topic Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback in Visualization

Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Illes Papp — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 09:20:58 GMT

Greetings Everybody,

Visualization and the visual language as a whole is a crucial phenomena when we communicate our ideas to the clients. Should that be vectorial, artistic, non-realistic, photo-realistic, 2D or 3D from classic quick shaded representations to high-end VR or XR, most of us would agree that the way we communicate our ideas is truly essential.

I would like to start a dedicated conversation and hear your feedback on this topic. Please let me know:

What type of visualization do you do? (Quick Shaded, Rendering, Animations, Real-time visualization, ...)
What is your current workflow for visualization? (In-house, Outsourced, Partially Outsourced, ...)
What are the main challenges or obstacles in your current workflow?
What third party solutions do you incorporate in your workflow if you do any?

Let me know if you have anything else in connection to this topic. Let's start the conversation.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Nuge — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:05:05 GMT

Photo-realistic Inhouse Real-Time Rendering using D5 Render, its a great workflow and Archicad should concentrate on being a great model creation tool and not try to have some kind of half baked built-in renderer as we have had in the past.

Archicad just cannot handle the polygons required for photo-realistic rendering and the selection of 3D objects (Vegetation etc) available is just a joke and not even an option.

Simply things like a FBX exporter would be a great start, and update the Archicad API so the developers of the renderers can create good plugins easily.

Here are a couple of examples of renders using D5

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Nathan Hildebrandt — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 14:10:17 GMT

What type of visualization do you do? (Quick Shaded, Rendering, Animations, Real-time visualization, ...) Real-Time Visualisation, Fly-throughs, Photo-realistic renders, 360-degree panoramas, VR
What is your current workflow for visualization? (In-house, Outsourced, Partially Outsourced, ...) In house
What are the main challenges or obstacles in your current workflow? Content availability, I need to use the modelport add on due to the lack of content available in a format that can be imported directly into Archicad.
What third party solutions do you incorporate in your workflow if you do any? Enscape

https://www.skewed.com.au/media/webinars/visualisation-and-vr-made-easy-Archicad-users-through-enscape

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Tim Ball — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 19:25:04 GMT

You could start with creating a link from a 3D view to a layout where the image quality is acceptable!

At the moment everyone uses external render programs and of course they are not live. Most of the time for smaller projects a decent quality image from inside AC is sufficient and really fast.

I currently take a screen shot and reimport it - how clunky is that!

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

gavinNZz — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 20:25:29 GMT

What type of visualization do you do? (Quick Shaded, Rendering, Animations, Real-time visualization, ...) Still images, 360 pano tours, VR presentations, on-line 3D models
What is your current workflow for visualization? (In-house, Outsourced, Partially Outsourced, ...) In house

What are the main challenges or obstacles in your current workflow? Archicad elements are not accurate enough. I'm not talking about vegetation/furniture etc but more the elements that make up the building itself. Windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, hardware. With 3rd party software all the vegetation & furnishings are super accurate but you have to place them in a building that looks blocky and not realistic. It gets almost to the point where you have to replace every AC element in a model to get it looking good. That begs the question....why do we use AC in the first place?

What third party solutions do you incorporate in your workflow if you do any? Enscape (photorealistic renders), Kubity (online 3d model delivery), 3D Vista (360 pano tour creator)

Kubity example - https://player.kubity.com/p/QPqiE0

3D Vista Pano tour example - http://planworkstours.nz/Mather%20Clarke/index.htm

Enscape examples

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

DGSketcher — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 20:46:21 GMT

@Illes Papp These days I don't have much demand for photorealistic imagery. Much like @Tim Ball I tend to work with 3D screen grabs. It isn't clear if your remit covers 2D presentation, but the following post raised by @Tibor K raised a few ideas a couple of years ago which never got developed. https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Document-Visualize-forum/Shadows-in-architectural-documentation/m-p/250992#M38509

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Dendarii — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 03:11:37 GMT

I still use the in-built Archicad renderer now and then just for a quick look while designing, but ultimately use external renderers with a live link to Archicad - Mainly D5 Render as it is much faster, but more importantly provides all of the contextual assets (3d grass, trees, furniture, water, skies etc.) required to create a beautiful render/animation.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Illes Papp — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:48:05 GMT

I am happy to see your kind engagement in this discussion, please keep your insights coming.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Illes Papp — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 09:26:55 GMT

@DGSketcher, yes 2D visualization is also definitely part of the discussion.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Ahmed_K — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 17:46:09 GMT

when talking about rendering, I'm using Archicad as a modelling tool and 3ds max + corona / D5 / enscape for rendering and never used it's embedded rendering engine for just one reason : rendering needs a software that handles millions of polygons, and that have a huge library and objects to work with

in the last versions, some objects like cushions, pillows, pouf, books and other stuff are presented as rendering improvement, i can say that i never used them , and never will,

Archicad fails in this area, and all BIM modelling softwares too,

keep it simple, all we need is and FBX exporter to communicate with other softwares, and why not , a bidirectional connection , i can import placed textures from enscape, or import light positions from inscape to Archicad etc

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

maro — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 08:16:45 GMT

1 - Photo-realistic renders

2 - In house

3 - Better import for models, some improvement between AC - Octane Render (round edges don't work correctly)

