ArchiCAD 18 announced

[Laszlo Nagy]

Find the official announcement and new features at:

http://www.graphisoft.com/archicad/archicad-18/overview/

[Chazz]

Stress wrote:
My take-a-way from watching that video... "Ok, now we're completely lost"

That video was absolutely baffling and left me feeling embarrassed for its author. It also made me realize just how good I have it with Artlantis.

3 things make Artlantis a better experience:

• 1. A nice visual library of procedural shaders and textures
  2. Drag and drop texture application --it's actually fun to do.
  3. A PREVIEW WINDOW (this is huge)

Sure, Artlantis has its quirks (like a nice French car from the 60's) and having to export is a drag but I think they strike a better balance between ease-of-use and crazy photorealism perfection. Artlantis gets sweet spot that most architects/designers need. And the batch processing makes production jobs really good in an office setting. Nothing in the AC 18 rendering videos makes me say: "Wow, this is so much cooler than Artlantis!"

[Eduardo Rolon]

Just to balance out the Nattering Nabob, I do enjoy using Cinerenderer and the settings are not that difficult. Settings are as simple as Artlantis or as complicated as C4D and it is as fast/faster than Artlantis on the same hardware.

[Chazz]

ejrolon wrote:
Just to balance out the Nattering Nabob......

Thanks Eduardo. Yes, my gloomy prognosticating is in need of balance. Good to hear Cinerenderer (sounds like a pastry) can be enjoyable and fast to use. Maybe the video script writer was just having a bad day.

In the AC implementation of CineRender, is there a way to process scenes in batches? Maybe just make a movie? Or do it via publishing saved render views? If it is faster, I assume it is using all the available cores, as Artlantis does.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Renders happen in the background, so you can keep working in AC as they happen. So, it is sort of like a batch render... but unlike, say, the Artlantis batch render, there is no control once the process has started... you cannot pause, only cancel, etc. Yes, it uses all available cores.

A standard material library, tuned for CineRender, comes with AC 18. So, for most people, the complexity of clicking on all of those controls to create a new sophisticated shader won't be an issue.

Worth repeating is that CineRender has a real, 3-D grass option. Looks great (the perfect, weed-free lawn) - softening exterior building elements adjacent to it - and renders quickly. For those still living in the 70's, it can be used for shag carpet, too. 😉

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, I think Eduardo is right: it can be simple, you don't have to deal with the more complicated settings most of the time if you don't want to.
That video shows you a process of developing a sophisticated surface. As such I think the author actually wanted to show all the various options that are now at your disposal. He may also wanted to show you that you will have to learn them and use your head when creating them because there is not always a step-by-step formula to achieve the surface you want and operating a high-end rendering engine is pretty much an art form in its own right (at least in my opinion).
However, most people will almost never have to do that if they don't want to. AC18 will come with a library of 300 surfaces (and 800 for subscription customers, I think) so they will be able to use those, maybe modify them a little if needed. But those surfaces should satisfy a lot of users.
So just because that video shows the extensive list of options and settings you can use does not mean that you will have to use them always, every time on all projects.
There will also be a Basic or Beginner mode in CineRender in which you can produce pretty high quality images with a few mouse clicks using defaults surfaces and scene settings.

[Ivan Piljek]

Karl wrote:
Renders happen in the background, so you can keep working in AC as they happen. So, it is sort of like a batch render... but unlike, say, the Artlantis batch render, there is no control once the process has started... you cannot pause, only cancel, etc. Yes, it uses all available cores.

A standard material library, tuned for CineRender, comes with AC 18. So, for most people, the complexity of clicking on all of those controls to create a new sophisticated shader won't be an issue.

Worth repeating is that CineRender has a real, 3-D grass option. Looks great (the perfect, weed-free lawn) - softening exterior building elements adjacent to it - and renders quickly. For those still living in the 70's, it can be used for shag carpet, too. 😉

Can we export this grass and carpet as real 3d objects into Artlantis, or it works only in Cinerender.

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
Renders happen in the background, so you can keep working in AC as they happen.

