CE Update 16 - Luxology no longer available

Hi Martin,

I have shared a folder with you which you can upload your dgn data to. Jerry doesnt have the data set.

You can use Luxology in U16. You need to obtain a token file from Marco to enable it.

All the materials now with U16 are PBR and work well with the Vue render engine. If there are any materials which you are having difficulty creating or need we can look at add them to the library.

Regards

Paul

None of my materials which has fur feature will work in VUE. Neither do materials whose material pattern has diagonal draping on. I have dozens of fur materials (grass, shrub plantings etc) in active use so this 'update' a major pain, again.

Yrjo Ala-Heikkila said:

I have dozens of fur materials (grass, shrub plantings etc) in active use so this 'update' a major pain, again.

Yes, I agree. I know some my customer will hate this upgrade exactly because of that.

Bentley had to know what is not supported in VUE or can cause troubles (RPC cells, fur...) for many months (over a year at minimum?). Why there is no comparison table, migration guidelines or e.g. a check tool, that can scan model and materials for known issues and inform user about the findings? How long can it require to implement a basic functionality (only to check RPC cells exist, Fur is used in material and similar quick simple checks)? One or two weeks?

Regards,

  Jan

Hi Yrjo,

Can you send me a testcase of your draping not working correctly I will investigate it.

Microstation does output what is not supported in the message centre when you render an image, Fur is reported as unsupported, we decided to try and replicate what fur could do with a Vue Ecosystem, we cant support all of it but its sufficient for simple usecases.  Due to the issues here we may well remove this facility.  RPC is not currently reported as unsupported via this messaging, this will be fixed. There is no plan to support RPC with Vue rendering, its an out dated technology and requires significant investment of effort to integrate it into the core of the render engines.

As mentioned previously, you can still use Luxology rendering in U16, you will need a token to do so. It will be removed in U16.1. We are continuing to support exporting to .lxo files for those users who have a copy of Modo.

Regards

Paul

Hi Paul,

Paul Chater said:

Microstation does output what is not supported in the message centre when you render an image

unfortunately, MicroStation does not report anything before it crashes in a middle of process (I am sure fur is used in the model, also some Xfrog mterials).

Paul Chater said:

There is no plan to support RPC with Vue rendering, its an out dated technology and requires significant investment of effort to integrate it into the core of the render engines.

I see no problem when something very old is not supported.

I see more serious problem in zero available information about migration path and description of differences. From my customers I know there are projects that will live for next several years, based on hundreds (maybe thousands) of Luxology optimized materials (represented by tens of GBs datasets). To know Luxology will be (e.g. on request) available for next several versions/years is crucial, or to have guidelines (and tools in the best case) how to migrate these datasets to VUE.

With regards,

  Jan

Hi Jan,

The issue with your file is related to the use of fur in your materials. The vue team are looking at this currently.

With regards to using Luxology on existing projects into the future, I would recommend you create a deployment image of MicroStation U15 and archive it and use it whenever imagery is required which matches previously published images.

Different render engines are not going to produce matching images with the existing material, environment, lighting etc. information due to the nature of the interpretation of the mathematics behind the calculations.  Standard material definitions such as PBR will get closer but that doesnt cover all material types. Whilst we have done a lot of work in this area with regards to the legacy material definitions in MicroStation and mapping them to Vue along with moving our definitions to PBR there will be cases where they will not match Luxology. 

As I think was described previously, you should look to use Vue for new projects & continue with Luxology for existing projects, In my opinion migrating datasets from Luxology to Vue will be not able to match 100% so users need to determine if its an effort worth undertaking on a project by project basis. With the inclusion of PBR materials in MicroStation, because of their superiority in image quality and easier to understand workflow material libraries should be moved to use PBR materials anyway.

I agree more communication with regards to feature compatibility between Vue & Luxology is necessary and will be forthcoming. 

Regards

Paul

Hi Jan,

The issue with your file is related to the use of fur in your materials. The vue team are looking at this currently.

With regards to using Luxology on existing projects into the future, I would recommend you create a deployment image of MicroStation U15 and archive it and use it whenever imagery is required which matches previously published images.

Different render engines are not going to produce matching images with the existing material, environment, lighting etc. information due to the nature of the interpretation of the mathematics behind the calculations.  Standard material definitions such as PBR will get closer but that doesnt cover all material types. Whilst we have done a lot of work in this area with regards to the legacy material definitions in MicroStation and mapping them to Vue along with moving our definitions to PBR there will be cases where they will not match Luxology. 

