topic Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight! in Visualization

Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 11:10:55 GMT

I think for AC-users, 4aternatives:
LW with AC9 and AC10
Cinema4D with Maxonform
or Artlantis R.

To have everything is gut, but expensive.

Dear Dwight, with your knowledge, will you buy Cinema 4D or ArtlantisR?

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 12:03:48 GMT

Sorry I am not Dwight (actually I am quite glad - no offence Dwight)
but, dependant on what you want to do with the software, I would choose Cinema 4D over Artlantis any day, if you have the correct C4D Package.
We do rendered images and animations etc and get great results in house.

Hope my two penneth is useful.

Cameron

samsung wrote:
I think for AC-users, 4aternatives:
LW with AC9 and AC10
Cinema4D with Maxonform
or Artlantis R.

To have everything is gut, but expensive.

Dear Dwight, with your knowledge, will you buy Cinema 4D or ArtlantisR?

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 12:11:04 GMT

Thanks Cameronm.
I wanted to listen from Dwight, because he experianced specially deeper with LW.
Cinema 4D is very difficult to use. This programm is closed to Allplan-tool, because the both one is from Germany.
If LW does work, than it is great.
Graphisoft must to do something more to make LW easier.

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:37:26 GMT

I think Dwight is doing LightWorks seminar in the US West Coast so you might have to wait for his answer for a while.

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:56:24 GMT

How about your answer?
Already I have Artlantis 4.5. In my opinion LW is better than Artlantis 4.5 in some case...
If LW is ok as Rendering, than we can save something.
For Allplan-user Cinema4D was included as gift or something like that...
Cinema4D for Allplan, and LW for AC...Is right?

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:12:31 GMT

I am not really competent in either Artlantis or LightWorks, so this is not my discussion.

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Erika Epstein — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 22:11:32 GMT

I think you also should consider the learning curve and what level of result you want to achieve.

Do you want and have the time to become a professional level renderer? For a very polished rendering, hiring a professional renderer may be appropriate. A reasonable quality rendering can be had without the steep learning curve of Cinema 4D with Artlantis, Piranesi and LW.

I know this has been discussed before on this forum and there are many examples of each program posted. Take a look!

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:15:48 GMT

Thanks Erika
It is good question. Professional level renderer is quite right word.
I must say, I am just architect, but not a professional renderer.
Renderingwork is already special job.
In my situation I can not invest for renderingwork from outside.
I must do everything from myself.
For this reason I am searching easily handled, but effective rendering programm...
To try everything costs too much time (and finally no ability)

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:34:42 GMT

I use C4D and I can tell you once you have your modelling done in AC, it is very easy to produce better quality renders than Artlantis.. Modelling in C4D takes a bit more learning..

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:09:20 GMT

samsung wrote:

I must say, I am just architect, but not a professional renderer.
In my situation I can not invest for renderingwork from outside.
I must do everything from myself.
For this reason I am searching easily handled, but effective rendering programm...
To try everything costs too much time (and finally no ability)

I am in your situation (lone architect, short of money and time).
As I have no experience in C4D, my opinion will be biased

AFAIK, C4D is a direct competitor of Max (which I know a bit), but for a slightly different market. One for animation, the second for games.

Both are very powerful modelers, and have superior rendering capabilities.
Both are VERY expensive (to buy and maintain) and VERY time consuming - steep learning curve.

C4D has the advantage of Maxonform, which is C4D light without rendering capabilities, for freeform modeling for ArchiCAD. I have seen it work but have not used it, as I have no project with that kind of needs (or clients with that kind of money...).

LW inside Archicad allows you to do some nice renderings, with the advantage of being inside AC. But it has its limits (no radiosity) and the final automatic quality is about the same level as Art.lantis 4.5. If you spend some time tweaking and post-producing images in LW, you can get some very decent images, but they always lack the depth you get from rendering engines with radiosity.

Art.lantis R is a special case.
It was developed to do exactly what an solo architect needs: A clean interface with ArchiCAD, a very intuitive handling (albeit french...) and a VERY fast rendering engine, even with high settings.

You do not get the same level of reality automatically that you get from C4D or MAX or others, but what you get is a very fast and powerful rendering program. And cheap.

I do not use ArchiCAD internal rendering engine, never have. The former ones where very weak, the inteface stinks (camera and light positioning, real time preview, material assignment). If I need a quick image from a developing work, I take it directly from the 3d window.

Every time I need a rendered image, even if it is a small and simple one, I go into Art.lantis. This is no problem with todays computers - You hop from one program to the other in zero time.

Art.lantis R has some huge improvements over 4.5 version, some of them obvious, others not so, but as important:

-Radiosity. This is the star of the show. You get some very interesting effects with this. Formerly (or in LW in AC) you had to cheat a lot and position lights underground pointing up, so you could compensate for dark ceilings. Not any more with radiosity. Also, gone are the monotonous plastic like surfaces. With Rad you get a very rich gradation of light on any given surface, without having to use computer consuming tricks like bumpmaps.

