topic Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D in Visualization

Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Thu, 11 May 2023 11:09:38 GMT

I would like to settle on a good software to work with Sketchup and Archicad. I have tried Artlantis and it is easy to use and works well with archicad. One thing I don't like is that you can't move or change any of the archicad elements. The renderings are of much better quality than Archicad and quick. I would dare say Artlantis is such a step above and easy to use that why anyone would torture themselves with trying to get high quality renderings from Archicad is beyond me.

I know almost nothing about Cinema 4D except that it works well with Archicad - I hear. I am not considering Maxwell until it is at least in Version 2.

Any insights are appreciated.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:04:25 GMT

Artlantis is great for rendering as you have discovered and VERY easy to learn.

Cinema 4D is also an excellent renderer with the added advantage of industrial strength modeling and animation tools. The downside is a bit of a steep learning curve (though I must say it is pretty easy considering it's capabilities).

For straight up, quick, high quality rendering Artlantis is the way to go. If you really need (or just want) the ability to add complex elements and entourage which are difficult or unavailable in ArchiCAD and don't mind the additional investment in time, etc. then C4D is probably best.

I've know some firms that use both according to the specific needs of the projects.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:48:53 GMT

Archislave, your observations are correct. ArtL is easy but has its constraints. Cinema and Max, and Maya, etc. are much better but they demand considerably more amount of time and money. Their learning curve is a really steep one too. I have never met anyone who said learning them had been easy.

So it is up to you - if you have both the time and the money, go for these! I myself have never found the time to learn Maya, though I had it on my computer!

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:17:27 GMT

Thanks for the feedback guys! Not only is it the steep learning curve of Cinema 4d, but the question of the benefit comes up. From what I have seen on their website, the results are not that much better Artlantis. Surely, the best renderings I have seen are done in Vray. But, they do not provide any plug-ins for the Mac currently.

I have not desire to tackle learning 3d Studio just to render in Vray. Maybe I will consider Vray when they develop a plug-in for Archicad, Cinema 4d, or even Sketchup Mac. By that time Maxwell will be in V2 so the equation will change.

I wonder if anyone could post Cinema 4d images vs Artlanits?

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Ignacio Azpiazu — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:11:40 GMT

archislave wrote:
I wonder if anyone could post Cinema 4d images vs Artlanits?

Cinema 4D is for full-time illustrators --you need to invest time to become proficient, and be able to profit from that time invested. If you do that, the product is beyond anything Artlantis can do, in terms of quality, control, and rendering farm power.

Artlantis is for the fast/inexpensive/good-enough architectural rendering that does not require a professional illustrator.

Both programs are awesome.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

stefan — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 09:28:04 GMT

Use Artlantis up to the point that it no longer suits you.

FWIW, when you first start using one of the high-end applications, your renderings will probably be worse than what you were achieving in Artlantis. It is only after some serious effort that you can get over that level of quality in the "pro" applications. So Artlantis fits it market very well: not the very best, but the right balance between quality and ease-of-use.

VRay is good, but you can get very good renderings in any application. Don't be blinded by the results of full-time visualization artists: this quality comes with experience and dedication.

P.S. I have started to use Artlantis Studio with our students for the visualization course this year.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:28:20 GMT

archislave wrote:
... One thing I don't like is that you can't move or change any of the archicad elements...

I haven't used it yet, but in Artlantis Studio can you not save Archicad objects as Artlantis objects and move them around/save for future use?

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:20:52 GMT

That is all good advice and I think I will try to milk Artlantis for all it's worth before I move on! It seems like a V2 of Artlantis is way overdue. Does anyone know why such a long gestation period?

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:22:24 GMT

archislave wrote:
That is all good advice and I think I will try to milk Artlantis for all it's worth before I move on! It seems like a V2 of Artlantis is way overdue. Does anyone know why such a long gestation period?

V2! We're up to about version 6 by now (If you count Artlantis R as 5, and studio as 6 - they stopped numbering at 4.5)

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:42:35 GMT

stefan wrote:
FWIW, when you first start using one of the high-end applications, your renderings will probably be worse than what you were achieving in Artlantis. It is only after some serious effort that you can get over that level of quality in the "pro" applications. So Artlantis fits it market very well: not the very best, but the right balance between quality and ease-of-use.

Stefan is absolutely right! I haven't used C4D but I know it is similar to 3DS Max, which means you need a lot of experience to be able to produce impressive renderings.

But I have to make a point - you do not need to learn the whole 3DS Max with all of its modelling and animaton stuff to suit your purpose. I could just learn the simple navigation commands (such as zoom, pan, move, rotate) and the visualization tools (camera, lights, materials) and you are ready to render! I myself had used it this way for several years till I found time to learn some modeling techniques and I still do not know animation at all, because I have never needed it.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

stefan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:49:34 GMT

kliment wrote:
But I have to make a point - you do not need to learn the whole 3DS Max with all of its modelling and animaton stuff to suit your purpose. I could just learn the simple navigation commands (such as zoom, pan, move, rotate) and the visualization tools (camera, lights, materials) and you are ready to render! I myself had used it this way for several years till I found time to learn some modeling techniques and I still do not know animation at all, because I have never needed it.

You can easily export a 3ds file from ArchiCAD, load it into VIZ/max, remove the ArchiCAD SUN spot, add a Daylight System (set date and time), activate Mental Ray, activate final gathering on preset draft/low and press render. You might want to replace glass, water and other more extended materials with the tremendous Mental Ray Arch & Design shaders and you're ready to go.

--> But mastering such an application takes a long time. I think I understand most of 3ds max (haven't found the time for particle flow and character studio), but I get good results when I find the time. But the workflow is easier and probably faster in Artlantis.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Djordje — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:24:06 GMT

All this begs another question:

Do you NEED to use Mental Rays and other stuff? How much does it cost to buy the software?

