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

1. PSD output: I hear that PS Extended can import a stack of files automatically. Not sure how swapping individual layers would work if all the passes were bundled into one psd. Sure there are solutions for this out there.

Another example of useful render pass info for compositing.

Let's not forget the output from normal Mstn views... there should be an option to export to a layered .psd as well so that LX and Mstn print or QV views can be aligned/composited with minimal fuss.

2. Shader Tree: Mstn should leapfrog Modo and go with a node-based system. ST has got a pretty lukewarm reception.. I suspect LX are moving this way as well, once they get their heads around how to handle 'history' ?  

Why not use the GC / ex-Kollabnet symbolic view? Rendering, materials, lighting, environment, camera / DV's, animation should be proceduralised as GC features, so that a proper end-user automated/scripted compositing pipeline can be built. The time savings would really provide the incentive to 'render' from Mstn/LX.

3. Materials and mapping: lots of work to be done here, AEC probably has more 'precision' or specialised requirements, but need to be able to access max's .mat material libraries. Their procedurals or more complex ones will probably be too difficult.

AEC materials will need to handle more precise placement and tiling. Vector-based or vector-like behaviour? Designs would probably need to emulate or take its cue from drawn CAD info like lines etc or patterns. Modo's ability to bake or imprint a projection of vector elements onto a surface as a normal map and attach that map onto it is very applicable. Once defined as a map, it's then open to the usual enhancements and layering techniques. We have also seen how 3d position info, generated by a 'positional' render pass, can be stored as RGB values in a bitmap. Maybe this can be used to store 3d positions for reconstruction of the vector info or generating further levels of detail?

Also, the DWG design link should be fixed urgently so that material assignments are automatically updated. We always have to feed the visualisers info on what elements (or sub-elements like faces) have what materials. Its an annoying time waster because its always changing. BIM/coordination-wise, you want to do this in Mstn and not on the visualiser's side of the interoperability barrier.

What about FBX, is this a better translation format than DWG?

Physical camera parameters:

- film gate (DSLR, full frame DSLR.....)

- focal length

- zoom factor

- horizontal offset

- vertical offset

- f-number

- vertical shift

- horizontal shift

- vigneting

- white balance

- shutter speed

- shutter angle

- shutter offset

- latency

- film speed (ISO)

- bokeh-number of blades

- bokeh-rotation

- bokeh-center bias

- bokeh-anisotropy

f-number/shutter speed = real depth of field

There are so many advantages of using real world camera. I just need to know parameters of

my DSLR and position from whitch the shot was taken, set the physical camera parameters

by values from EXIF data of my shot and..... Perspective of my scene fits to backround and

brightness of render fits too.

If you have just little photo experience, if you set only 3 parameters - f-number, shutter speed

and film speed - result of rendering is very predictible.

Jozef

I believe you are comparing two things like a Formula 1 and a Ferrari...

You can't compare two things which are made for different subjects.

For one with a single Microstation licence in my company (the biggest in this small country Portugal that almost everyone uses Autodesk products) I can give response to Architecture/Civil/Structure/Water/Electrical - all the design from the first line till the end of the construction. Now if I want to be the top of the line in a single one of this specialties, Bentley gives me software plugins for Microstation for each one of them.

In top of all this I can use Luxology Engine to give me very good quality renders. Of curse this new engine needs a lot of extra work (Bentley team) to start give us even better results (more quality/less render time).

Your are comparing this to a software written only for the visualization purpose?

In this terms maybe we could all go to Autodesk's forum and start to ask for Max guys to gives us results for tecnical drawings...

Hope that Luxology team gives us rapid and accuartly updates in 3d process (SS3)

I'd love to see plugins/tutorials for Microstation like there are for Max...

Thanks.

Jose,

If you have a scene that you feel is slow to render we would be more than happy to look at it. Our goal is to make it easy to get great results with less effort and to have great rendering performance as well. We are running a private beta of SELECT series 3, we have many new rendering features and many are reporting performance improvements over previous version.