Hmm, after I hit the render button in 3dsmax, the CPU usage jumps to 100% and i can't do anything on my computer, not even web browsing. This means that Vray is squeezing every last drop of CPU power for rendering, and that's what i'm expecting from an rendering engine. It seems that's not the case with the new rendering engine? Or it has a "background rendering" mode which it's not using all the CPU cores, besides the normal rendering mode?

[Jussi_]

Rick wrote:

Jussi_ wrote:
I read that WIBU dongles need to be changed, since AC18 does not support it any more. .

Not sure where you read that, but my old blue wibu dongle works fine with 18 beta, and there was no mention of an issue after release, that I have heard. CUT.

This local distributor in Finland is very reliable source, they are ArchiCAD specialist, not marketing people:
http://www.mad.fi/mad/archicadpaivitys.html
Old WibuKey works with ArchiCAD 7…17 . Next ArchiCAD 18 -version does not open with WibuKey-license, therefore WibuKey has to be changed to CodeMeter-license.

On the other hand Graphisoft page has this info (that gives me hope, like your beta version report, thx)
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/system_requirements/index.html
Protection Key
You will need an ArchiCAD 18 WIBU-Box / CodeMeter hardware key or CodeMeter Act software protection key to start the ArchiCAD 18 program.

[Jussi_]

Jussi_ wrote:
My point is that old users need to access to old ArchiCAD documents with ArchiCAD they were created. Without conversion hassle (and numerous errors). This should be paying customers choice. Keep those obsolete machines, operating systems and software versions.

To me is much easier to skip new ArchiCAD versions than give up access to old ones. I am skipping AC17. Fate of AC18 is undecided by me.

These are ArchiCAD versions that handle nicely documents created by previous versions: AC7, AC9, AC16
Many of you must remember that change from version nine to ten was a tedious task. If you have few billable hours for old project, doing it with ArchiCAD version that behaves well with old document can be wiser than going through conversion.

[Barry Kelly]

Jussi_ wrote:
I read that WIBU dongles need to be changed, since AC18 does not support it any more. .

I have heard that 18 will work with the WIBU key but it will be the last version to do so.
I am sure that Graphisoft would have announced by now if 18 does not work with WIBU key.

Barry.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Ivan wrote:
…
Can we export this grass and carpet as real 3d objects into Artlantis, or it works only in Cinerender.

The carpet is not an object it is a C4D Material (Procedural with Displacement) optimized for use in Archicad so it will not export to Artlantis.

-----
costingh

AFAIK Cinerender was optimized so that you could keep working on your construction documents or doing design development while it was rendering the views. If I understood correctly at a minimum AC will leave 1 core for the OS, will use 1 for itself so you can keep working, another for PBC-section/elev generation and the rest for rendering.

[MSotero]

ejrolon wrote:
If I understood correctly at a minimum AC will leave 1 core for the OS, will use 1 for itself so you can keep working, another for PBC-section/elev generation and the rest for rendering.

So if the "minimum" reserved cores is 3, wouldn't that mean the maximum number of cores ever available for rendering with my 4 core iMac is 1? Or did you mean something else?

[Eduardo Rolon]

In your case yes and this is based on my understanding of what was said and I could be wrong. C4D basically works like this in that it will use what is available and my experience using it with Vray is that I can let C4D render switch to AC and keep working instead of waiting for it to finish.

[MSotero]

Karl wrote:
A standard material library, tuned for CineRender, comes with AC 18.

Well, if it is really "tuned for CineRender" that would deserve applause!

Not to sound negative, but in the past, I would not describe the materials to be tuned for Lightworks or Archicad.

Your increasing my expectations and hopes. Looking forward to it.

The grass thing sounds cool. Does it only do common grass or can it be manipulated to look like similar forms of ground cover?

[Karl Ottenstein]

MSotero wrote:
The grass thing sounds cool. Does it only do common grass or can it be manipulated to look like similar forms of ground cover?

Just grass-like things. You can change parameters for the blade length/height, width and density.

As Eduardo pointed out, it is a procedural shader thing... generated by the rendering engine itself, so cannot be seen in OpenGL, nor saved as an object, etc.

[Karl Ottenstein]

costingh wrote:

Karl wrote:
Renders happen in the background, so you can keep working in AC as they happen.

