Are we close to the end of archviz as a profession?

[Jon Berntsen]

As twinmotion is coming up with realtime raytracing next year - live link to archicad and connection to bimobjects.com, the same with Chaos group with Lavina, (unfortunately no connection to bimobjects there?) and real time raytracing generally as the new standard; what will be left for people today having archviz as their profession? Will they be obsolete? If not, why, and how would they need to transform to survive?

 

Will there be principles behind it all, like; someone has to do thinking/artistic work to get compositions and details fitted right to the desired markert campaigns?

 

What would be the reason why architects won't do all the viz work themselves, with the new tools available?

 

Will there will be lowered quality demands now, favoring quantity?

 

Will the need to speed up workflow to bring down costs, while maintaining the hi end quality be important?

 

Do archviz people need to adapt to using twinmotion or should they strive for that hi end quality, and will that hi end quality eventually be overtaken by one click solutions from real time raytracers?

 

What about the creativity. With real time raytracers in the hands of architects (and also engineers), will there be only boring and fact based visualizations?

 

With ai architecture algorithms coming up, already proving better results with working out architecture than the actual architects themselves, will the architects need to transform and taking more of archviz to get their days filled, just so that archviz people are even more screwed?

 

 

 

So what will be in it for architecture visualizers in the coming time, and what should they do to survive and convincing their bosses and collaborators/customers to not push the archviz job into the hands of non-nerds and non-artists?

 

To be honest, I'm sceptical to the future, and really considering whether to jump off or to take the fight. We do need food on the table as everybody else.

 

Bonus question, what happens with render farm services like rebusfarm, are they about to go out of business in a span of 2-3 years?

[Sketchrender]

Jon

 

I know these questions get asked a lot, and I always only have time to think about them over the few days off at Christmas.

But work is still coming in.

 

Yes I agree with you on The real time softwares now Twinmotion Lumion , Unreal, and they are still in there early stages in my humble opinion.

I always hark back to , give a child a pencil he will scribble something, give it an artist, they may create a masterpiece.

A good eye is a very valuable thing, just because they have the software dose not mean they will know the best views to take, and correct composition etc.

But yes I hear you ,and I'm 50, and have been doing this now of 25+ years.

So my thinking is keep up to date give them what they want, a lot of companies I am finding are happy with less quality and shorter time frame.

Be interested to know what other people are doing.

 

Phil

Happy New year, by the way, and lets see what the future holds next year.

[Nils Norgren]

see post from 2014 - http://forums.cgarchitect.com/77432-possible-future.html

OR from 2010 - http://forums.cgarchitect.com/61031-chasing-dying-industry.html

How about 2008 - http://forums.cgarchitect.com/29542-impression-autodesk-2009-danger-cg-arch-industry-disappearing.html

here is one from 2004 - http://forums.cgarchitect.com/6184-future-architectural-visualization.html

 

This discussion is far from new, and as usual, the industry will change/evolve as tools change, get better, easier. The demise of the industry has been predicted over and over again.

 

Always endeavor to improve technical and creative skills along with emotional intelligence and client empathy. In then end, value your time appropriately and all will be fine. If one stays hungry to get better and provide a level of service that clients desire and appreciate, there will be work.

 

-Nils

[John Dollus]

Yes, the sky is falling sentiment comes around every 5 years or so. First, it was Gen1 rendering software, then it was ray tracing, then GI, then globalism, realtime engines, VR and now the cycle starts over again with realtime-raytraced tech. I thought GI would kill the business back in the early 2000's because it became so easy to render scenes without having to perform elaborate tricks and rigs to get realistic lighting. How wrong I was!

 

What would be the reason why architects won't do all the viz work themselves, with the new tools available?

-The reality is that the AEC side of the business is also facing the same time pressures as the rendering side so they can’t really spend much time on anything outside of what is contractually necessary to complete the project for their client. From a business standpoint, it’s often not profitable to have a registered architect or designer spend time outside of BIM at all.

 

Will there will be lowered quality demands now, favoring quantity?

