KurtS's 3D Blog

Microstation SS3 - with same render engine as Modo 501

KurtS — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:44:00 GMT

The Luxology render engine has been part of Microstation since 2008, and there has been a large number of enhancements and new features in this period. The last couple of months I've been beta testing the "SS3" version of Microstation using the same render engine as in the newest build of Luxology Modo 501. This version of the render engine is a faster and better render engine than anything I've ever used, and among new features are:

Bokeh effects

Improved procedural textures, including occlusion shaders (concavity/convexity etc)

Shadow catcher materials

Traffic animation tools

...and many other exciting new features that will make Microstation one of the most complete CAD apps ever made.

Here are some of my Microstation V8i SS3 test renderings made in the Beta period, most of them making use of some of the new features in the render engine:

my attempt to make a realistic looking tiger:

then some Bokeh tests:

improved speed makes rendering refractive materials much faster (glass and fluids):

I know there is a bit to much noise in the background, I should have had a bit more patience and higher AA sample settings...

More subtle use of Bokeh:

Procedural concavity Occlusion materials can create interesting effects:

there is a lot of new possibilities now using instances with the new Populate Contents tools - great improvement!:

Here I've used Populage Contents with a Cell made of a couple of hexagons and some self-made grass materials. Using instances makes this scene with hundreds of cells render just as quick as a scene with a handful of cells/instances.:

An all-in-one material test - the model is just one simple rectangle:

another all-in-one material:

And one more all-in-one material with a small tutorial (perhaps more useful?):

A simple droplets test. I've just modeled one drop and its been spread around, rotated and scaled using the Populate Contents tool:

Another experiment with Populate Contents:

Bump has been improved, here a bump droplets test:

can't remember what this test wass all about...:

Water caustics renders very fast in the new improved Luxology render (try to do this in Maxwell render) Less than 10 minutes rendering time:

displacement water test:

Displacement city test (model is just a simple rectangle - everything lays in the displacement map!)

The last one is not really a Christmas rendering - but the closest I can come right now! Merry Christmas everyone!

(I'm still a noob with animations - but you can find some of my very simple tests HERE)

my last blog post? [not!]

KurtS — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:55:00 GMT

I would like to continue investigating the potential of Microstation Visualization using the Luxology render engine, and I find it fun and useful to now and then share some results in my "3D blog" here at BE Communities.

But I honestly don't see any reason to post to a blog that is is placed somewhere it never will be found or read, which I think is the case now after the BE Communities facelift. I'm not sure about this, but it looks to me as if it is very hard to navigate your way from the front page to a gallery or a list of interesting blog posts. I mean - a URL that looks like this: ".../other/old_site_member_blogs/peer_blogs/b/kurtss_blog/....." is for all the stuff you don't want anyone to find, I think... :-).

Or maybe I'm completeley wrong - anf THIS is the ideal place to blog about 3D, visualization and rendering?

It is not important to have a whole lot of readers, but it's nice to think that a visitor now and then stumbles by. Maybe I will transfer the stuff to another site where I hope my postings will collect less dust... ;-)

Shadow Catcher - rendering with Microstation V8i

KurtS — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:36:00 GMT

Since there currently is no way to render the shadow on an invisible surface in Microstation - I've made this tutorial for a simple work-around:

macro time - closeup renderings.

KurtS — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:40:00 GMT

I've always been fascinated by macro photography, and decided to try to make a 3D model of a small object to see if I could use the Microstation+Luxology rendering capabilities to create something that comes close to macro photography. The renderings might not be very photorealistic, but I had a fun time creating and rendering this scene, materials and renderings.

Design and all materials used are made by me. (I know it's not much of a watch design - but hey - it's my first watch ever! - next time I'll go for a more 'futuristic' design :))

The Depth of Field is made within Luxology. I know I could do this much quicker in Photoshop afterwards, but I like the DoF produced in Luxology much better than the PS version. Even if it is a bit to grainy (256 antialias samples are still not enough to get rid of the noise...!)

The strap is not very detailed, it's half finished and poorly modeled. I did not want to spend more than a couple of eveneings modeling this watch scene so I decided to just leave it like that.

I improved the leather material after rendering this one: the strange organic micro-contours comes from the 8bit greytone map I used at first. converting the map to a 16bit texture map and blurring it a bit fixed the problem.

- 9 materials of a total of 11 created for this model. (I might upload some of them to the entourage section later)

About rendering times: Anisotropic materials, blurred reflections, high antialiasing settings, Depth of Field - these are all factors that adds to the rendering time. The model might be simple, but it renders slow on my octa-core system: from 45 minutes to more than 4 hours for 1200px wide renderings. The Dof renderings are much slower than the sharp ones.

Luxology Render - an interior test

KurtS — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:26:00 GMT

Nothing special - a simple bedroom modeled in Microstation V8i. All objects are modeled in Microstation, no imported meshes. HDRI lighting, no interior lights.

comments and critics are always welcome!

