Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Let's urge Graphisoft to integrate VRay!

Anonymous
Not applicable
Let's urge Graphisoft to take the necessary steps to integrate VRay as another Rendering Engine!

Currently most of the rendered pictures, published on the Internet are produced with VRay, so it seems this is the right direction.


Let's not forget that VRay in an exteranl plug-in for Max too!
47 REPLIES 47
Anonymous
Not applicable
YES V-ray is the best !
but 2 voted "not needed"
Rob
Graphisoft
Graphisoft
V-Ray could be the best but this is not an urgent feature to be implemented, I need to have documentation tools sorted and then we can play with all those render fiddly bits. And by the time the doc tool will get sorted we will have V-Ray2020 or so...
I have voted 'average' but I should have 'not needed' as it is really a bit over the top at the moment.
In my opinion LW will do the job (with some improvements) I am just not willing to sacrifice one AC licence for just rendering, that licence can earn more as a documentation tool that's for sure.
LW is good enough for architectural illustration (and that is up to your personal taste what you're trying achieve) and if you are after a professional photomontage get the professional service or software (it is much much cheaper in short and long runs)
AC is just too expensive tool for fiddling...
::rk
Anonymous
Not applicable
V-ray is an essential crative tool for a good contemporary architect - it simulates light in such a way that it gives you profound feedback about your design. There is no architecture without light! Lightworks are not able to simulate this this. Rendering is as important as the rest of the documentation, namely because it persuades the client. This would be a total victory of archicad over Autodesk and other solutions. Also Artlantis is not a high-end solution, although it is user friendly. Graphisoft should consider this, it is much more important than freeform modelling solutions. I do not understand why they didn't implement Vray earlier. Kind regards, Ondrej C.

Rob wrote:
V-Ray could be the best but this is not an urgent feature to be implemented, I need to have documentation tools sorted and then we can play with all those render fiddly bits. And by the time the doc tool will get sorted we will have V-Ray2020 or so...
I have voted 'average' but I should have 'not needed' as it is really a bit over the top at the moment.
In my opinion LW will do the job (with some improvements) I am just not willing to sacrifice one AC licence for just rendering, that licence can earn more as a documentation tool that's for sure.
LW is good enough for architectural illustration (and that is up to your personal taste what you're trying achieve) and if you are after a professional photomontage get the professional service or software (it is much much cheaper in short and long runs)
AC is just too expensive tool for fiddling...
Anonymous
Not applicable
A better renderer would be nice but, given we are given so many 'hooks' into various renderers I'd prefer to see GS put it effort on the core - better modelling tools, allowance for true curved surfaces (nurbs?), faster view generation, the ability to properly manage documents in AC (ref CADIMAGE revision manager - which Should be in native AC)
Thomas Holm
Booster
Ondrej wrote:
V-ray is an essential crative tool for a good contemporary architect - it simulates light in such a way that it gives you profound feedback about your design.
I seem to recall having heard the same about Maxwell.
Waht is the real difference betwen Vray and Maxwell?
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
Vray and Maxwell produce quite similar results. They are both far ahead LW or Artlantis. I am sure that it must be much easier to implement different rendering machine than introducing NURBS. From the productivity point of view, it is very important to have the best possible visualization - this persuades the client, this wins architectural competitions etc. I would put it completely opposite than Rob- Archicad is too expensive tool to have such unprofessional looking outputs. It has allways been an architects privilege to present his ideas himself, not hiring a "painter". From this point of view I do not understand all the AC sketch-like hybrid renderes that produce absolutely ugly parodies of hand-drawn images. Are these important?
Dwight
Newcomer
Ondrej wrote:
It has allways been an architects privilege to present his ideas himself, not hiring a "painter".
I beg to differ.

Historically, architects have almost ALWAYS hired "painters" to professionally delineate their projects. Whereas in the past it was POSSIBLE for designers to render their own work since it was only pushing graphite and colored, sticky mud, I see this becoming EVEN MORE DISTANT using computer technology. Not only is the hourly return on illustration less than a well-organized architect can bill, computer rendering requires an enormous and ongoing investment in networked rendering tools, entourage and skill-building.

Read any rendering book to clarify the delineator's role. In particular I recommend Gavin Stamps's "The Great Perspectivists." You might also review work appearing on the website of the ASAI - The American Society of Architectural Illustrators to see their contribution to the quality of environments. Not to mention the saving of architect buttock by favorable imagery. Furthermore, the third world intrudes with some remarkably small fees for fantastic work. Building a relationship with an illustrator can enhance projects AND profitability.

