Mstn+Luxology vs 3dMax: Preferred AEC rendering app?

Good story  dwy.seah,

I think MicroStation could indeed be improved on some points, but if you don´t have to model, materialize and render a dinosaur, or make advanced animations, why should you already buy an expensive 3D studio Max licence next to MicroStation? Does the extra costs of the program weigh up against the few extra functions you maybe use? 

I think that for architectural or engineering visualization MicroStation is an excellent 3D application. The quality of the end product is in my opinion, already comparable with advanced 3D applications like 3D studio Max. The biggest influence is the knowledge of the user. Look for example in the Gallery to images of Kurt S.

Regards Louis.

Louis,

" why should you already buy an expensive 3D studio Max licence next to MicroStation? "

I can only speak from the architectural side, and I would say that most firms do NOT use Mstn, even those who are Mstn shops, as their viz application. The most popular package is 3dMax.

I have always thought this to be a problem, as there was always the translation barrier and the coordination headache, because last minute changes tended to be done in Max and the rest of the CAD info would fall out of sync, among other problems.... not very BIM-my.

Regards

Dominic

"I think you're right if you speak for firms who don't use Bentley products."

Unfortunately, that's not my experience. Maybe its to do with the way rendering was an additional addon that we had to pay for.. remember Intergraph ModelView, MicroSstation Masterpiece...etc

I guess that it also has to do with the fact that most rendering used to outsourced to specialist firms, who would reconstruct the model anyway. When big archie firms decided to take some of this back in house, they would hire the same guys who worked for the specialist firms, who would bring 3dMax skills 'out of the box'. Ability to start producing on day one far outweighs the cost of the software, in this context.

Happily, there is a glimmer of hope that this could now change. I think a lot of firms will start to realise that there is a 'continuum' of AEC-specific visualisation requirements and there are big 'pipeline' type problems / barriers to productivity (similar to what the big movie CG houses ran into a lot earlier), but have no real AEC-specific solution.

Dominic

This is strictly my opinion and its from and animation standpoint.  Not a render single image standpoint.

I have used MicroStation daily and have been doing 3D modeling since the IGDS days.  I also use Max starting with the old 3D Studio version.   I bought 3D Studio for an animation project that required object motion that ModelView and MicroStation couldn't perform.  I only do about one or two animation projects per year.

Even though I use MicroStation daily and Max once a year I still find Max has far better animation tools.  Object motion, cameras, lighting and key framing are so much easier and faster to work with.  Every time I try to use MicroStation for animations I really struggle with actors, linkages, paths, keyframes and cameras.  I don't know why but I really get frustrated trying to use it.  To me the stuff seems add hoc and I end up with dialogs spread all over the place searching for what I'm after.  For what ever reason I just can't get my brain around how they want to do things.  It just seems so awkward..

The rendering times also seem to be painfully slow and the whole .bimg thing seems insane to me.

I'm sure if you use it on a regular basis you figure out where everything is.  But if your doing it once per year it can be absolutely madding.  

Right now I'm making the switch from MAX to Lightwave for cost and Platform reasons.  Well see how that goes.

Regards,  DavidG

Hi David,

What version of Mstn are you using? Have you tried the SS3 beta? Why LW  and not Modo?

For production work and the current emphasis on BIM, I think its pretty important to keep everything in Mstn. Translation means a high probability for things getting out of sync.

Ideally, everything should be linked or referenced in a 'pipeline'.  Text, schedules, photos, CAD, illustrator / photoshop, and InDesign / Quark. Currently, making changes requires a lot of rework and this leads to coordination problems that is at odds with the whole BIM / interoperability concept.

Maybe Modo should be able to reference Mstn models or i-models for animation or high end renders...?

Dominic

Dominic

I'm using SS2 and don't currently have any animation projects and am to busy right now to "play" with a beta.  I have one scheduled to start some time 1Q next year.  May give SS3 a try then.

Tried Modo (V3) but didn't care much for its object motion and how they do free hand pivot points. That version also lacked IK.  Accurate motion also seemed cumbersome compared to MAX where you can very easily tweak all coordinates and keyframes.  I didn't explore lighting and materials to much to see if is suffers from the "blotchies" that MicroStation does.  If Modo could use native DGN I'd give it a try.

LW is mature, cross platform and cheap.  As is said I don't do these everyday.  That can make a big difference in what tools you choose.  I need simple & fast.  I don't want to spend days on sorting out lighting issues.

Yes I agree if you have a static model that your continually tweaking it is best left in MicroStation.  If your doing DWG/Revit then MAX would be best.  For me it comes down to how long and animation is and how much object motion and camera work will be required.

Regards,

DavidG

I also find LightWave to be mature, flexible, predictable and fast when rendering animations. This leads to less stress and better sleep during animation setup and rendering. -Gary

I also find LightWave to be mature, flexible, predictable and fast when rendering animations. This leads to less stress and better sleep during animation setup and rendering. -Gary

Gary,

You won't sleep very well when someone decides he doesn't like what he sees and wants changes.... last minute.

This kind of situation is becoming increasingly common, and will only get worse. I see evidence-based design, marketing input and more third party scrutiny becoming commonplace even for medium sized jobs.