-In a way, yes. I see tons of Enscape renderings being used to convey design concepts where colored elevations would have been used before but the ceiling on quality is hit rather quickly. It’s not taking away the showcase rendering product and can actually serve to persuade the client to appreciate the value of higher level work.

 

Will the need to speed up workflow to bring down costs, while maintaining the hi end quality be important?

-Always.

 

Do archviz people need to adapt to using twinmotion or should they strive for that hi end quality, and will that hi end quality eventually be overtaken by one click solutions from real time raytracers?

-That’s the big business decision and should be part of any business plan from the beginning. Define who you are and where you want to be in 10 years. Some focus on high volume, lower cost products and others devote their energy to fewer projects and higher dollar commissions. This has not changed in 50 years. Some watercolor artists travel on site and command 10k per image but others knock out 2-a-day streetscapes for $800. Both are equally as successful in the end. Some have 10 clients in a year and others have 100.

 

What about the creativity. With real time raytracers in the hands of architects (and also engineers), will there be only boring and fact based visualizations?

-There will always be a demand for elevated content. Did camera-phones have an affect on the photography industry? Absolutely! Do people still hire photographers? Absolutely!

 

With ai architecture algorithms coming up, already proving better results with working out architecture than the actual architects themselves, will the architects need to transform and taking more of archviz to get their days filled, just so that archviz people are even more screwed?

-I don’t see that happening at all. If anything, more Architects will spend a higher percentage of their time being contract administrators and keyboard warriors than anything else. Rendering is among the least profitable options for any company dedicated to construction.

 

So what will be in it for architecture visualizers in the coming time, and what should they do to survive and convincing their bosses and collaborators/customers to not push the archviz job into the hands of non-nerds and non-artists?

-Like Phil wrote, keep up to date with the tools of the trade and know how to analyze the advantages/disadvantages of each. To survive and thrive, you need to demonstrate your value every day and never have to resort to ‘convincing’ a customer or boss to not give a job to someone else. Make yourself indispensable.

 

With all of the advances made throughout the years, I still see animations with cameras crashing through trees, roller coaster paths and Ferraris parked in front of elementary schools. You are more valuable than you realize and needed more now than before.

[Jon Berntsen]

Thank you for your thoughts. I am well aware of the old doomsday threads. But we never saw live links from the drafting/drawing programs straight to engines that actually are visualization specific programs, which directs straight to architects. Programs that gives you the exact correct objects with direct links to manufacture verified bim products in bimobjects.com.

 

With manufacture verified pbr materials applied to them, why should we spend time on perfecting material on objects?

 

Why should we (or more correct: the customer) spend money and time on buying and preparing objects that is not manufacture verified?

 

Why should we spend time on importing and detailing objects when this is done in a few seconds with one click from archicad? Why should we spend time on making rigs with nice lighting and skies, when this is automatically done in the architect targeted program, but also with animated skies with light matches with coordinates and datetime as well?

 

Why should we spend time on updating model on changes, when this happens automatically by one click directly from the drafting program, by the drafter himself? Why should we spend time on making projects in anima when people animation comes easily with twinmotion? Comes with animated vegetation as well. Why should we spend time and money on time and licenses with growfx, forest pack, Phoenix FD or other packages?

 

Why should we spend time on project management when the architect already knows the project? I have got a lot of such questions that weren't the situation in the previous dooms.

 

I know you hear me on this. The traditional packages lacks so much compared to the new ones, which unfortunately for our sake are marketed towards architects and not us, the visualizers.

 

This is specifically the case when it comes to archicad to twinmotion. Live raytracing in twin coming first quarter 2020. So my guess is that the reason why everything is not falling spart for you guys, would be that your customers dont know of archicad and the live link to twinmotion yet.

 

Ours are about to, and it seems like the senior directors in our company seems like it is ok to leave our customers to decide whether twinmotion quality is enough. It also seems like the customers actually are well okay with going a bit down on quality to get more images with less quality. I'm not sure about you, but my guess is that your bread and butter arent all in that high profiled international projects neighter. You know it, I know it. Visualization is one of the things they look at as an unnecessary expenditure. They also dont know how much job it is to go from idea to image, so why not let the architect herself do it correct the first time? They are after all very well trained, where the new ones claims they have almost 50 percent of their education as visualization.