Yes, V-Ray is great. I'd like to see a streamlined Archicad export for materials useful to any high end renderer - ideally with improved mapping control. In this way, the architect can confirm decisions and leave the time consuming positioning of shrubbies and figures to the illustrator.
Dwight Atkinson
Rob
Graphisoft
Graphisoft
Well, further to Dwight's great enlightening of architectural illustration history, I would like to have some comments although probably I will repeat others and my self on this forum again.
From the productivity point of view, it is very important to have the best possible visualization - this persuades the client, this wins architectural competitions etc
well, the visualisation is a part of this process but certainly not a must have feature. All my clients I have ever dealt with were pretty much ok with sketches, managed budget, design and transparency in a job handling (clients ranging from big developers developing hectares of land to a couple with kids asking for their new family house). If you cannot explain and prove your concept without jumping into viz you are asking for troubles later on.

Secondly, viz making has drifted from architectural profession so far that has already formed a completely new trade thus creation of specialised software, you name it... this is a trend that has involved from market demands over some time and it is not something like: well from now on, let's divide software to drafting and visualisation because we want to.

AC is supposed to deliver documentation and help out with a building construction which is not necessarily just nice images. It takes proper schedules, cost plans, 2D details, bill of quantities and so on... I will not build my projects out of beautiful viz, I need to get basic tools sorted and I am not prepared to pay for something that would help me just get over one stage of whole design process not having other multi-stage use tools ready.
::rk
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
Sometimes these wishes sound as if not having X tool means that nobody cannot do their job.

Let's list some of the architects who didn't use Vray to convince their clients or Archicad to design the project.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Le Corbusier
Alvar Aalto
Aldo Rossi
Palladio
Micheangelo

Anybody here better than them? Did they use Revit instead? Was Ronchamp designed using Nurbs or Splines?


Good perspectives have their purpose, using Vray is nice (I use it) but is not necessary within AC since Ac's main purpose is not to render images. If you need to unscrew something you don't pick up a hammer and then wish for it to have an integrated screwdriver. It is easier to pick a screwdriver and probably will work better and be cheaper than a Screw-Hamm combo. AC has the ability that if you are in a bind and need a "quick" rendering it does it and that should be enough there are other areas that need more attention.

If we argue that AC is a toolset then it should contain certain types of tools but they should tend toward a specific purpose. Another analogy. If your car breaks down it is better to grab your mechanic's tool chest instead of your carpenter's and though there might be some common tools you will "wish" for something that is not there because you have the wrong toolset. What might be AC's toolset purpose? To develop a group of digital tools that help Architects design and document an architectural solution. AS modifiers it should be easy, simple, flexible and permit teamwork.

Thus having Vray is not as important as having a working Stair tool (Sorry Fabrizzio) for example.

Sorry for the rant, long weekend
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

sityu
Booster
1. The ac is not a tool for only the greatest architects.
2. "Anybody here better than them? " this is a slightly demagog - the fact is: the archicad is mostly used by common architects, with everyday jobs for everyday customers (and the everyday customers see perfect rendered films in the movies or in tv -> they have expectations of a very high level);
3. "Ac's main purpose is not to render images" it's not really true (and why not?) With AC it's almost the easiest to produce perfect 3d model and perfect architectural plan at the same time. So why not to produce perfect rendered images. (and the integration is a main issue on developing ac = see the integration of plotmaker);
4. the tool comparison is odious: in software development it is not so strange to produce screw-hamm-like combos (and why to go into screwing room from hammering room? instead of using a perfect screw-hamm combo?) It is not a big deal to make the interface for a renderer engine (in comparison with all the other features of the ac: (i) graphisoft has to be only the initiative, they have to provide some kind of standard interface only (ac has an sdk...); (ii) like the sketchup: I follow the development blog of sketchup, and almost every month I read about another rendering engine...(iii) so they doesn't have to rewrite the whole code of ac)
5. another rendering engine would be an additional feature, without any effect on the existing ones.
6. Why do you exempt graphisoft from making a better software? Why do you always explain that ac is perfect, and there is no need to improve anything? Why do you explain that a usage of ac different from yours is not a way to use the archicad?
7. e.g.: -remaining in the rendering issue- I use archicad as a designing tool (just like the ruler-paper-pencil combo, before), not only a plan-making utility, so I don't really like the standalone rendering softwares. Because changes on the model is hard to handle with outer renderer, so it's much, much easier to use the integrated renderer.
So I regularly use the built in ones even if they have much worse quality; but I would appreciate a better rendering possibility).
Talmácsi, István, architect (AC user since 1997, ac4.5 - now: ac18)