Its funny.. but when things are rendered and the stakeholders can actually see what's going on... that's when changes arise. It's pretty much guaranteed. If this happens before the deadline it causes all kinds of problems for the visualisers. Visualisers are supposed to help visualise things for decisions to be made, not just for marketing. But hate it when changes are required, i.e. the iterative process that is integral to the design process. What happens is changes are made in the rendering programme and things fall out of sync with the main CAD data, making big problems and clean up overheads post deadline. One of the biggest reason is the disjointed 'over the wall' manual way information is handled / exported between apps. Bentley needs to look at interoperability in the visualisation 'pipeline' as well as the old dgn/dwg divide.

Luxology in Mstn is not as mature as LW, but it will get there... hopefully. I guess its down to the hard core or ignorant users to help identify bugs and badger Bentley into whipping Luxo into shape...

Dominic

This has got to be the third or fourth time I have seen this thread played out. Its fascinating and interesting that to date I have got the impression that the end visualisers have any idea about what BIM is.

Perhaps for those of us doing BIM its an indication that this is still heavily used in marketing but not in practice.

I can understand well why the visualisers call the shots in practices that still broadly have a 2D work-flow. In that situation the visualisers model often ends up playing a role in the design teams understanding of a design. This is turned on its head when the design team are working in 3D, what comes out of the polishing that occurs in visualisation is pretty predictable these days. As Dominic has pointed out, the model moves forwards fast because you have a team of people working on it. If visualisation is not integrate, it ends up being several steps behind the design. Equally, if its not integrated then you loose the repeatability of an integrated model, re-rendering when lighting, view, animation etc. has already been setup. This is really low hanging fruit, and I am astonished that there seems so much resistance to it.

Compare this to the start again and charge in full, or worse the fudge the existing model to try and make it work approach that dominates the vis industry at the moment.

BIM is a much more parallel process which if visualisers want to continue to make a living at they need to start to understand how to integrate themselves with.

We had a guy come from RSHP to work here for a while, he was an excellent Studio Max artist, but seemed to consider the visualisation to be the main output from the project. Whenever I looked into it I always found with fairly minimal digging around that I could do what he claimed Lux couldn't.

The benefits of being able to render direct from working models easily balances the compromises that one faces when using MS+Luxo. Yes there are improvements that can be made, but then there always are.

Rob

MS and Luxology are excellent tools for rendering still images of a building model. -Gary

"The quality of the end product is in my opinion, already comparable with advanced 3D applications like 3D studio Max. The biggest influence is the knowledge of the user."

Perhaps to an extent but the old adage of a workman always blames his tools is not applicable here because with MS and Luxology doesn't have the full set of tools/settings to output what is commonly accepted as high end Arch Viz stills.

For Arch Viz, I can't see MS ever being a standalone Modeller and Renderer that top Arch viz artists would turn too. From my experience most Arch Viz firms use V Ray as the render of choice and with good reason; its

light years ahead of Luxology in speed and quality and most commonly used with 3DS Max. I worked on a project where I built a series of building models and site plan within V8i, exported a master model of the buildings in correct orientation and brought into Max via DWG. There I applied all materials and set up lighting and physical camera for stills and animations - It worked perfectly. I find Architectural Modeling is not as easy to achieve in Max as I do in MS. I'm still amazed at how robust the solid modelling tool-set is at being able to produce & cope with large building models. However, MS can't easily produce the quality of images Max & V Ray.

When I last used Luxology in SS2 I found Microstation lacked proper material UV mapping controls, no camera exposure via numerical input for consistent results (F-stop, ISO etc..), does not support proxies ( Evermotion models anyone?) , no override material to control colour bleeding and that's only the tip of the iceberg. I came to this conclusion after creating an interior model of an office job I was working on. I completed the geometry, applied materials (with difficulty), set up lighting, and rendered. I found trying to get a decent looking image like pulling teeth so I did an alternative test exporting the model into sketchup, applied the materials and rendered using Vray for SketchUp. Within minutes I was getting still shots of superior quality that I doubt I ever could have with Luxology.

I do believe it will improve but if people have access to both software packages, how many people would want to struggle with MS/Luxology than use the leading Arch Viz renderer?

For those of you who haven't seen it already check this out (be sure to fullscreen the video)

Its all 3D studio Max & Vray, After Effects and Premiere.

Does anyone think they can get anywhere near this with Luxology?

Thanks for the feedback...

I think your points are well taken. Vray looks pretty much the one to beat.... for now.

In the meantime...Some questions

Mstn-DWG-Max/VRay Pipeline:

1. Can the materials assigned in Max be transferred to a revised incoming DWG file? Is this robust?

2. Can materials defined in Mstn/LX transfer? I guess they would need to be repalced by VRay's materials.

3. Proxies: Are cells or shared cells or RPC's automaticallly replaced by Max proxies?

4. Convert to meshes: I hear that Mstn solids / surfaces are often converted to meshes using the mesh tools before exporting for better control. DO you do this as well?

Render quality: Why is it so difficult?

1. Is it because of the lack of real time accurate preview?

2. Finicky Global Illumination? This was the reason why a lot of scenes have a huge number of lights in Mstn Masterpiece, which was a huge time waster.

3. ....?