 

So seems like we need to go down on quality to not loose our jobs. But if we go down on quality, then the company could as well just use the architects to make the visuals. So we loose our jobs anyway. What is left for us to do?

 

Need to say I am inhouse in an architecture/engineering company.

 

While reading and understanding what the contributors here have written, I still have some issues with coming to peace with all this. 3ds max is falling behind. We need animated objects right out of the box. 3ds max (or any other modeling program) needs live link to bimobjects.com. Things like that. Or else we are spending so much time on double work that we are going out just by that. Should we stick to what gives great quality or should we sell our souls and start with twinmotion? It hurts me to write it.

Edited January 1, 2020 by chroma

[Scott Schroeder]

I'm an in-house visualization person as well, so here was my experience from 2019. When I had met with my team for our last 2019 team meeting, I had really stressed one singular point. That was the way we are rendering in Dec 2019 will not be the same as we will be rendering in Dec 2020. For us, 2020 is going to represent a another paradigm shift in the rendering world. It is both scary and exciting, but will ultimately lead to great things for our industry.

 

Enscape:

We saw our workload drop by almost 50% when Enscape was rolled out. This was both good and bad. Good in that the 500 iteration "what does this look like" rendering process was off our plate. Bad when those renderings were considered "good enough" during client review stages. Where we saw our workload rebound at the end of the year was when these images were made public and tried to sell the product to the public, they were roundly rejected. This was even more so if there was a vote on the project in either city or county votes for bonds to fund it. The public is a lot smarter about CG imagery that we think they are, so they know bad CG when they see it. Even if they don't understand why. I mean, look at the cat-a-strophic results of the terrible CG in Cats. The real benefit of Enscape was realized in those projects that had been through Enscape produced better quality Revit models for us to import, decisions about materials were already made, and we were able to focus back on how well we are visualizing the design intent versus do we like the design at all?

 

Lumion/Twinmotion

Same as Enscape. Architects at the controls of this software is good for internal review, but bad for public review. Architects tend to want to show the functional see everything view and twirl-n-hurl animations. They want to break the living hell out of the images with 2-sun set ups, perfectly clear glass on a brilliant sunlit day, and dusk shots where every surface is the same 50% illumination value. These images tend to fail hard when presented to the public, but again, now that the project as at least started in Lumion, we can focus more on art than the importing process. As far as Twinmotion goes, as long as Epic fixes the multiple UI issues then this software is going to be a very difficult competitor for Lumion. Twinmotion has generally always looked better than Lumion, but was beyond frustrating to use so no one ever really adopted it.

 

Substance Designer

This is where we are starting to recover our workload. Rather than fight the trend of Enscape, we are now shifting to support our designers. It is no real secret that many architects and interior designers are dreadful material creators and many don't have the extra time to learn how to create good materials. So we can now help them create better base materials using Substance, which in turns gives us as visualizers a better start when it comes time for us to get involved.

 

BimObjects/Megascans

These are great and all, but are not really that much of a threat. The reason being is that when working with designers and clients, you can't ever tell them that you can't represent the material or furniture they want because one of those sites doesn't carry it. These sites are great for projects when you just need stuff, but how much work does that really represent? If an architect or interior design has picked out a brick sample, have you ever been able to show them a render that has the brick that has a 50% "close enough" match?

 

Unreal

Again, great technology but still has a long way to go to really get adopted. Right now, even with Datasmith, it takes far too long to get into Unreal than it does for Vray rendering or Enscape/Lumion/Twinmotion. If you don't want to spend time in optimization, then somehow you need to convince your studio and possibly your end client that you will need $5,000 or more worth of graphics cards just to view your project. There was an excellent webinar from HOK about using Unreal to visualize the new Texas Rangers baseball stadium, but they were happy with 5-10 FPS when walking around in Unreal with the client. That frame rate was with a Quadro RTX 5000, so no slouch of a GPU. Again, that worked for client reviews but would fail hardcore if that was released to the public.