IMHO the inertia of 3D Studio (licensed or otherwise ...) that used to be manageable once upon a time (when XTs still existed ...) brought us to a very different pack of beasts. viz was created for a reason.

I still can't see why architects WASTE TIME with max, unless if strictly in the visualization business. Then, max or C4D pays.

Otherwise - Artlantis gives you 80% of the result with 10% of time investment and 10% of monetary investment. Plus, it renders faster.

I might be wrong, but ... For example, Stefan, do you use all paid or educational licenses? I think you said once that you use EDU, and that you complained often about paying a premium for Archicad once upon a time?

That is one of the reasons for LightWorks. You have invested, now the tool has to pay off ... one way or another.

And ... I don't really think that the client sees the difference between an LightWorks, Artlantis, C4D, Maxwell or Vray rendering. they either like it or not - and we should know how good is good enough. Perfect does not exist. Regretfully so.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:31:57 GMT

I just went through the process of rendering a project that I was being paid $1500. The image woudl be used for fund raising. I can't tell you the hours I spent trying to attain decent quality using Dwights book. The highest point I got took overnight to render. It still looked more like an illustration.

I then downloaded a demo of Artlantis and after a few hours of trial and error I got much more photo-realistic results that rendered in four minutes. Using Archicad for more that quick design checking - and using only the built-in sun (as it is by default) gives very renderings, but low quality renderings. Please don't waste your life away trying to go beyond that with Archicad's Lightworks. Just get Artlantis. I thnk Dwight wrote his book just to humiliate Graphisoft by showing the convoluted and unpredictable process.

I really don't care if they ever improve Archicad since it ties up the app when in rendering. I can still work in Archicad while rendering in Artlantis!

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:34:11 GMT

Can anyone speak to the best texture library to invest in. I have thought of buying Dosh textures since I think they can be used in Artlantis, Cinema 4d, and Maxwell. Instead of buying the premium textures from Abvent maybe the Dosch ones would allow me to move up over time.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

stefan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:40:34 GMT

Djordje wrote:
All this begs another question:
Do you NEED to use Mental Rays and other stuff? How much does it cost to buy the software?

Mental Ray as a rendering engine has become pretty usable, even for non-specialists. It used to be different.
It is included with Softimage XSI, Maya, 3ds max, VIZ and now even AutoCAD. I suppose Revit will follow in the future, since VIZ Render was dropped recently and Accurender in Revit is never updated.

Djordje wrote:
IMHO the inertia of 3D Studio (licensed or otherwise ...) that used to be manageable once upon a time (when XTs still existed ...) brought us to a very different pack of beasts. viz was created for a reason.

I still can't see why architects WASTE TIME with max, unless if strictly in the visualization business. Then, max or C4D pays.

VIZ and 3ds max are popular. They are good but complex tools. It might pay of for architects, when they use these applications also as modelling applications (instead or accompanied by SketchUp, Rhino or FormZ).
They are from Autodesk and since many (not all) architects are using AutoCAD or related software, VIZ and max are a logical choice.

Djordje wrote:
Otherwise - Artlantis gives you 80% of the result with 10% of time investment and 10% of monetary investment. Plus, it renders faster.

I agree.

Djordje wrote:
I might be wrong, but ... For example, Stefan, do you use all paid or educational licenses? I think you said once that you use EDU, and that you complained often about paying a premium for Archicad once upon a time?

I actually have paid for a commercial license for ArchiCAD, but I also use the educational version in the classroom. I keep using my personal license (with the dongle) since it doesn't have banners. The rest are free, cheap or educational versions. I don't use illegal copies.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

stefan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:45:50 GMT

archislave wrote:
Can anyone speak to the best texture library to invest in. I have thought of buying Dosh textures since I think they can be used in Artlantis, Cinema 4d, and Maxwell. Instead of buying the premium textures from Abvent maybe the Dosch ones would allow me to move up over time.

Currently I tend to look out for Arroway and 3DTotal, but Marlin, Imagecels, Ambientlight are all good.

I have a collection of links on http://caad.asro.kuleuven.be/manuals/visualization/resources.htm

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:29:32 GMT

archislave wrote:
Can anyone speak to the best texture library to invest in. I have thought of buying Dosh textures since I think they can be used in Artlantis, Cinema 4d, and Maxwell. Instead of buying the premium textures from Abvent maybe the Dosch ones would allow me to move up over time.

The Abvent 'premium' shader libraries are Dosch libraries - customized for Artlantis. The advantage for an Artlantis user is that they install as immediately usable drag and drop shaders, with proper scale and settings. Purchasing other texture libraries requires that you spend the time to do the setup.

Most of the Abvent/Dosch premium shaders are quite good - with high pixel counts. Some are pretty bad (floor boards that are basically a wood grain with a board-pattern bump map: look fake).

Again: there is a difference between a Dosch library purchased directly from Dosch (it is just texture files: images and bumps/etc) and the same library purchased with the Abvent/Artlantis label (objectsonline, cadgarage, etc): the Abvent version also includes pre-defined shaders that use all of the texture files. If you purchase the Abvent version, all of the JPEGs are there for you to copy/use in other applications including ArchiCAD, so an Artlantis user gets extra value from this package.

All of that said, there are lots of other texture libraries out there as Stefan notes! 🙂

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:25:42 GMT

Karl, that is really good information. I am still kind of confused as to the difference between a shader and texture. I just need to learn more about Artlantis. I heard the new book is not that good?

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:44:27 GMT

Some of the best texture collections come from Evermotion.

Re: Artlantis vs Cinema 4D

archislave — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:17:40 GMT

I looked at Evermotion, but they seem to be only for 3d Max.