4 - Octane render

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

abdelaziz — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 20:42:22 GMT

Hello, Illes

to be short I like the Cinerender rendering engine the problem that prevents me from working with cinerender

for example: in CINEMA 4D there is an option that is super handy, it is the possibility to copy the content of a channel and paste the other one which makes the creation of textures much easier, this is something that can be found on Twinmotion, the software I use today, thanks to its super engine, PathTracing (physically correct rendering) which can render an 8K image in 8 minutes, which makes the use of REDSHIFT in Archicad really unnecessary.

in my opinion Graphisoft should turn to another graphical aspect of the software
for example

the display of the different annotations (3D label,and different measurement options) in real-time 3D navigation, I present the project in 3d to the client, the client wants to have precise information on a good to steal it, I apply a 3d label and the information is visible directly without passing by section documents and facades or even 3d document the information to be visible in real time 3d 😉

3D in the center of the document, have real Documents (sections, facades, Document3d ...........) in real 3D, with all the annotation options to be able to execute the standard graphic effects of the AEC, PAO, CAO, DAO market
example: ambient occlusion effect all software offers this graphic option , Archicad NO
Glow effect , sandblasting glasses ,.............
we no longer want to use another solution such as PHOTOSHOP for our facades and elevation a very powerful GRAPHIc solution from Graphisoft

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

abdelaziz — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 22:40:02 GMT

What type of visualization do you do?

Quick Shaded: Archicad

Rendering: TWINMOTION 2022

Animations: TWINMOTION 2022

Real-time visualization: TWINMOTION 2022

What is your current workflow for visualization?

In-house, Outsourced

What are the main challenges or obstacles in your current workflow?

every time I want to make an elevation or a 3d document for an architectural competition I have to put an image rendered by Archicad of the ambient occlusion in layout under my elevation to have a more convincing and readable result for the jury because often the jury is not an architect and does not understand the elevations

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

jl_lt — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 19:15:58 GMT

What type of visualization do you do? (Quick Shaded, Rendering, Animations, Real-time visualization, ...) Depends on the project, the stage of the project, how we want to show it and the available resources. We try not to get fixed in one particular style, so we are equally happy with either quick cell-shaded and realistic renderings. We do a lot of schematic isometrics directly out of the model with 3d documents. We only provide animations if the client needs it for selling purposes, otherwise we think a video is a very limited way of showing a project. We also avoid doing real time render showings because people get distracted, but we do show them the 3d model directly as you see in Archicad.
What is your current workflow for visualization? (In-house, Outsourced, Partially Outsourced, ...) Most are done in-house with the ocasional outsourced images when more quality is needed. Even with outsourced images we still do the final editing and work with the 3d artist to position the camera and other details. Twinmotion has been a game changer, please Graphisoft make peace with them
What are the main challenges or obstacles in your current workflow? So far, with Archicad it has been quite the enjoyable experience, either for renderings or more diagramatic images like sectioned isos, but it took a while to get those isos more or less right with graphic overrides.
What third party solutions do you incorporate in your workflow if you do any? Twinmotion on AR22. The render company we work with use sketchup/3dmax and vray, but they import our archidad models. Also, Personally, and without using it to its full potential, i find the Archicad standard renderer quite enjoyable for quick images or "illustration style" images. I would definitely like an option to get outline rendering or cell shaded out of the renderer with perfectly straight lines (maybe im missing some setting in the ink line renderer).

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Nathan Hildebrandt — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 04:17:58 GMT

You realise that the free use of Twinmotion for 2 years was like giving a crackhead a free hit till they got fixed on it. It is a perfect sales tactic. They have not got issues between them, it is just business. Graphisoft still has the connection to Twinmotion.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Petar — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 11:54:32 GMT

I would put effort in creating better looking 3d window inside Archicad, add some ambient Occlusion, shading improvements etc.. it will be hard and probably loosing strategy to compete with some professional rendering engines out there. But we use Archicad inside 3d window extensively (its one of Archicad strengths -ability to work on the project directly in 3d)

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

jl_lt — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 02:44:35 GMT

Yes. I was talking about the livesync functionality for Archicad 25. We havent really tried the datasmith due to some very negative comments and not having too much time of lately, but as im reading right now it works more or less the same. We just have to pay now, which is actually worth it with twinmotion

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Nathan Hildebrandt — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 10:15:43 GMT

Hence my comment. There is still connectivity between the tools. I personally investigated it when the option first came up to use it for free. I decided to pay for Enscape instead as it aligned better with my workflows.

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

abdelaziz — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 11:22:56 GMT

how to make the Archicad file not become large? because Enscape's textures are generally more greedy and objects also even in low resolution, how to use the material editor? the search for the texture is done by texture name, there is no eyedropper system? to recover the texture and edit it, frankly between Epic game or Chaos Groupe I much prefer Epic Game

Re: Visualization & visual language - Conversation & feedback

Nathan Hildebrandt — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 11:29:58 GMT

Enscape doesn’t make the file large? I have delivered around 30 projects on tight timeframes using it. It doesn’t make file too big. Textures are only as detailed as you make them. Objects are proxies for use in Enscape. They are not of benefit in Archicad except you can accurately place them within Archicad rather than being in a separate platform. Material editor is directly linked to Archicad surfaces. Really simple to use. Enscape material editor you use if you want a higher level of quality in your material representation than from Archicad.

and in the end it is just preference right. Twinmotion and Enscape is just like Archicad and Revit. It just comes down to your preferred workflows. It works very effectively for me and it brings me projects and revenue, and my clients are blown away. And if Twinmotion does the same for you then that is great.