Rendering with ArtLantis!!!! but which ArtLantis?

[Anonymous]

can anyone tell me which version of artlantis should i use
i dont know which one does what and which should i buy?
i have ARTLANTIS 4.5 and Im waiting for v. 5.0
but i heard that there are versions like ArtLantis R and ArtLantis classic
what are all these and which one should i use?
is there a version that compines all these?

thank you

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

tigr wrote:
It will be nice to have 'radio in the city' but I can live without it, after all it is not only "bouncing light" that sells project, it's an idea.

The very impressive thing about Artlantis R relative to my previous experience in Artlantis 4.5 and brief exploration of Lightworks, is that I need significantly less *time* to come up with a decent, usable, and sometimes quite impressive, result.

Perhaps a with a good ArchiCAD-Lightworks setup (like the sun+sky object mentioned in some other thread or in the GDL forum, and a good materials library, and also a good library of textures and people and plants and etc.) you can also come up with decent renderings with a very short setup time. With Artlantis R you have it pretty much out of the box, and the learning curve is also very short.

[Anonymous]

Guys, I have no problem in accepting that ArtR is a great piece of software and can produce excelent ilustrations in short amount of time. I also believe that it is easy of use, and it's the right tool for final presentation. Sometimes can even hide some unsolved modeling issues by distracting your client with a nice glare of famous radiosity.
For me however, the most importatnt thing is that you should be able to use it not only after but also during the designing process, and here is where ours views are different.
Lightworks doesn't have one-click-solution for all light-and-shadows problems but it is there, in the package, right under the camera icon - why not to use it?
Below are some shots from my latest work. Nothing to show-off, just some interior. 4 hours of work so far (on project, not rendering), during which I made several WIP renders. If there will be such a need I can easly pick some to show my clients the progress, at any time. Since I set lightworks to fit my needs I forgot what is "work on presentation" - they just happen by the way..

Cheers

[Anonymous]

yet another view..

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

tigr wrote:
Guys, I have no problem in accepting that ArtR is a great piece of software […] For me however, the most importatnt thing is that you should be able to use it not only after but also during the designing process, and here is where ours views are different.
Lightworks doesn't have one-click-solution for all light-and-shadows problems but it is there, in the package, right under the camera icon - why not to use it?

I didn't mean to say 'Artlantis R is better than Lightworks' or whatever, it depends on what you do, etc. I just wanted to point out that radiosity in Artlantis R is not only a tool to make fancy drawings, but that its main effect is substantially reducing the time it takes to set up a picture. That, and the ease with which you drop objects and edit textures, makes it so fast that for moderately complex models I would say it is much faster than Lightworks within ArchiCAD --which of course also goes for the study pictures in your design process.

[Anonymous]

tigr wrote:

For me however, the most importatnt thing is that you should be able to use it not only after but also during the designing process, and here is where ours views are different.

Ah, but they are not!

I also need renderings mostly for checking design solutions.

For me, 3D window with open GL on ArchiCad is enough, I don´t even render anything, just look at the object I am creating and let my mind fill in (after all, I am a trained professional, so I don't need everything spelled out for me).

But each time I talk or send an email to my client (and this happens pretty often, because I am a firm believer in cooperating with the client), I want to show the solutions to their best advantage.

If cardboard renderings where generally acceptable a couple of years ago, people are starting to expect better renderings, so you just have to keep up or risk causing a very bad impression.

Your renderings are great, but they do make my point.
Those dark surfaces come from lack of radiosity, and to compensate them in Lightworks you would have to set at least one more shadowless light pointing up, and the maybe photoshop it a bit, and still get a cardboard feeling.
The first impression you pictures make could be quite negative, because all of the black.
The feeling you get is not a happy feeling.

If you are a good enough artist (which I am certainly not) you can of course compensate this, with some work.

But the beauty of radiosity (provided it renders fast) is that you don´t need to be an artist or invest a huge amount of time with the settings.

