topic Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural? in Visualization

Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:00:56 GMT

Hello all, I work for a high profile architectural firm in NZ
we are looking at upgrading to a new visualisation software for presentations of our mid-high end architectural projects

We currently use the latest Archicad and we are using Artlantis studio 4.1
but arent impressed by the latest offerings from artlantis 5 of the upcoming 6 as rendering times appear to be even longer in each subsequant version

We came across Lumion 3D and thought it looked like a good option for us.
http://lumion3d.com/#popup2/1/

Also had a look at Unity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXZ-xAa0UcI

We currently use artlantis 4.1 to produce Photorenders + Animations
as well as the VR object (not many programs allow the use of a VR)
however we could look at dropping that feature for breathtaking realistic movies.

Currently Artlantis is taking 4days(on a single high spec machine) to render a 1280x720 with Low Anti-Aliasing (ideally we like to use high but dont due to time constraints) and Normal Radiosity (also as opposed to high)
To produce a 1min 40sec single path movie animation

And up to 1hr to produce (15mins at best) a 4K Photorendered Perspective
3840x210 (200dpi) High-Antialiasing, Normal Radiosity

attached is the latest renders I have completed on our last project
to give you an idea on scale and complexity of our projects

Ideally we are wanting something that is more realistic in terms of lighting
and also good more realistic tress cars people & objects
but also something that takes a bit less time to render if possible.

Has anyone used Lumion in conjunction wtih Archicad that has any feedback about it like how long rendering takes? or any other preferred software?

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Mon, 18 May 2015 07:23:00 GMT

We use on a daily basis Lumion. After all the materials/lights are set, a render is done between 4 to 20 seconds depending on the resolution.

We also tried LumenRT but the increased price for the licence upgrade stopped us from using it.

You could try Unreal Engine
http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/show/9154/unreal-engine-4-for-archviz-tutorial

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Mon, 18 May 2015 20:16:02 GMT

that render time sounds fantastic for lumion

however the unreal engine looks, well ... Unreal! (very cool)
we will seriously consider the unreal engine

thanks for the link the info on it seems helpfull, will check it out
are these renders you have produced?

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Daniel Ward — Thu, 21 May 2015 02:31:12 GMT

Lumion is pretty useful for Animation or Renders where Landscaping is the dominant element, but it's usefulness for proper architectural illustration is pretty limited. The best Rendering application I have seen to date for ArchiCAD is the Octane for ArchiCAD plug-in, but the learning curve is pretty steep at the beginning. At NZ$650 per licence it's also a heck of a lot cheaper than Lumion. Lumion also only works off 1 GPU and doesn't support SLI. Octane supports as many GPU's as you can fit on your motherboard and they don't have to match as long as they are Nvidia GPUs.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 23:07:46 GMT

There is a demo version of the OctaneRender for ArchiCAD plugin available from http://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/demo/.

Paul

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 03:10:17 GMT

Dredging up an old thread here, but thought I might be able to offer a suggestion, especially as I'm a fellow kiwi.

We use Artlantis and have the same issues - I can render out a test animation (2 minutes long, 320 x 120, no AA and normal radiosity) on my machine (I7 4790, 32gb ram, GTX970) in around an hour or so, but had the same issues when wanting to do a final quality animation.

I have the artlantis render farm a go and found them both very professional and insanely quick. I don't work for these guys, but can vouch for them. Get back to your emails very quickly and are friendly as.

http://www.artlantisrenderfarm.com/index.php?page=home

Costs around $150 to $200NZD to render out 7 animations made up of 1000 frames, where stills are 1280 x 720 HD and render out in around 3 minutes. Would take them 4 hours versus around 3 days on my machine.

I also do a couple of the animations myself overnight to drop the cost lower still. Another tip is to use stills, and apply a subtle pan or zoom to them in place of an animation - big time and money saver and looks pretty cool.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Rakela Raul — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 22:02:41 GMT

I have in youtube a couple of decent ones !!
link below
(I meant to comeback w correct link & failed-pls find urself)
fishing pier = archicad to lumion
marina= revit to lumion
(not perfect @ all but durn quick)

https://youtu.be/Rjf9DTHIeW4
https://youtu.be/Rjf9DTHIeW4

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 01:29:21 GMT

Bringing back life to my old thread

Artlantis 6.5 came out in february and has introduced parallel processing on multiple computers (basically your own personal render farm)
id be interested to hear from anyone who is currently using it for visualisations and hear your opinions on it.

Might finally give us a reason to upgrade from our old Artlantis 4.1
also looks good with the twin-motion plugin

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Karl Griffith — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 11:27:08 GMT

I am using Artlantis 6.5, and have been using Artlantis since version 4.

The multiple node rendering feature is quite nice, and seems to work well. I've only tried it with two computers, but it still significantly speeds up the process (which wasn't terribly slow to begin with).

The more significant difference you will experience with an upgrade is that in Version 6 Artlantis went to a physically correct rendering engine. Lots of good stuff here as well, but you will note some features have been dropped. Two that come to mind are the 3d channel for shaders, and soft shadows. I suspect that the change in engine forced this, and I hope that Abvent is working on bringing back these features, but there has been no official word.

The other change with Artlantis 6 was a slow down in the preview window, and I think some slow down in rendering. The improvements in 6.5 were meant to correct this, and even improve speed.