- Fresnel effect. This is a whole new ball game on glass and water, as you can see in the image attached. this image has no postproduction (I don't want to buy and learn photoshop, i'm a poor architect with little time, remember, so I need a final image straight out of the rendering program).

- Soft shadows. No more crazy tricks like multiplying lights and whatnot, you get a very natural looking effect from soft shadows (hard near the object, soft further away).

- Object handling. You can insert 3d objects from a library. (cars, 3d people, plants, whatever. It is fast and easy. You can even take 3d objects from other programs (like 3ds files) and convert them to Art.lantis objects. After you build a decent library, this makes your work very faster. The cart you see on the image was a free 3ds object downloaded from the net and transformed into an object. AC objects are not so easy to handle (specially the positioning and the material assignment).

- Radiosity real time preview. Well, not realtime, but fast enough. I know of no other program that does this.

- Album. This is a very underestimated characteristic. As you progress in your work, you make this small snapshots from various models with various materials. Then, when you find have a model that needs a shader or material similar to one used on a former model, you just drag and drop it from that snapshot - 1 second material setting!

- Fun to use. A must in any software!

- Other stuff. You must be yawning by now

That is my opinion, for what it i worth. And no, I have no commition from Abvent.

Have fun

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:17:03 GMT

been surfing a lot for artlantis R images,
and yes it's much more improved from art.4,5

the thing with artlantis...u got to know the tricks...
i've been with 4,5 for 2 years, and it's the only archicad friendly render mechine i knew... go to know to love it
now i'm spending my free time...wich is not much...to get to know more about artlantis R, i'm using R 1.0.0 wich crash a lot in my P4 2GHz, 1 GB DDR

maybe should get R.1.0.2

and now since i joind the forum, i just knew about maxon cinema 4 D is archicad friendly, so i'm gonna try it to, comparring it to Art-R
i'll use the most efficient one, not the best... since in my book LightWorks is still on top

about the price...
u should come to indonesia sometimes....

Hey Krip!!!when i need help with Artlantis R, gonna give u a post
is there a forum for artlantis R hehehe

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:25:24 GMT

i'll use the most efficient one, not the best... since in my book LightWorks is still on top

sorry i mean LightSCAPE
not lightWORKS

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:26:44 GMT

henry_use_archicad wrote:
Hey Krip!!!when i need help with Artlantis R, gonna give u a post
is there a forum for artlantis R hehehe

Sure. Try http://www.abvent.com/support/forum/

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:50:55 GMT

Hi Kripp

Your rendering work ist quite professional.
Is with Artlantis?

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

TomWaltz — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:07:41 GMT

henry_use_archicad wrote:
i'll use the most efficient one, not the best... since in my book LightWorks is still on top
sorry i mean LightSCAPE
not lightWORKS

Lightscape was really nice. It's a shame it got squashed by Autodesk.

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:18:32 GMT

The real lightworks programm is also very nice, if I see the some gallery.

please see this examples. You will like LW.

http://221.242.58.202/~dispadio/

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:47:13 GMT

samsung wrote:
Hi Kripp

Your rendering work ist quite professional.
Is with Artlantis?

Not really professional, at least according to some ppl here in the forum

yes, I always use art.lantis, could not live (or make a living) without it

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:47:41 GMT

Lightworks...

i've checked the links u gave me
http://221.242.58.202/~dispadio/

since it's in japanese kanji
i didn't get any information
but they got great images there

and i opened a link to
http://www.lightworkdesign.com

i attahced one image

i think images here aren't rendered with lightworks in archicad
maybe there's a standalone LightWorks software, not LW in AC
am i right?
if LW in AC can generate focus lighting and materials (not the model)
like this (the image attached) we don't need artlantis, 3dmax, etc, do we...

maybe in AC10

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 09:12:54 GMT

"Both are very powerful modelers, and have superior rendering capabilities.
Both are VERY expensive (to buy and maintain) and VERY time consuming - steep learning curve. "

Have you checked out the price of C4D?
The basic is half the price of Artlantis and with the Advanced Render plugin it is still less than AtrlantisR. This is all the software that you need for rendering and architectural animations.

For that you get rendering - easier and better than Artlantis - I think - plus the modelling and animation capabilities, if you want them.

Yes it is a steep learning curve to model but not to render, which is a lot easier, and using MaxonForm gives you a chance of pushing the boundaries.

I have also found our renderings take FAR less time when completed in C4D.

In summary our practice used Artlantis for years and have recently switched to C4D. We have found C4D to have better results than Artlantis, faster renders, cost less to purchase, and has the added benifit of the MaxonForm plugin which allows us to free form model and use Archicad.

Not for everybody but worth a look.

Re: Quovadis..LW,Cinema4D, Artlantis? Hello Dwight!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 09:45:36 GMT

C4D + MaxonForm + ArchiCAD, it is good combi, if C4D half price of Artlantis....
What happen in AC10 with Light Works?