BIMx Global Illumination Quality Roadmap?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone from GS made any statement or released a roadmap for how they plan to improve image quality in BIMx? Little concerned that the BIMx render-engine has remained relatively unchanged (on the surface level) from the old VBE days until now. I'd really like to see the team makes IQ strides with each version of ArchiCAD now that BIMx has become an establish and integrated part of the program.

Is there anything the community can do to assist in this?
I'd rather not sit through another 3-4 years of the same Global Illumination with shadow tearing and major issues at inside corners.

Our goal should be to get to CryEngine levels (integral lighting from placed lamps, better shadows, maybe atmospherics, all would be VERY useful for clients), right now we're at 95 Quake engine quality without any IQ improvements year over year. Clients love to explore but we're constantly having to apologize for the image quality gap.

http://www.crytek.com/cryengine/cryengine3/overview
http://unity3d.com/5

[Anonymous]

i fully agree with this, my bimx models are always dark. i have yet to find a way to lighten them up with out sacrificing the quality of the shadows. i would love to have a more photo realistic bimx model.

[Anonymous]

Archicad 19. Integrating Cinema 4D with BIMx

[Csaba Kezer]

Hey All,

We have recently implemented major corrections to improve the quality of BIMx mobile GI calculations. This fix will be available with the next HF of AC 17 (coming after Build 6004) and in the released AC 18 package.

On the long run we are thinking of replacing the engine, but I can't tell anything concrete yet.

Csaba

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Csaba wrote:
Hey All,

We have recently implemented major corrections to improve the quality of BIMx mobile GI calculations. This fix will be available with the next HF of AC 17 (coming after Build 6004) and in the released AC 18 package.

On the long run we are thinking of replacing the engine, but I can't tell anything concrete yet.

Csaba

Hopefully something more up to date than radiosity-based light calculation (like maybe Light-caching or Irradiance caching or some Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) hybrid)

Radiosity is, and was pretty great (especially during its heyday of Lightscape and the like) but is a rather limited methodology given what today's computers and hardware are capable of that it doesn't take advantage of.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Csaba, new engine sounds great in the long run, improving the existing GI also sounds promising (anything that helps remove those wonky graphic issues at interior corners).


Would also love to see iOS 8's metal incorporated, though I'm sure that's a foolish hope at this point.
http://mashable.com/2014/06/02/apple-metal-wwdc/

[Anonymous]

thepsyntyst wrote:
i fully agree with this, my bimx models are always dark. i have yet to find a way to lighten them up with out sacrificing the quality of the shadows. i would love to have a more photo realistic bimx model.

I've kept hoping someone from the community would take on the challenge of experimenting with the engine. I imagine there are tricks to improving the image quality (like modifying textures to use more realistic imagery, swapping the skybox out, etc.). I wish there were a little more documentation on how the engine worked, then we'd have a better idea how to tailor our material settings. Beginning to think our office may have to dedicate some time to experimenting and documenting that, but never enough time.

[Anonymous]

flamingjawa wrote:

thepsyntyst wrote:
i fully agree with this, my bimx models are always dark. i have yet to find a way to lighten them up with out sacrificing the quality of the shadows. i would love to have a more photo realistic bimx model.

I've kept hoping someone from the community would take on the challenge of experimenting with the engine. I imagine there are tricks to improving the image quality (like modifying textures to use more realistic imagery, swapping the skybox out, etc.). I wish there were a little more documentation on how the engine worked, then we'd have a better idea how to tailor our material settings. Beginning to think our office may have to dedicate some time to experimenting and documenting that, but never enough time.

I have actually spend countless hours messing with materials to try to lighten things up. I still have narrow it down but I did get a couple models to lighten up. I'll try to PST my findings in the next week or two. I guess pending how things look with v18

[Anonymous]

I have had some success by utilizing massive material maps and placing exactly in 3D (sort of following the standard mapping strategy from the gaming industry).

I've also found that turning on SSAO and setting sun brightness to zero while ramping the sampling falloff to the max seems to result in the subtlest look.

I've also been playing around with dumping the skybox all together and just going with a white ground plane and white background. I actually like the look of that because it brings the model to the forefront and we're not competing with pixelated clouds.

None of that really fixes all the light/shadow issues when elements touch, collide or triangulate but it does result in a look that's more pleasing to my eye.

[Anonymous]

Ive never bothered with BIMX, the lighting and model quality are so bad I feel embaressed presenting my work using this engine. The sky box alone is just horrible, so depressing.

When presenting work to clients I much prefer to use the regular work enviroment, with that added bonus that we can edit the model on the fly, trying out different layout ideas. Clients love this.


Ive recently been playing around with Google Cardboard, very very interesting!! Are GS looking at this new technology?

I strongley suggest that people try it on their smartphones.

GRAPHISOFT,PLEASE IMPLEMENT STEREO VIEW IN BIMX FOR THE ANDROID APP!!! So that it can be used with google cardboard.

If GS are sensible they will implement Cardboard for AC model viewing asap, its the future. To do this, all that needs to happen is that they allow stereoscopic view in BIMx android app