As I think was described previously, you should look to use Vue for new projects & continue with Luxology for existing projects, In my opinion migrating datasets from Luxology to Vue will be not able to match 100% so users need to determine if its an effort worth undertaking on a project by project basis. With the inclusion of PBR materials in MicroStation, because of their superiority in image quality and easier to understand workflow material libraries should be moved to use PBR materials anyway.

I agree more communication with regards to feature compatibility between Vue & Luxology is necessary and will be forthcoming. 

Regards

Paul

Paul Chater said:

In my opinion migrating datasets from Luxology to Vue will be not able to match 100% so users need to determine if its an effort worth undertaking on a project by project basis.

I agree, it has to be evaluated in particular project or customer context.

I do not consider myself visualization professional, but my experience is that more than how realistic materials are, more important is often how all materials fit together. So subjectively visualization when all materials can be not perfect, not PBR, maybe even a bit plastic, but in the same style, looks better than when a majority is great, but some not (which only increase a visibility of imperfections).

So maybe to start to create a new own set of materials, based on PBR (and in detail configured non-PBR) will be more efficient than to spend time to evaluate old ones in context of VUE renderer.

Regards,

  Jan

It is a pity that RPC cells and fur is not supported as they both have been well working and relatively reliable technology. I would love to see a better option but so far VUE seems like two steps backwards. Luxcology was able to render quite large models with 'fur' grass & shrubs whereas a grass rendered with a PBR grass looks like crap.

How should I render projects where we have hundreds of trees shrubs and other plantings, for example? 3D-cells are out of question because they will make view operations like zooming & panning extremely sloooooooooooow. RPC cells have been especially handy because they work well in real-time presentations as well so we have been able to zoom and pan around the 3D-model in design meetings etc, and render images of the same model. if necessary. How will that happen in the future? Do we need to create separate models for rendering and design purposes? That means lots of wasted time compared to current workflow.

Propably best way now is to have live view connection with LumenRT and use Lumen Cells ( trees ? )

Hi Paul,

Paul Chater said:

to feature compatibility between Vue & Luxology is necessary and will be forthcoming. 

It would be great and is really necessary. I see 2 different crucial areas:

Existing Luxology users: Migration from Luxology to VUE

Description of the migration path from Luxology to VUE:

• What geometry/objects are not supported (PBR...) and what is replacement (btw what about Xfrog?)
• What features are not supported (fur) and what is replacement
• How to migrate existing materials (just use it, start from scratch, typical replacements...)
• Best practices for typical requirements: grass, water, furniture, cars, people, plants...
• Whether distributed (network) rendering is supported
• Known limitations
• ...

What is not useful in my opinion is to focus too much on VUE features, they should be described (and I guess they are already) in standard MicroStation documentation.

All users: Rendering options comparison

It's really confusing to have 3 different solutions (VUE, companion LumenRT and full LumenRT), because it's not clear at all what to choose when (and often it's important to have the final used solution in mind from beginning).

It's necessary to have a comparison table, again, not focusing on detail features comparison and differences (as many tables are), because it does not help users to understand what to choose when. But, for example, to use perspective of required final results, like:

• VUE: when high quality static image is required (because integrated with MicroStation, high quality, PBR materials, static images, option to choose raytracing or path tracer)
• Companion LumenRT: when very large models need to me visualized or on-the-fly rendering is required (external, but free (under what conditions?), supports very large model, animation possible, instant visualization, LiveCube...)
• Full LumenRT: when VR or extra materials and objects are required (separate license, adds more materials and objects (?), native support for VR headsets...)

Also, what I am missing, is explanation whether and how other e-on software tools can be integrated with MicroStation, e.g. can be PlantFactory used with VUE renderer inside MicroStation?

As often, my feeling is Bentley are not interested to sell product to users too much. The perspective, knowledge, available time, language capabilities) of MicroStation (ORD, OCM, OBD) users are limited, and often they are not aware a product can enhance results a lot quite simply (like just buy/install full LumenRT, plug VR headset and voila, you have virtual reality). They have no time to search discussion forums, go through several webs etc. Simplified comparisons, focusing on benefits and results, not detail features, are really missing.

With regards,

  Jan

martinezx said:

Propably best way now is to have live view connection with LumenRT and use Lumen Cells ( trees ? )

Maybe, but as far as I understand it, LumenRt does not allow the quality of expected from VUE?

As i wrote above, solutions positioning and differentiators are not clear for me. In this phase (with existing VUE issues) it looks like we are again in situation described already by somebody else: several options and way to reach a result, but not one from them is "features complete".

Regards,

  Jan