mean to come off negative about it but I think you might have missed the context of what I was trying to accomplish....

 

Our workflow and client demand does not support the time required for the highest of quality in renderings. We know and accept that. What we are trying to figure out is what is the best platform to allow us to improve our quality and maintain a short workflow. That is very much a software related item.

[Scott Schroeder]

Hi George, I appreciate the response and dont mean to come off negative about it but I think you might have missed the context of what I was trying to accomplish....

 

Our workflow and client demand does not support the time required for the highest of quality in renderings. We know and accept that. What we are trying to figure out is what is the best platform to allow us to improve our quality and maintain a short workflow. That is very much a software related item.

 

I agree 100%, even though it may mean less work for me. Sometimes you just need to crank out iterations. One project we had worked on, we were studying building placement on the site. I was able to crank out 100 views in a day with Enscape. The downside to that was that type of work in better suited for an Arch I, but none were available. Were the renderings great? No, but they told the client and the city exactly what we wanted to tell them with the various building placements.

 

Plus we could do VR walks of those placement files, as well as animations right there in real time. I keep saying this, but Enscape is not going to replace the marketing sector of high end renderings. Enscape is a tool to help you in the pre-design phase when you need to study something and you need to just crank out quantity of views of quality.

[Virgil Johnson]

Mr. Weiss.

Assuming you are not in the business of creating fine art pieces and you want to grab your client's attention quickly, inform them, and seal the deal (what I do in my business) and you want to do it cheaply and quickly...

 

 

1. I prefer Lumion. I can link it to Revit. I can control materials much better than Enscape. The release 9 allows better lighting, etc.

Lumion allows to rendering in various styles which is useful to me.

And. I can render to element in a few minutes.

 

2. Photoshop. Very fast. I use actions to speed the work. Handful of minutes is all that is needed. Element renders are all the difference.

 

3. Max. Useful as an auxiliary program mostly.

 

4. Vray. Don't even bother.

 

5. Sketchfab. It's interactive. Repeat. Interactive.

It also does a fairly good job with lighting and materials. Probably all you will need for architectural renders.

 

My clients want to see action and detail. They want it quickly. Interactive. Dramatic. Grab their attention. Easy to understand. They want to make decisions.

 

Virgil Johnson

Stone Ridge, NY

Edited December 21, 2018 by Virgil Johnson

[beestee]

I agree with almost everything that has been said here, sorry that I am two weeks late to the conversation but figure I would throw in my $0.02 for anyone else that stumbles across this topic.

 

Enscape and Lumion are currently the best software solutions to what your are experiencing with your team. I would assume that you are already at least trying out Enscape, if not, I would suggest trying it out before Lumion. If you still feel like you need more quality from the renderings after trying Enscape, Lumion will get you a little further.

 

Enscape will make you the most agile in most cases, but as Virgil says, you do have better control over the rendered result with Lumion, especially with materials. There are some odd quirks with Lumion, such as a fixed 16:9 ratio for all rendered output aside from 360 panoramics, and the interface obscures a lot of the power that lies within it. The tools that Lumion has for populating a parking lot, sidewalk, landscaping, horizon break, or being able to show something in glass reflections are quick and intuitive. Enscape has a little bit of this but is not nearly as easy or quick to use.

 

Really the best situation would be to equip your designers with more than one tool since there are pros and cons with each, and there is nothing to say that you couldn't use both Enscape and Lumion on the same project for different needs/phases.

 

This is all subject to change in the near term as well with the proliferation of realtime raytracing. I feel that we are getting closer to having a realtime engine with the quality of offline engines such as VRay and Corona. The main thing holding it back today is that the tools to get there are still pretty rough and require quite a bit of model prep work/clean up. It is a tight race between Unity and Unreal right now to get there first, but we may see one of the specialized packages such as Enscape or Lumion or Twinmotion beat them to it.

[Virgil Johnson]

Another disadvantage of Lumion is clients have to load the (free) player program on their computer to play the interactive game.

Not that big a deal but it's there.

I use SketchFab to help me out on this since it loads directly off the internet but it has its limits as to how big a file you can load. Usually good for detail items that need explaining.

 

But in the end it is the real time programs that rule. (remembering that Revit itself is an instant real time program if you think about it.)