Luxology Render/ Microstation V8i: samples from my ''TestLab''

KurtS — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:49:00 GMT

I'm still participating in the Bentley beta-testing of the Luxology render engine. New features are still being impemented, and I believe more is yet to come. Here are some of my newest tests, most of the stuff has been shown in the Luxology Render Community in the last weeks. Just various stuff created by the use of Microstation V8i and Luxology Render. No postwork. I discovered that Luxology Fur could be tweaked quite a bit, and made this rather...(read more)

Luxology Render: new features - new tests! (same render engine as in Modo 401)

KurtS — Sun, 24 May 2009 20:50:00 GMT

The Luxology Render Engine is developing incredibly fast thanks to the Luxology team, and thanks to the Bentley team for the equal fast implementation into Microstation V8i! There are a lot of enhancements and new features since my previous blog post. Here is a new collection of my Test Renderings (as usual no post processing): displacement test. Each ammonite is made of two plane rectangles. The geometry is created by the displacement...! displacement...(read more)

Luxology Render/ Microstation V8i: some additional tests

KurtS — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:40:00 GMT

here are a few more tests from my TestLab:

this is my entry to a small rendering contest titled "Sustaining Infrastructure" (click on image for full view)

carpaint test (click on image for full resolution)

anisotropic metal test

glow and displacement test

glow map testing

Luxology Render/ Microstation V8i: testing FUR/GRASS materials

KurtS — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:06:00 GMT

one of the newest features is grass and fur materials. Very advanced and at a first glance complicated - but with some testing I think I got the grip on some of the possibilities using this new kind of materials.

balls of twine

grass, assigned to a simple rectangular surface.

rug

experimental

sheep?

"dogs"

elmo

plants

and a metal test:

Microstation + Luxology Render = Animations?

KurtS — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:02:00 GMT

I am a real "noob" when comes to animating stuff using Microstation, but I've been experimenting some hours the last couple of days. I wanted to see if it is possible to achieve interesting results animating materials settings in combination with the new Luxology Render engine.

Here is a simple test I've made using animated displacement:

running water

Luxology Render - is it any good?

KurtS — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:34:00 GMT

I've been fortunate to participate in Bentleys Beta testing group for the new Luxology Render engine. Very interesting and challenging testing, - and fun. Luxology rocks! And in case you haven't heard: Luxology Render is 100% integrated in the newest release of Microstation - the V8i.

Here are some of my test renderings:

Luxology test renderings

KurtS — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:09:00 GMT

moved to the Luxology test forum.

Maxwell Render 1.7.1 is out

KurtS — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:52:00 GMT

This blog post was written before Bentley announced the deal with Luxology, at a time where Maxwell Render seemed to be the only photorealistic renderer available for Microstation users: I love to use Maxwell Render, and it's alway just a few clicks away from Microstation now that Bently have integrated the exporter. (see also this ) Here are a few new test renderings I've made using Microstation and Maxwell Render:...(read more)

from Microstation to Maxwell Render

KurtS — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:05:00 GMT

As you probably already know: Bentley has created a Maxwell Render Exporter that makes it possible to export any 3d scene directly from Microstation to the fantastic render engine Maxwell Render . Read more about it here: http://www.maxwellrender.com/

IMHO Maxwell is far superior to Microstation when comes to material setup, lighting and photorealistic renderings, - but at the cost of longer render times. However - a great advantage is that Maxwell Render automatically uses all your processor (CPU) cores, not like Microstation that uses only one (1). I have an 8 core pc (dual quad core) - and believe me - Maxwell does not feel/respond slow at all on this PC.

So, is Maxwell difficult to use? Not if you are into photography and familiar to expressions like f-Stop, Focal Length, Shutter, ISO and so on. Maxwell Render works like a camera. Not a simple point and click camera - more like a SLR camera... :) I like the interface of Maxwell Studio a lot, and I find it fairly easy to use.

Just create a 3d model and texture it in Microstation as you always do, and then export it to Maxwell. Make any adjustments to materials and light you need in Maxwell Studio and hit Render!

Here are some test renderings that I've made during the last year or so, all of them modeled with Microstation and rendered in Maxwell Render - but please bear in mind that I'm at a beginners level when comes to Maxwell:

one of the first materials I created in Maxwell, just to learn the controls:

testing maxwell displacement:

a simple glass/liquid test:

just some chairs (chair model from e-interiors.net)

bedroom: chairs not modeled by me - but I've modeled the bed in Microstation...

I made rthis material to learn to create composite materials in Maxwell using weightmaps. The materal consists of both the textile and the letters and is applied to a simple rectangle.

close up test: simple test scene created and textured in Microstation. Lighting, material optimation and rendering in Maxwell:

same scene:

my TestLab... :-)

(have a look at the Maxwell material gallery and you understand the strange objects shown here...)

A "all-in-one-material" - everything is in one single material:

Outdoor scene (model by Jeff Patton, vizdepot.com)

(sorry about my rather lousy english)