Hmm, after I hit the render button in 3dsmax, the CPU usage jumps to 100% and i can't do anything on my computer, not even web browsing. This means that Vray is squeezing every last drop of CPU power for rendering, and that's what i'm expecting from an rendering engine. It seems that's not the case with the new rendering engine? Or it has a "background rendering" mode which it's not using all the CPU cores, besides the normal rendering mode?

Management of cores is an operating system function, along with the number of threads the app creates, priority-setting by the app, etc. Either 3dsmax has given itself highest priority and/or your computer only has one core (100% = 1 core), and is underpowered to run multithreaded apps.

See attached for AC 18 with a CineRender running on my 8 core Mac. In the shot, CineRender is using about 6.6 cores and AC is using about 0.5 cores, leaving about 1 core for the OS and other stuff at the moment the screenshot was taken.

Responsiveness - mostly due to Mac OS X - is very good. While rendering, Mail checked for new messages and downloaded them, and CineRender utilization temporarily dropped to 550%, giving more processing power for Mail to finish its job, then returned to 665%. Switching to the 2D window and working, I'm not aware of anything slowing me down.

And, my Mac is 6 years old!

[Anonymous]

@Karl Ottenstein, my cpu has 4 phisical cores (i5 2500) and it's running win 7.
Maybe 3dsmax has set for itself the highest priority (I didn't check) but for me it's fine, it means that it is finishing faster the rendering and have to wait *only* 3 hours instead of 4 . I never had to work on a model in the same time as the model was rendered (for me this is a nonsense, first I finish the model and only after it's finished I'm texturing and rendering it) that's why i don't see the point of such a feature as background rendering.
Procedural grass... probably using displacement? Displacement is usually CPU and memory hungry and increases a lot the rendering time... i'm curious how does it look and how fast does it render...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Grass: it is a bit slower, but not dramatically. For normal distance 'shots', where shadows in the grass wouldn't really be noticeable, I turned off grass shadows and having grass probably only increased the render time by 20 seconds or so. I'd have to really test to give you a real number.

Background rendering is huge for architects... you can continue working on details, layouts, other parts of the building, whatever, while a render generates. When you say "when I finish the model and only after it's finished, I'm ...rendering"... well, that's how rendering specialists work... it's not how (most) architects work. It's fine if the background feature is of no use to you... doesn't hurt you in any way to have it. 😉

[Bricklyne Clarence]

costingh wrote:

Karl wrote:
Renders happen in the background, so you can keep working in AC as they happen.

Hmm, after I hit the render button in 3dsmax, the CPU usage jumps to 100% and i can't do anything on my computer, not even web browsing. This means that Vray is squeezing every last drop of CPU power for rendering, and that's what i'm expecting from an rendering engine. It seems that's not the case with the new rendering engine? Or it has a "background rendering" mode which it's not using all the CPU cores, besides the normal rendering mode?

I'm surprised that in this day and age people still don't know about setting core affinities for various programs and tasks in Task manager in Windows.

Open your task manager and under Tasks, for the specific program, Right-click, and then select 'Set affinity' to turn off a particular core (or more) for a program, if you don't want it to use 100% of all your cores leaving your computer unusable.

Of course it will render slower (in the case of rendering), but as soon as you're done doing whatever else you're doing, you can set the affinity of the rendering program back to 100%.

[Anonymous]

@Bricklyne Clarence, I've learnt about setting the affinity long time ago,I remember that the best processor of the time was intel pentium 500MHz and I had a dual celeron machine runing on a abit bp6 motherboard... that would be... 15 years ago I think
But not setting the affinity was the idea. I was saying that if the rendering engine isn't using all the CPU cores at 100% then it means that probably it isn't using the computer at its maximum and this leading to longer rendering times.
@Karl Ottenstein, i think every architect has his own workflow. For example, at the time I do the sections,details, etc. there's no point of making renderings as the client already knows how the building looks. I'm using renderings only in the early stages of a project. What if the client doesn't like how the building is looking in my renderings and wants me to change, i don 't know, something, and I have finished all the sections, details, etc, even my structural engineer has finished his part of work?
But this is my scenario, probably everyone has his own and it's better to have a new feature rather than not having it.