Rendering Software

[Red]

Which software is the best for life like renderings? There are so many out there to choose from. Please don't mention Art-Lantis.


Is their a list out there comparing software? Pros and Cons?

[TomWaltz]

Scott wrote:
Somewhat off topic but related question; if Artlantis R or S were included with the purchase of AC (no price add), would anyone continue to use Lightworks for renderings? Any qualities with Lightworks that beat out Artlantis aside than that LW is bundled with AC?

I would still use Lightworks. The time cost of one-way, non-updating file exports is pretty high... It's one of the biggest reasons I use C4D as an external renderer.

[Scott Bulmer]

Tom Waltz wrote:

The time cost of one-way, non-updating file exports is pretty high... It's one of the biggest reasons I use C4D as an external renderer.

Thanks Tom,
So if C4D were bundled with AC with no added cost, would you still use LW? Also, how's the learning curve for C4D?

[Djordje]

TomWaltz wrote:
The time cost of one-way, non-updating file exports is pretty high...

Non updating?

Open with reference.

[TomWaltz]

Scott wrote:
Tom Waltz wrote:

The time cost of one-way, non-updating file exports is pretty high... It's one of the biggest reasons I use C4D as an external renderer.

Thanks Tom,
So if C4D were bundled with AC with no added cost, would you still use LW? Also, how's the learning curve for C4D?

If C4D were free, not a chance. I'd be using C4D for everything in sight. It can do much better rendering, camera movement, and object animation. It's only the higher end animation that I use it for now.

The learning curve is pretty steep, since it's a completely separate program and there are few transferrable skills.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

TomWaltz wrote:

Scott wrote:
if Artlantis R or S were included with the purchase of AC (no price add), would anyone continue to use Lightworks for renderings?

I would still use Lightworks. The time cost of one-way, non-updating file exports is pretty high... It's one of the biggest reasons I use C4D as an external renderer.

Artlantis updates at least as seamlessly as C4D.

A C4D guy in the office drools at and envies what I can do in Artlantis R in minutes. And I drool at and envy what he can do in two or three days, using a render farm.

[TomWaltz]

Ignacio wrote:
Artlantis updates at least as seamlessly as C4D.

A C4D guy in the office drools at and envies what I can do in Artlantis R in minutes. And I drool at and envy what he can do in two or three days, using a render farm.

How does it's update work now? Is it a plug-in that you save from Archicad? (like C4D's does?) Or something else? That's really great if they finally got a better export/update system.

Are you implying C4D renders slowly? That's definitely not been my experience.

[Djordje]

TomWaltz wrote:
How does it's update work now? Is it a plug-in that you save from Archicad? (like C4D's does?) Or something else? That's really great if they finally got a better export/update system.

The same technique has been around since Art•Lantis 4 or so ...

When you save a new ArchiCAD file, open it in Art•Lantis with reference to an existing Art•Lantis file - and choose what comes or does not come across - views, cameras, materials, lights ... etc.

Earlier, it was possible to set it while exporting from ArchiCAD.

So it has been there all the time ... 😉

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

TomWaltz wrote:
Are you implying C4D renders slowly? That's definitely not been my experience.

What I meant was that, especially after you have worked on a couple of models and can open your model 'with reference' to a previous model as Djordje said (a previous model of the same project or even actually some other project, in which case you are just using it as a conversion template for materials and a storage bin for heliodon settings and light and camera settings), you can get pretty impressive results after a few minutes' setup and a 20' rendering. With a cool illlustration atmosphere, believable lighting, etc. I get the 'is that not a photograph?' all the time, from admittedly not highly visually literate observers (which happens to be what most people are). You can get a pretty impressive full presentation in a couple of hours.

Doing something like that in C4D takes a bit more time, it seems to me from watching others use the program. It gives you more control, and demands more input in order to allow you to actually control it. If you put that time in, though, you can produce high quality stuff that you can't produce in Artlantis with all the time in the world. And then you can render huge images and animations using a render farm, which you can't do in Artlantis, so that for large images and animations C4D is actually much faster -- for very large, 'high quality rendering' images Artlantis just takes up too much time to be usable, especially after your workflow has adjusted to the ability of churning out panel-sized pictures on the render farm. In Artlantis you can set up and tweak the rendering pretty fast, but then you'll be eating your nails away as you stay up overnight watching the rendering progress and doing the math to figure out if you will be making it on time for the presentation.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:


So it has been there all the time ... 😉

Don´t forget the brand new Art.lantis R feature, album.

At first, I thought this was just a commercial gimmick, but after using Art for a couple of month, I now wonder how I could live without it...

This is how it works:
1- You set your model with all the right textures (some of them take a lot of tweaking, like fresnel glass or water, grass, natural looking stucco).
2- You produce a quick rendering, called a postcard, wich is basically a TIFF with some sugar.
3- You can then, at any other time, recall this TIFF, and just drag'n'drop the shaders onto your new model.
4- After a while, you have quite a nice Album, with lots of spiced up Tiffs, which you use constantly on any given new work.
5- This means you can set up your newly imported file in SECONDS. Setting the sun (heliodon/athmosphere/radiosity) takes a while longer, maybe 20 to 30 seconds if you use reference files (you can just use the lighting from another file).
6- Then you insert some objects, and viola!
7- With a little practice, and a musculated computer, this takes under 3 minutes (really) to achieve.

P.S. If you are portuguese, or working for Portugal, please don´t use Art.lantis R, because I am really enjoying this light years ahead feeling

[Karl Ottenstein]

Ignacio wrote:
admittedly not highly visually literate observers

In Artlantis ...you'll be eating your nails away as you stay up overnight watching the rendering progress...

Agree with all that you say, but am curious if you have a quad processor Mac available and if you've measure the performance of Artlantis R on it? Artlantis R has supported dual processors for several hotfix versions, but I thought it supported arbitrary numbers ... but did not see any good numbers on the results on a quad on the Artlantis forums. (No substitute for a render farm, of course, just curious.)

Regards,
Karl