From my perspective, I am happy with 6.5, though I am hoping to see some lost features return soon.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:45:57 GMT

One thing i was curious to know is if artlantis can parallel process with just networked computers... or over the internet as well?

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Karl Griffith — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:02:52 GMT

Looking at the Artlantis Help file for the new Render Manager, it refers specifically to "networked computers". No reference to using the internet. I suppose it might work, but it doesn't seem intended for that.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 14:10:04 GMT

Maxwell Render

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

tworks — Thu, 11 May 2017 17:20:44 GMT

OctaneRender (using superb Archicad plugin)

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 03:02:38 GMT

I note that OctaneRender requires a CUDA based graphics card which I currently dont have for the machine i will be using it

Anyone have example renders of Octane render they have done?

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Steve Jepson — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 07:49:53 GMT

methy wrote:
One thing i was curious to know is if artlantis can parallel process with just networked computers... or over the internet as well?

I would be interested to know why you don't want to use CineRender?

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Karl Griffith — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 12:42:29 GMT

Speaking for myself, I have been using Artlantis for years, but just got CineRender last year (upgrading from ArchiCAD Solo to Full version), so I am much more familiar with Artlantis.

I think CineRender can probably do a nicer rendering if one gets the settings right, but Artlantis is better when it comes to showing a building in its context. And the primary reason my clients ask for renders is to see the building in context. With the ability to set up background and foreground images, and the site insertion tool, Artlantis works well for this. I’ve actually used Twinmotion for a couple recent projects, which enables me to create the context in the TM model. Both softwares work well exporting from ArchiCAD.

And while CineRender can probably create a more refined image, that is due to the user having access to all the settings. Artlantis has focused on simplicity of the interface, and reducing the need for the user to adjust all those settings. So while you lose some control, you can work very fast, and I think, it is easier for a beginner. I understand that one can create presets in CineRender to do this, but I just haven’t had the time to work with it much.

The other thing I like about Artlantis over CineRender is that in Artlantis you are working ‘live’ on the rendered model, seeing your results as you modify. In CineRender you adjust settings in ArchiCAD, and then render to see results.

So for myself, while I do think CR is a fine rendering software and I intend to learn it better and use it, I see definite advantes to Artlantis, and now Twinmotion.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Erwin Edel — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 13:18:09 GMT

Not to downplay on Artlantis or Twinmotion, which are excellent software in their own right, you do no need to know all the bells and whistles to get a quick render out of cinerender, nor do you need to render the whole image to see what you get.

To start with the preview, there is a preview window when you open the Photorender Settings dialogue. If you make this palette bigger, the image will get a bit bigger too. There is no live update, but if your render settings are reasonable, the preview is quick.

There is also the option to use marquee tool in 3D to render small sections to see how surfaces are behaving.

On to surfaces: ArchiCAD comes shipped with a lot of preset surfaces to add to your projects, that can also be easily adjusted by ussually swapping out a texture or changing some colours in the procedural shader settings. These have all been optimised for Cinerender and will look nice out of the box. A bunch of them will already be present in your template, the rest you can easily add by creating a new surface from catalogue.

As for render settings, I've posted some quick render settings that for me look like what I used to do in Artlantis 4, witch similar render times.

My ussual approach:
Pick the daylight physical fast preset (interior or exterior).
Pick a nicer sky from the presets (I like the midday one).
Make sure you enable 'use archicad sun' to keep your camera settings for sun active.

Now go in to the 'detailed settings' (don't worry, they're not scary!):
If you are using any lamps to light up bits of your model, make sure you tick the Lamps under Light Adjustments.
Go to Environment > Physical Sky > Clouds and turn off 'cast shadow'. It doesn't look good and takes time to render.
Go to Options >General Options and change these 3 settings:
Ray treshold to 0, this means that you get all reflections in your render and makes it look a lot better and more alive.
Ray depth and Reflection depth both to something more like 12. These control how may transparant surfaces are rendered (along with reflections on them). This is set way too low by default, resulting in missings bits of your model or alpha channel images (trees, leafs) looking off.

If you are doing interior render and find that there are a lot of spots on surfaces, go to Global Illumination and change the Preset to Interior High.

For exterior I am ussually happy with Exterior Preview settings there.

If you know your photography stuff, you can also go in to the Physical Renderer settings and adjust ISO values, shutter speed, f-stop to play with how much light is shown in your renders.

There are indeed, way more settings you can go in to, but if your approach is 'the artlantis way', this should get you going with cinerender.

P.S.
Twinmotion looks awesome though, but it's another software license to have

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Karl Griffith — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 17:51:26 GMT

Thanks, Erwin. I do want to get using CineRender more, so I'll give tour recommendations a try.

Twinmotion is great software for context, but for a good render of the building itself I think a rendering program such as CineRender (or Artlantis) is better.

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

rm — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 19:16:05 GMT

I use both Artlantis and now have finally tried the CinerRender in AC21. I am shocked at how much more realistic lighting is coming from CineRender. But as stated, there is little control in it compared to Artlantis, PLUS you loose the use of AC once you start rendering in with CineRender.

Is there a free standing version of CinerRender that can be purchased.....sorry if that is a dumb question.

Thank you in advance!

Robert Mariani

Re: Best rendering software for Archicad Architectural?

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 22:03:28 GMT

Cinema4D is the software from which Cinerender comes from.