If you want to participate in the beta let me know and I'll send you a link.

jerry.flynn@bentley.com

Cheers,

JF

Yes... the Ferrari vs Formula 1 comparison is interesting. Actually, Mstn probably needs to be a big Scania truck, capable of handling 'big jobs'.

Let's not forget that Mstn is using the LX engine, and LX is a direct competitor to the specialised apps you mentioned. So, there is some justification to 'ask for the moon'.

I suspect, the bottleneck is probably on the Mstn side.

The technology on the viz industry is progressing pretty rapidly. There is so much 'paid-for' tech and expertise out there already. Some of it will trickle down to us in the not-so-glamorous AEC sector, hopefully in an intelligent way.

The neighbours are doing the same. Revit has Mental Ray, which replaced Accurender and unified materials libraries, ArchiCAD and VectorWorks have Cinema4D... I think the Mstn/LX link up is pretty shrewd, especially if LX are willing to develop stuff to solve AEC rendering requirements / problems.... like large urban/terrain/environment scenes, vector materials, pipeline automation etc.

Yes... the Ferrari vs Formula 1 comparison is interesting. Actually, Mstn probably needs to be a big Scania truck, capable of handling 'big jobs'.

Let's not forget that Mstn is using the LX engine, and LX is a direct competitor to the specialised apps you mentioned. So, there is some justification to 'ask for the moon'.

I suspect, the bottleneck is probably on the Mstn side.

The technology on the viz industry is progressing pretty rapidly. There is so much 'paid-for' tech and expertise out there already. Some of it will trickle down to us in the not-so-glamorous AEC sector, hopefully in an intelligent way.

The neighbours are doing the same. Revit has Mental Ray, which replaced Accurender and unified materials libraries, ArchiCAD and VectorWorks have Cinema4D... I think the Mstn/LX link up is pretty shrewd, especially if LX are willing to develop stuff to solve AEC rendering requirements / problems.... like large urban/terrain/environment scenes, vector materials, pipeline automation etc.

WRT to Max import, that would be great, but I'm not so optimistic, despite Adesk + Bentley cooperation. Max file format is based on the modifiers stack being used and thus it's not possible to re-create it without having Max engine. there is NO other software, that can import .Max file without Max being installed and running on the same machine. all the 3D converters do it that way. what is funny, even Adesk does not have any other software that is able to directly read Max files

p.

Hi Peter,

I also think .max is a 'bridge too far'. I think most users would like to get at the .mat materials.

Not sure about the FBX exchange format. Have you used this ?

Regards, Dominic

Dominic,

FBX format is (partialy) supported in MS. there are still some limitations, but in general it works well. I tried some models from Max and Revit as well, the geometry comes OK, though there are lights, environment and materials missing. of course, the geometry is dropped to meshes, so it's not suitable for anything else then viz work ...

anyway, seems like Adesk is also pushing FBX forward, so it looks like the right way to go for the future

p.

Peter,

Yes... FBX seems to be evolving.. translation between ACAD and 3ds Max also not perfect... apparently.

Max is the market leader... Mstn/LX must be guerilla in asymmetric situation?

A lot of content generated in Max will need to translated into game engines or Renderman-type high end renderers, so it must be possible to get materials out....?

Dominic

Dominic,

Max is quite a special animal. Since it's beginning it was designed to have plugins for special effects, import/export and so. all the things you mentioned are solved by external plugins. since its SDK is quite well documented, it seems to me easier for someone to write Max <--> DGN translator as Max plugin, then starting from scratch and create import in MS

Materials - .mat files are something different. Max is using enhanced mat format that covers MentalRay shaders. part of install are so-called Arch & Design materials - set of predefined materials with textures, tiling, ... these are supported across Adesk AEC products. there are also various other types of materials to convert MR shader tree, special types materials, photometric materials, ...

and even every decent rendering plugin - VRay, FinalRender, Brazil ... delivers its own optimized set of materials to be used with this plugin.

not sure how easy is to translate some of these at least to Luxology system as material system is highly depended on the rendering engine. anyway would be nice to have access to them. as you said, Max has far biggest community with lots of useful content

p.