topic Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters in Visualization

Simplify Cinerender material parameters

alemanda — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:13:04 GMT

I find parameters to create cinerender materials way too complicated compared to the final result.

Many parameters produce not visible effects.

I think it would be better to have the chance to use few settings to work with to obtain certain effects.

More or less as many real-time renderers do.

I consider Cinerender a super aid for those who want to keep everything (drawings, documentation, visualization) coordinate under the same system... and it should be simpler to be more effective.

Operating system used: Windows

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Erwin Edel — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 09:13:16 GMT

Try to start from an existing surface either in the template or from the ones provided in the library and then modify them as needed, rather than starting from scratch. It is quite easy to change a few colours or swap out textures and not touch any of the more advanced settings involved.

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

alemanda — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 06:38:58 GMT

Yes Erwin, that’s what I normally do. While it’s easy changing the color I think it’s not easy obtaining the wanted result if you’re not into the mixing rules (normal, add, etc) or if you don’t master the layers rule … also copying layers into another channel is a nightmare … also maybe you want add some blur effect but the blurriness does not activate automatically if it is off …

Cinerender is great and it’s great to have it embedded into archicad to produce stunning ootb results but a simpler use will make it super!

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Barry Kelly — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 13:44:32 GMT

If you don't want the complexities of the Cinerender engine,

You can just use the Basic engine a renderer.

These materials are much simpler and are what you see in the 3D window.

Barry/

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Erwin Edel — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:45:18 GMT

I'm not sure which type of 'material' you are struggling with, but I find we typically have these 'custom' surfaces:

paint; easily done by duplicating existing paint (glossy or more 'flat') and only changing the colour value
bricks; swap in textures for colour and alpha-channel from supplier
wooden siding; we exported the existing textures from the GS library and change the colour in photoshop, save as new textures and swap out

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

alemanda — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 06:04:03 GMT

Paints are quite easy unless you want to obtain some silk effect or slight reflective effect …

Wood is quite headache also for the same reason, especially if you start from some of the built in library surface.

bricks are ok

the nightmare are the metals; some of them are built with layers and changing to obtain what you want is not an easy task … I mean I like doing it because I ilke learning new things but I think of a normal user who gives up immediately… and it’s a pity because we have a good renderer engine in our hands

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Barry Kelly — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 06:57:38 GMT

There are quite a few surfaces in the default template.

And if you have a select agreement or subscription, you can download an additional surface catalogue that has many more.

I am not saying they are perfect and not sure what the ones in BIMComponents are like.

Barry.

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Erwin Edel — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 07:38:45 GMT

Do you have the premium surfaces library loaded as well? I find I typically can get something that needs very little manipulation for things like metal or gloss from both GS libraries (I think this gives you around 500 surfaces to start from).

For reflective surfaces I found that I spent more time with the cinerender settings than the surface settings to get things looking right.

The out of the box 'scene' presets were pretty poorly optimised in the past, so I spent a lot of time figuring out which settings impacted render time, render quality etc to get something that renders quickly at decent quality.

Re: Simplify Cinerender material parameters

Erwin Edel — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 07:39:30 GMT

Sorry Barry, I see you offered most of the same insights as I did up there.