My impression is that Mstn may soon be able to offer itself up as an alternative to 3dMax/Design as the preferred stills rendering app in the AEC market?
3dsMax users... what is still missing in Mstn that is fundamental...?
Plug-in infrastructure? Fully scriptable?
Procedural materials editor? BIM-aware materials assignment ?
Hardware based preview windows?
Better integration with Photoshop..render to layers? Include 3d plane / depth info so that PS extended can 'paint' like Piranesi?
Other question would be if there any AEC specific functionality / opportunities for Mstn to consider?
Photo based or 'infused' workfkows?
Image based 3d modeling, texture /decal acquisition....?
Point clouds are becoming popular.. but mashed up with particle shaders for rendering? Laser scanners can also capture colour inf0.. convert to textures?
Something that is aimed at rendering landscaping / foliage? Mesh? Particles? Voxels?
Geo-referenced / Verified View Montage tools
Environmental ?
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
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.
/pt
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
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....?
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
I just translate the evermotion archmodels. It's tedious work, but possible to do (maybe bentley recommend several companies to prepare for them specifically collections). A bigger problem is the size of these files. Most can not be used because they are too big. After connecting them to the scene and try to rendering them Luxology prompts you for the out of memory. Perhaps we should think about the special collections of models for MS and a proxy as in V-ray.
That's exactly what I feared regarding MS coping with high poly scenes. Is that message just with that 1 instance of that plant? At least you got the textures looking good but as you say it would be a nightmare to have to do that with all models you want to use even if it is only a one time exercise.
If everything was imported as geometry than it's no wonder there are problems. Hopefully, this instancing / LOD stuff will be solved soon.
Anyways, does anyone have some DWG's with materials etc for testing? SS3 apparently will include more support for rendering info. Please forward to Don.
The problem is though even using with shared cells approach for such geometry, these objects are so complex that the scene is going to get quite large and quickly if using many different complex models due to MS's requirement that at least 1 cell definition needs to be in the file. With a Vray proxy you take a max model, apply the textures and mapping then export a vrmesh file. Though you can see it in the view ports and copy the mesh many times and it does not exist in the scene as the geometry is only imported from the external mesh at render time only.