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
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
Sityu,

I am being sarcastic,

It was a rant and the smile was because IMO AC has other situations to handle that should come before considering adding Vray as a priority. Another definition of tagging as rant is that it should not be considered as serious.

You can use AC to C4D's bridge to keep your geometry up to date in C4 and use Vray to render. In the last 15 years of doing renders I have not had any problem managing models so I do not expect AC to do that for me, for that I have C4D, artlantis, maxwell and 3D Studio .

Now I am going to Cinema4D's forums to wish for C4 being able to dimension drawings, for them to integrate a Page Layout option a detail tool, worksheets and whine because the doors I placed do not display like I want etc…
___

I am not exempting GS from making better software just that they not get sidetracked on stuff that other software can do better and the SketchRenderer and Light Works is good enough for a software package that its main purpose is not doing 3D rendering.

I can always tell the client that I could not finish all the construction drawings for the project I was contracted but LOOK at the fine renderings I did for their project.


Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

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

Thomas Holm
Booster
Ondrej wrote:
Vray and Maxwell produce quite similar results. They are both far ahead LW or Artlantis.
Except for one thing - rendering time. A VERY important aspect is if you include a rendering engine, it means that Archicad is tied up during rendering. I don't know about Vray, but on this forum the typical rendering time cited for good Maxwell renders is around 24 hours. That is completely unacceptable!

Ejrolon has a very good point. You can render as you like in Artlantis, C4D, 3DStudio, Maxwell and Vray already today by just exporting to the right format. When export is done, you can go on working in Archicad. If something is missing there, post a wish for an additional export format, not for including something that makes it impossible to work with Archicad's main task.
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thomas wrote:
...on this forum the typical rendering time cited for good Maxwell renders is around 24 hours. That is completely unacceptable!
VRay does very good renderings for about 2 hours. For 5 they are nearly perfect!

This simple rendering was made for 43 minutes on my old P4 3GHz computer. Original size 3000/2000 pixels!
Thomas Holm
Booster
kliment wrote:
Thomas wrote:
VRay does very good renderings for about 2 hours. For 5 they are nearly perfect!
So it's five times faster than Maxwell then. Why does anyone want Maxwell? Price?
AC4.1-AC26SWE; MacOS13.5.1; MP5,1+MBP16,1
Anonymous
Not applicable
Misinformation I guess! Why do they choose Autocad too?
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
kliment wrote:
Misinformation I guess! Why do they choose Autocad too?
Because if you don't use Autocad you are not an architect or engineer. REAL architects use Autodesk.
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

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

Anonymous
Not applicable
hi all,

i'd like to share my opinion if that's ok. i began my search for a better renderer when ac wasn't giving me the results i wanted. after A LOT of research, trying software, sleepless nights etc. i'm now (a year on) starting to get some good results.

however, once you get into high(ish) end rendering, you realise why archicad doesn't require vray at this stage:

1) look at the poll - only 32 votes (and only half of those want it)

2) high poly models - to make photoreal renders, scenes (models) have to be prepared accordingly. once you're through with placing furniture, accessories, plants, filleting edges etc, a typical residential scene could have anywhere between 200k - 1m polys (many have more). the ac engine simply isn't ready for that. just click on a 3d tree in the object picker and depending on settings your pc may crash there and then let alone if you want to create some instances of one.

3) even if ac could handle polys, there aren't many tools for creating them in the first place. does anyone here use ac for furniture building (other than square furniture!)?

in short, 'photoreal' renders out of archicad just look too bare. this is why the sketch engine is the preferred one.

IMHO before archicad gets vray (or maxwell for that matter) it should have a robust modelling toolset.

zucoc/Koyaz/SPINCODE
"v-ray best rendering engine!!!" (sorry, don't know how to use quotes)

vray isn't the best, it's the fastest. have you seen the maxwell render gallery lately?

Thomas Holm
"I seem to recall having heard the same about Maxwell.
Waht is the real difference betwen Vray and Maxwell?"

maxwell is an unbiased renderer = takes into account ALL light interactions. this is why render times are so long

vray is a biased renderer = approximations are made. most approximations are controllable but can take ages to tweak, maybe longer than it takes maxwell to render. also, you are able to adjust maxwell lighting after the render is complete avoiding the need for rerendering

just my 2p

Derek
Anonymous
Not applicable
Derek wrote:
hi all,



1) look at the poll - only 32 votes (and only half of those want it)

2) high poly models - to make photoreal renders, scenes (models) have to be prepared accordingly. once you're through with placing furniture, accessories, plants, filleting edges etc, a typical residential scene could have anywhere between 200k - 1m polys (many have more). the ac engine simply isn't ready for that. just click on a 3d tree in the object picker and depending on settings your pc may crash there and then let alone if you want to create some instances of one.

3) even if ac could handle polys, there aren't many tools for creating them in the first place. does anyone here use ac for furniture building (other than square furniture!)?

in short, 'photoreal' renders out of archicad just look too bare. this is why the sketch engine is the preferred one.

IMHO before archicad gets vray (or maxwell for that matter) it should have a robust modelling toolset.

zucoc/Koyaz/SPINCODE
"v-ray best rendering engine!!!" (sorry, don't know how to use quotes)

vray isn't the best, it's the fastest. have you seen the maxwell render gallery lately?