 

Shitty Models and Cutting Corners

In all of the years that Revit was supposed to be this direct link to Max, has anyone reading this ever been able to use a Revit model as-is with no fixes from an architect? Chances are, the answer to that questions is a resounding no. Maybe if the model is in the late CD phase, but not if it is in SD or DD when the model is generally at it's most shitty build. Architects still have a thinking that if we just put this shitty model into Twinmtion that it will look better. Then when it doesn't they blame Twinmotion and never use it again. Revit, ArchiCAD, etc are at their core used for creating construction documents. The extra time it may take to create a complete model for visualization where in real time where someone can't see all of the flaws of the model is going to be a real off putting number for some places.

 

Closing thoughts

As I said before, we are undergoing a real shift in our work here in our studio and how we support projects. It will be scary as hell for the next few years as we figure things out, but this is also going to be the most exciting time since 2008-09 when we had to rethink our industry as well. For the big boutique and high end viz studios, the work will always be there for them. Where Enscape is going to be the real threat is for in house viz teams who do not adopt and for the low end el-cheapo visualization places.

Edited January 2, 2020 by VelvetElvis

[Chris MacDonald]

Every once in a while I have a bit of a panic about this, but then I have a think back to when Sketchup/piranesi/etc came out and the remember same conversations were being had. I'm not concerned; as the others have said this is a topic that comes around every time a new technology comes around.

 

I work in house at an architectural practice and Enscape has taken a lot of the iterative "what does it look like in this colour" work away and back into the hands of the architects. This has had the unusual effect of freeing up the team to take on bigger paying animation work which we would normally turn away because it took us away from being able to help out teams with those iterative tasks in-house.

 

One thing that has become abundantly clear to me recently with regards to Enscape though is the difference in quality that can be achieved depending on who's behind the wheel. Just recently we had a couple of animations being produced within different teams within the office; which then ended up in the visualisation teams lap for various reasons. We turned these animations around and the difference between what we produced and what the architects/technicians were producing was absolutely worlds apart. Thankfully this was recognised by the architects involved and safe to say I don't think they'll be attempting to produce the final cut in their teams again.

 

I don't think it's an architects place to be producing images when there is a visualisation team/company on hand to do that for them because from my point of view it demonstrates they've got too much time on their hands. There should be more than enough non-visualisation work in an architectural practice to keep architects busy designing buildings/liaising with clients & contractors/etc.

 

This isn't me being protectionist either... We have a couple of young/newly qualified architects here who tend to do a lot of the visuals for their teams and I can't help but think that it's detrimental to their own careers; the more time they're creating images the less they're learning/doing actual architecture.

 

Just my two cents.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Macker

[M V]

The thing I am most worried about are the people on Fiverr creating renderings with unlimited revisions for $60.

 

https://www.fiverr.com/share/6YPZ6r

 

Granted, you get what you pay for and I am sure communication is a nightmare, but clients are still referencing these prices and honestly, I am wondering why I don't just hire these guys to do all the work and I just collect a fee for managing the project, sit around drinking coffee all day watching Netflix.

[John Dollus]

The thing I am most worried about are the people on Fiverr creating renderings with unlimited revisions for $60.

 

...but clients are still referencing these prices

 

A. Sometimes, you should fire your client.

 

B. I am super annoyed by the latest one rendering challenge competition on Architizer being sponsored by Fiverr. I instantly lost respect for every juror involved. The very notion that Dbox is part of a competition encouraging and supporting such bottom feeders is alarming.

[Andres Saarnak]

The thing I am most worried about are the people on Fiverr creating renderings with unlimited revisions for $60.

 

https://www.fiverr.com/share/6YPZ6r

 

Granted, you get what you pay for and I am sure communication is a nightmare, but clients are still referencing these prices and honestly, I am wondering why I don't just hire these guys to do all the work and I just collect a fee for managing the project, sit around drinking coffee all day watching Netflix.

