Artlantis alternatives

[KeesW]

I am needing to upgrade my Artlantis to work with Archicad 8.1. Are AV-Works or Eon Fastview genuine alternatives? Both of them seem to be designed for Archicad 7, rather than 8.

any views out there?

[Dwight]

AV Works is available as a Beta product for 8.1. See Abvent....

It is a direct plug-in operating just like any of ArchiCAD's wonderful rendering engines except providing ray-tracing and reflections - soft shadows, too.

I suggest that you investigate it as a convenient and simple alternative.

[Anonymous]

I will just add some more, AV-works will take in account relection and refraction, as weel as the depth of field. A set of 49 lamps taken for the AC International Library have been especially written for AV-works. These lamps will take in account the shoft shadows, Global Illumination, the falloff, the light power decreasing… so these elements make the rendering better and faster compare to the ArchiCAD engine.

Actually AV-works is close to be launched. You can download and try a full working product at:

http://www.abvent.com/us/software/avworks/avw2.asp

Attention AV-works 2.1 will only run with ArchiCAD 8.1 Mac and Windows.

[stefan]

For it's integration I recommend AV-Works.

For more sophisticated rendering (read: full animation, Radiosity, GI, raytracing, moving cars & people, RPC, ...) there are more expensive tools that are better suited, e.g. VIZ/3ds max, Cinema4D, Lightwave ...

[Anonymous]

Can I throw in a couple of alternatives that ive recently noticed but have not had the chance to demo, - perhaps someone could who has looked at these apps can give us some advice.

For windows users try www.reals3d.com

I like the quote on its web site "most software was originally produced for entertainment type applications and therefore doesn't necessarily satisfy an architect's need for ease of operation and affordable price".

Maccies try http://homepage.mac.com/mwengenm/Cheetah3D/index.html

Quite a new app but looks like it has some potential - reasonable price too.