Thomas Holm
"I seem to recall having heard the same about Maxwell.
Waht is the real difference betwen Vray and Maxwell?"

maxwell is an unbiased renderer = takes into account ALL light interactions. this is why render times are so long

vray is a biased renderer = approximations are made. most approximations are controllable but can take ages to tweak, maybe longer than it takes maxwell to render. also, you are able to adjust maxwell lighting after the render is complete avoiding the need for rerendering

just my 2p

Derek
1. can't comment on that
2. polygons are not a problem for archicad. it can easily handle over 1milion poly scenes. the lag you are geting in 3d is only at rebulding the scene. it comes from gdl interpreting. try to save gdl objects as binary and wou will see the difference. I had many scenes over 1 million poly all created in ac and had more problems after exporting in max than in archicad
Filleting is not a problem in vray - it has an "edge texture" feature that fillets at rendering time without creating any more polys
3. you don't need to create furniture in archicad. also if you are working in architecture and not interior design you don't create furniture in max either. you just use professional furniture models. Do you have the time to model even 1 piece of detailed furniture when you are in fact selling the house? I don't think so.
It is true - ac should had solid modeling but not just for rendering
4. vray is the best rendering engine for architecture - this is my opinion.
It is not the fastest - i think artlantis does that job.
as for the quality you should also check vray gallery. I can tell you for sure that for any good software like maxwell or vray - quality is not an issue if you know how to handle it.
however time is a serious issue even for vray. maxwell is not even useable if you don't have a serious render farm.
5. biased vs. unbiased
This is just marketing. a good software has enough resources to render as good as time allows it.
about the time to tweak - if you know what the settings are for you need just 1 minute or 1 click for activating a preset. If you don't know what wou're doing you need to read the manual.
BUT ! for those who don't like manuals vray also has an "unbiased" tracing engine - it is called PPT (progressive path tracing) - and you can use it to let it render an image until you are satisfied with the result. however nobody uses it because it is just as slow as maxwell.

P.S. Unbiased and the fact that it takes into acount all interactions are 2 realy different things.
Anonymous
Not applicable
zucoc, thanks for your reply.
polygons are not a problem for archicad. it can easily handle over 1milion poly scenes. the lag you are geting in 3d is only at rebulding the scene. it comes from gdl interpreting. try to save gdl objects as binary and wou will see the difference. I had many scenes over 1 million poly all created in ac and had more problems after exporting in max than in archicad
ok, this sounds good, but how do i "save gdl objects as binary"?
Filleting is not a problem in vray - it has an "edge texture" feature that fillets at rendering time without creating any more polys
i tried this when i first used vray, but gave up on it because it was also filleting edges that i didn't want filleted. i will be experimenting with this again over the weekend.
you don't need to create furniture in archicad. also if you are working in architecture and not interior design you don't create furniture in max either. you just use professional furniture models. Do you have the time to model even 1 piece of detailed furniture when you are in fact selling the house? I don't think so
i only model projects that i go on to build myself, so while the houses are being built i do have the time (and i also enjoy) to model some of the furniture that we will include in the finished house. this helps us to sell the house with the furniture included and make money on the furniture too.
vray is the best rendering engine for architecture - this is my opinion.
It is not the fastest - i think artlantis does that job.
as for the quality you should also check vray gallery. I can tell you for sure that for any good software like maxwell or vray - quality is not an issue if you know how to handle it
don't get me wrong. i too am an avid vray user and i think it is an excellent renderer. i don't use maxwell, but i think if you compare the very best vray renders and the very best maxwell renders, maxwell produces truly lifelike images. when i said vray is the fastest, i meant the fastest 'photoreal' render.
about the time to tweak - if you know what the settings are for you need just 1 minute or 1 click for activating a preset. If you don't know what wou're doing you need to read the manual
i'm getting decent results a lot faster nowadays, but i still think that you have to play around with quite a few settings if you want to get the most efficient render, which is kind of a contradiction in terms. can you honestly say you haven't spent many hours re-rendering the same image trying to get that perfect render?
vray also has an "unbiased" tracing engine - it is called PPT (progressive path tracing) - and you can use it to let it render an image until you are satisfied with the result. however nobody uses it because it is just as slow as maxwell
yes, i have tried PPT but this does take a very long time... this is my point, the most accurate (and therefore the most realistic) renders take many hours to render. vray is so good because it allows you to make compromises in the areas that you tell it to to bring down render times. but how long will it be before computers are powerful enough to get maxwell renders in a few hours? then we will all be using maxwell for archicad, and by then maybe archicad will be a great modeller! oh, if only...
David Maudlin
Virtuoso
Derek wrote:
zucoc, thanks for your reply.
polygons are not a problem for archicad. it can easily handle over 1milion poly scenes. the lag you are geting in 3d is only at rebulding the scene. it comes from gdl interpreting. try to save gdl objects as binary and wou will see the difference. I had many scenes over 1 million poly all created in ac and had more problems after exporting in max than in archicad
ok, this sounds good, but how do i "save gdl objects as binary"?
Derek:

Set up the parameters for the part (after saving as binary, the parameters are set and cannot be changed in the new object), set the 3D view to Parallel Projection Settings: Top View, camera Azimuth at 270, and view the object in the 3D Window. Now go to GDL Objects > Save 3D Model As... and choose where to save the object and its name. After you click the Save button, you will be presented with the dialog box "Save as Library Part" that gives you options for the type of part (Object, Door or Window) and 3D Description format: select "Non-editable binary 3D data".

My understanding of why this is faster in 3D generation is that by saving as binary the 3D model calculation is done when saving the part, so ArchiCAD does not need to go through this process for the part when generating the 3D Window. The downside is that the parameters are set, and the size of the resulting library part is much larger than the parametric version.

HTH

David
David Maudlin / Architect
www.davidmaudlin.com
Digital Architecture
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