Seafield

Seeking architect using CA, registered in Prince Edward Island (Canada), for small commercial project.

I read about your experiments with Twinmotion on a MAC with great interest. I have long been interested in learning TM as a real time renderer, particularly for larger projects. What holds me back is what you are currently highlighting as its limitation: its sun-sky model is very weak. It is just not good enough---and most users recognize this. TM is free until the end of the year and since EPIC owns them, I have to think the holy grail: real-time ray-tracing, has to come to TM at some time this year before it is no longer free. Light. It is alway about the light---and at the moment my interest is in the renderers that have figured out what the best light algorithms are to produce it in an authentic dynamic with PBR materials.

Yes, Rene Rabbitt has done an excellent series of video tutorials on taking Chief files directly into Twinmotion for rendering. I have found them really helpful.

I fully agree with using Chief to render quick images for individual clients, but the original request was to produce renderings for RE marketing purposes. For this specific focus, It would not cost a great deal to get a dedicated renderer for CA's quality geometry. The effort would be in learning the programs.

If you are on a Mac, best would be to purchase a Sketchup subscription and then learn any number of quality renderers----V-ray, Thea, of course, but less expensive ones like Twilight Render and SU Podium. The output of all of these is really good. I currently use Indigo Renderer in Sketchup for my Chief files as to my mind it gives me the best possible light--the most authentic sky and sun model I have been able to find out of the box (example attached). On a PC you have more options, particularly if you have a fast Nvidia graphic card. If I were on a PC I would look at D5. For either Mac or PC, a really good little program is Simlab Composer. It is perfectly suited to RE marketing. What is also really attractive about this program is that it is able to use HDRI's to light a scene (unlike say, Twinmotion), and you can use one of its many plugin translators to bring Chief directly into the program without going through Sketchup---which has its own learning curve to consider. Artlantis is an old well respected program. You can take a Chief file into the program with either DAE or 3ds.

Yes, once I am into final renders I will have to make sure my house doesn't appear to fall down.......:) Thanks for the link---good interior renderings. Another solid little model in Chief, including siding materials, boxes and flowers, brought into Sketchup (I Am now buying better entourage). I like the quality of the sunlight in Vray and how the interiors glow with bounced light.

I will try to import Collada directly into SKP again and see if I can find that 'subtle issue', but changing a dae file into an fbx file is only a matter of 5 seconds or less. What is important to me here is TRANSMUTR. Transmutr only imports fbx, not collada, but it does what I need really well: It reduces file size to begin with, and further, converts anything I bring in to Vray proxies. This eliminates trying to work with large files in SKP itself, yet gets things set up to correctly render the proxies when in Vray.

I have never been able to take a Collada file directly into Sketchup with materials attached correctly to the geometry (as per image). However, when I translate the collada file to fbx, it attaches the materials. It embeds media properly. But the reason for fbx is to be able to use Transmutr. It brings my model cleanly into SKP. Equally important, it can make any model I bring in as a proxy for Vray before I open it up. I have not tried it just yet, but the potential to import a whole slew of houses or trees, etc. as proxies (and reduce file size) so as to not grind SKP to a halt is something I want to be able to do, for sure. You are absolutely right about using Vray in Blender. Collada into Blender works very well, of course. So that could be the ideal solution, but in truth, I am reasonably comfortable in SKP and just do not have the heart to learn one more program right now. BTW, Vray 5 for Sketchup on a PC can produce real-time renderings. Unfortunately, it is not yet available for a Mac (nor sure when).

Yes, I am sure you are right......:) But seriously, if anyone has a better (faster) way to take a file from Chief into Vray on a Mac I would be keen to learn how to do so.

Best for me is to export from Chief as DAE (no vertex limit as in 3ds), convert to FBX (with FBX converter from AC), then import into Sketchup (via TRANSMUTR)----and only then render in Vray for photorealistic results. Just learning to put in 3D grass. Next is to start using LAUBWERK to put in trees and bushes. It has taken me a long to figure this pipeline out, but the results from Vray are taking me to the quality of light/rendering I want. Chief geometry is superb to work with. Attached are a couple of draft renders as per time of day in SKP/Vray.

Hello, Good to see where some of my fellow Canadian Chiefers are located. I am on Bowen Island, just off West Vancouver. Cheers, all.

You can only convert a CA file to 3ds in perspective view. I usually just send a model to SKP this way. 3ds. has a vertice limit (not sure exactly what it is), so high-poly items like ranges, for example. may make the model hit the limit. I try to make my CA models as simple as possible before sending over. As such, terrains, roads. etc. I model separately in SKP and drop the CA-3ds model into it before rendering (Indigo).

.3ds works very well

OK, really helpful. Thanks.....!

What tool would you use to model the rail in the example above or in the image attached? Thxs.