 

btw I custom design fantasy garden structures which call for a lot of direct client input so real time programs are the only way for me to go.

Clients direct the design directly.

 

v

[Eliot Blenkarne]

Enscape.

 

I've used Lumion and Enscape a bit - Lumion is just too easy to get carried away with, and you end up in the VRay world of project length all too easily. Sometimes having a limit on what you can do is a good thing, particularly as a beginner.

 

Like Scott has said, Enscape is quick, and good enough and allows you into the world of VR too, not to mention the other aspects that make it such a strong package.

 

I might add - I'm a fulltime visualiser for an architecture firm, and Enscape has actually given us more work to do. Architects just aren't interested in spending time of visuals if they don't have to - even if it's seconds. They'd rather give us the file, and leave the rest to us, and this applies to the VR side of things too.

[M V]

Best bang for your buck is Enscape.

 

Lumion doesnt have VR, or EXE player or web player and being able to not have to export a model into another program is going to be best for a team of designers who are comfortable in Revit.

[danosler]

[neilmcbean]

That looks great. Especially for realtime.

[Jason Matthews]

We utilize Lumion in our standard workflow. It is quick to learn and the results are fantastic, provided that the person generating the images, animations, panoramas shows restraint. If you are looking to share with your clients, you can use My Lumion for cloud view of your project. This will include still images and linked panoramic images. This allows you to control the client and only see what you have designed. Also, there is the Revit Live link to Lumion that allows for on-demand changes.

 

The one thing I did not see discussed here is price (I may have missed it). Lumion runs about $3500 per seat (free upgrades for one year and discounted major upgrade once per year) and pulls the license from the internet. Enscape will run about $680 per year for floating license.

 

Remember its not the software, its the user.

[akshayarora]

Enscape is going to be best for you. Get your Revit team to really understand materials and how they react in Enscape. Lumion is good as well, but it requires an extra step to get from Revit to Lumion. Enscape lives in Revit and therefore can give you the fastest feedback possible without adding an extra hurdle of exporting to another software platform.

 

The other big plus for Enscape is that most clients will get excited just being able to talk through their model, even in the gray model override in Enscape. Throw that experience into a VR headset, and you'll knock their socks off with a model that only has one material.

 

Speed / Quality / Budget (How much money and/or time are you willing to devote). You can only pick two to make a great rendering. If you want fast feedback on fast turnaround times, you have to drop your quality expectations. That doesn't mean the render has to be a pile of crap, but don't expect quality like you'd see from MIR or Brick Visual.

 

The other factor is that people in Revit can get fixated on the world view of their rendering. They want to show it all in one shot and do not realize that this is the worst possible way to make a compelling image. So while the rendering engine is important, understanding the basic building blocks of art will go a long way.

 

Hello Scott, How are you?

I just want to understand the basic building of block theory? Like this is for basics enhancements of Exterior renderings?

Do we have something like this in Interiors also, which will help in improving the artistic or aesthetic side of renderings?

[Scott Schroeder]

Hello Scott, How are you?

I just want to understand the basic building of block theory? Like this is for basics enhancements of Exterior renderings?

Do we have something like this in Interiors also, which will help in improving the artistic or aesthetic side of renderings?

 

The overall key is to study art.

http://www.cgarchitect.com/2019/02/arch-viz-the-legacy-of-the-past-and-its-relevance-to-the-future

[M V]

As a person who has both Lumion and Enscape I would tell you to save the $3000 and get Enscape. The latest version has some very nice improvements and they have begun to compete with Lumion by including a library of proxies. Lumion looks great on the outside and that I always get into it and realize its missing something. It's actually quite limited for the price tag and don't be confused by the word real-time. A high quality animation with all the bells and whistles turned on will still take 10+ hours to export.

[jesusgomez2]

Maybe you should consider to hire a specialist in cgi...

 

 

In my opinion lumion can do a decent work with exteriors but is not that good for interior design, also the industry has the workflow with max (best brands furniture models are ready to use in there.. not so easy at lumion). Render engines like vray are on another level and the client notice that.

[jesusgomez2]

Maybe hire a CGI expert in your team.. Lumion does decent work for exteriors but not for interiors where industry workflow stays with 3dsmax and different render engines.