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 ?
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
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
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...
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