This is a very viable business model and I know some in my country are doing this quite successfully. Although I think it is much harder to manage than it seems and definitely not as much fun as 3D itself. A handful of 3D companies worldwide has contacted us, too, for this, to be our managers. We have been too expensive so far.

But wouldn´t this be a nice circle around the globe- Vietnamese highrise hires US company->they hire us->we hire a Vietnamese company! Aren´t most of the products designed-produced-sold this way, anyway?

[Francisco Penaloza]

This is a very viable business model and I know some in my country are doing this quite successfully. Although I think it is much harder to manage than it seems and definitely not as much fun as 3D itself. A handful of 3D companies worldwide has contacted us, too, for this, to be our managers. We have been too expensive so far.

But wouldn´t this be a nice circle around the globe- Vietnamese highrise hires US company->they hire us->we hire a Vietnamese company! Aren´t most of the products designed-produced-sold this way, anyway?

 

Yes, many things work that way, but that doesn't make it right.

If the Vietnamese company hires an USA based architectural firm to design a high rise, it will pay in USA standard, but if they hire a Vietnamese arch-viz person they will pay Vietnam standard, that to me is where 'Globalization' fails because that Vietnamese guy should get pay as much as a USA based artist does, that would be fair for him. better for all of us, but he works really hard, gets paid pennies, because his country and the foreign contractor tell him that's the way it has to be, that is not "globalization' is just plain abuse.

 

I keep saying, wait until engineering and Architectural work is produced overseas and approved without local licenses, Imagine in a close future, a High School in Texas can be designed and engineer and permitted in China, then even pre-build and installed in Texas, then everybody will be alarm and everybody will complain, can you imagine the local Architects how they will feel about it?

as for now, everybody is too comfortable making a profit and abusing the more need it.

Yes, I got very political here

 

 

To the first post, I don't think Arch Viz as a profession will die any time soon, to me it will just evolve, the 'traditional' way we produce images, videos and VR will change for sure, technology will make it easy, but just as Photography, everyone can take a decent picture today with a cellphone, and even hide the details with some fancy filter, but still people pay a professional photographer for Family photos, celebrations, and new buildings, we hire video producer to create 'professional' looking videos.

The same will apply to us,

we will have less work?? well maybe. For sure we will stop doing the very ugly bathroom image that we never did want to do anyway.

But @Jon I do understand your dilemma, and yes I feel the same, I work for an Architectural company, and man we got run over by Enscape and Lumion very fast over here. some clients didn't complain about quality at the beginning because they got more images for the same price, but little by little clients are asking for better quality, and our principals are starting to police the images that get posted in our website or are used to PR, they just want the best we can produce and not the one button click images.

 

So like everything in life, the scale will tilt to one side then to the other and then it will balance again.

Edited January 23, 2020 by fco3d

[M V]

can you imagine the local Architects how they will feel about it?.

 

I believe this is one of the only reasons the AIA exists and architects keep paying their insane fees to be members. They'll lobby and keep it from happening. Viz artists don't have something like this and this is why it is the Fiverr rendering is now a thing.

[Iain Denby]

This thread brought a smile to my face. It's my first visit to CGArchitect in several years having been a regular visitor before.

 

I'm approaching 60 years of age and have been through at least four previous episodes of anxiety regarding the future of my career:

1. As a traditional perspective artists as digital came in

2. When cheap overseas CGIs flooded the market

3. When GI made the process seem easy

4. When CGI work went in-house

 

You guys were part of 'the new generation' that made me anxious at the time and now you're perhaps in that same position.

 

The ones that will last are the ones that evolve and adapt.

 

Progress (and your clients) don't give a sh*t about your career or whether your work is superior in quality to someone else's, or whether it's 'unfair' that producing CGIs is so easy now -only you care about that

 

Nothing is forever and the old must give way to the new (people and technology)

Edited March 12, 2020 by Dibbers

[Devin Johnston]

This is a very good thread, I wish it had been around about 2-3 years ago when I went through this, by the way I'm also an in-house artist. My experience is very similar to others, Enscape & Lumion made their appearance and within 6 months I saw my workload for rendering cut in half. My anxiety grew as I was sure things were going to end for me soon but after talking with the Principals at my firm they made it clear they wanted me to concentrate my efforts on Animations, VR & AR and drone work. I should have mentioned that at the same time rendering was taking a nose dive I started working with drones because I thought they could be an asset for the firm.