This image I post is one of half a dozen produced yesterday. It is a small school project, whose first proposal was not accepted (despite radiosity!) by the administration. So I did some changes in AC (about 4 hours work) and then these renderings in Artlantis R (one more hour) and send everything by email.

Now you might say one hour is too much. First of all, most of that hour was computer rendering time, so I was free to continue other work. Secondly, the images turned out so powerful, I just did not need to explain things further. They got the message.

Finally: As long as you have ArtLantisR, you are then also able to make your own final images, with near professional quality, which is also a money saver.

[Rakela Raul]

tigr, very nice shots

[Anonymous]

I did a rendering by hand yesterday... (really though, I did)

and I called PrismaColour, but they don't have a radiosity marker, I was appaled

cheers,
dan

[Anonymous]

I didn't mean to say 'Artlantis R is better than Lightworks' or whatever, it depends on what you do, etc. I just wanted to point out that radiosity in Artlantis R is not only a tool to make fancy drawings, but that its main effect is substantially reducing the time it takes to set up a picture. That, and the ease with which you drop objects and edit textures, makes it so fast that for moderately complex models I would say it is much faster than Lightworks within ArchiCAD --which of course also goes for the study pictures in your design process.

Ignacio, I've never try to prove that lightworks is better than ArtR either (I may be an opportunist but not a madman) just want to be objective. Back to the quote - honestly I haven't got a chance to test it with really complex models yet, but in ordinary two stories house + sourandings it works just fine. In ArtR you need to redo all the materials and lights, put some extra objects, vegetation - don't tell me you do this in a blink of eye, what's more - when you pump up reflections, radiosity, light contribution than ArtR need adequately more time to deal with it. I hardly ever let my final LW scenes cook longer than 30 min, WIP scenes - 3 min.

Your renderings are great, but they do make my point.
Those dark surfaces come from lack of radiosity, and to compensate them in Lightworks you would have to set at least one more shadowless light pointing up, and the maybe photoshop it a bit, and still get a cardboard feeling.
The first impression you pictures make could be quite negative, because all of the black.
The feeling you get is not a happy feeling.

You know what Miguel ?, you're right. I just went through all the projects I made with lighworks and most of them have a dark mood, but it has more to do with my dark nature than lightworks. I just like'em like that. I always was in minority which pointed that Artlantis renders, despite it's obvious advatages, has a tendency to overexposure and overcolourized. You call your scene "happy", for me it looks like the little girl is pointing at the nuclear explosion on the horizont. I respect that you needed this kind of unique lighting for this particular project, but that's a problem with 80% of ArtR scenes I've seen - they're burn out, so yes comparing to them, my scenes look dark. The point is - if your scene/space is too dark - maybe problem is not your renderer but a design. Boosting radiosity in ArtR is the same cheating as using compensating light in LW.

Rakela Raul:

Thanks

Daniel:

Actually, I did some sketches too, from my trip to Slovakia. It was good to know that I can still do that by hand

[Anonymous]

tigr wrote:
You call your scene "happy", for me it looks like the little girl is pointing at the nuclear explosion on the horizont.

I laughed harder than I have in ages when I read that.. thanks Pawel

tigr wrote:
Daniel:

Actually, I did some sketches too, from my trip to Slovakia. It was good to know that I can still do that by hand

It's a great feeling of staisfaction to draw something by hand, and make a nice rendering, isnt it? and in todays world which is becoming dominated by computer renderings some clients, IMHO, see a hand rendering as a breath of fresh air, so to speak. Computer renderings are great, but you take the risk of falling victim to the hamburger effect, just my 2p

[__archiben]

Boosting radiosity in ArtR is the same cheating as using compensating light in LW.

yep. and i'll bet that all you have to do is dial in a little extra yellow in the lights themselves - not even mess with the light quantity - and your images will look "happy" without feeling like you're going to get third degree burns from them.

nice images pawel. i also like a darker aesthetic . . .

~/archiben