 

Since then the kinds of work I'm doing has changed, I'm developing an AR app using Unreal and I've established a workflow for how to get projects into the Oculus Quest for mobile VR. I'm doing a ton of compositing work using drone footage I shoot, here's an example. I've also started using the drone to shoot our finished projects along with some hand held equipment for doing the interiors, another example. Of course I still do traditional animations and even a few higher end renderings when Enscape & Lumion won't do.

 

My intention in sharing these examples is to try and show that we can do more as visualizers / artists using the skills we've developed but it takes the will and desire to try new things. I will be the first to admit that this is an uncertain time especially for those of us who've been doing this for a few decades. I honestly love what I do even though it can be frustrating at times but I'm doing things today that I never thought I'd be doing as an architectural illustrator. As others have stated adapting to change is key to a long career, there are plenty of opportunities in our field as long as your willing to change to meet them.

[Chris Harris]

Very nice tracking on that first example video Devin.

[Sketchrender]

Devin

Thank you for writing that post.

I would agree adapt or die as they say in the movies.

The work you showed as examples are very good though, they are excellent quality.

My work flow is max corona, mostly these days photo montages.

 

I am presuming the first example is Lumion?

Can I ask what you day to day work flow is now.

Master plan work and Interiors namely?

 

Thank you

Phil

[Devin Johnston]

I do use Lumion but the first example was done with Vray/Max, Lumion can't import camera tracking but if it could I'd use it. Philip are you asking what my workflow is for aerial composites?

[Sketchrender]

Thank you for that.

General day to day work flow, large master plan work for example, with lots of detailed required.

 

Phil

[robert becker]

Hi, Older post I know but here are my thoughts.

You can take any part of this career and find a downfall or create a solution to keep going. Fro example, twin motion / Lumion / Enscape will all invade the field enabling in house designers to pump out ok work. You can also provide fast 3d modeling and services that take their work to a new level that only a full time artist can do. Your eye and experience will help get your client faster and better work.

High end work will always be in some demand, maybe not as much, but marketing folks certainly know the visual difference and pretty much no in house staff can do what a full time viz artist can do. They are simply not given the time to do better work. 

Happy to continue this discussion if more want to update it here.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

This topic does indeed seem to cycle over and over every few years. I still recall when SketchUp was all the fuss and how it was surely to become the end of our industry. The good'ol days.

The key for survival is to hone in on our particular set of skills, to master that which is most valuable that we offer as artists, and then adapt by using the ever increasing tools at our disposal to continue in the process of mastering our craft.  All these programs mentioned above are simply tools.  Nothing more. 

Sure, some "tools" have become simple enough so that any architect can now produce standard subpar visuals via the likes of Twinmotion or Lumion.  But to create something worthy of being called art, visuals that beautifully work at selling a concept or design, still requires (and IMO it always will) a specialized individual dedicated to perfecting his craft.  Be that individual and you'll survive just fine.  Call it Industrial Darwinism.   

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Jonathan Sanchez

[Karl Larsen]

I've been hearing about this Twinmotion thing, so I started reading, and looking at examples, and I downloaded the trial and played with it a while.

Frankly... the scenes look like... well... cartoon/video-game environments with a SketchUp model dropped in. It will likely appeal to youthful rendering artists that grew up playing video games, but the renders look like cartoons. I am sure that it will fill a niche for very fast low-cost renderings.

Hey, it's a Walmart world!

 

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by Karl Larsen

[Karl Larsen]

Well after digging a little bit deeper into Twinmotion, I have to admit, I am impressed - it isn't a Velvet Elvis class rendering but it is pretty darned fast.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Karl Larsen