more realistic walk throughs?


ThomasM
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I was afraid of that (high cost(.  I only know of one and that is Intericad. while I never found an exact price I did find hints of the $1,000's it would cost.
I had my fingers crossed that having CA already would allow me to use a cheaper program.  I just looked at Lumion.  looks very good.  lol I am learning that there
is a lot to these programs. 

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I was afraid of that (high cost(.  I only know of one and that is Intericad. while I never found an exact price I did find hints of the $1,000's it would cost.

I had my fingers crossed that having CA already would allow me to use a cheaper program.  I just looked at Lumion.  looks very good.  lol I am learning that there

is a lot to these programs. 

 

I dont think you are on the right path with intericad - what Alaska is saying is there are apps that can take a Chief file and produce much better walk-thrus (ie Lumion and a few others).  Those apps are just for presentations.

 

I use Lumion and love it - but its not cheap.  I do believe they have a "rent" to own program as well though if you need.

 

As a side point (perhaps worthy of its own thread) is the fact these types of apps seem to be springing up.  I believe they are using the CryEngine....which CA could fairly easily implement into their app if they so wanted.  In the future I see BIM apps having this element built-in.

 

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ake a "movie" with tay traced images in Microsoft Movie Maker.

It is not a walk through but if the RT images are sequential you get the same idea

but better looking images.

This is a good idea as well and can essentially use Chief for the bulk of the work.  No need for a rendering program.  Good suggestion Dennis. 

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In fact, here is basicly Lumion without lumion - using just the engine.  All most the programs that do this type of work are interfaces and pre-packaged objects in the Cryengine.

 

My point is if you wanted to freely download cry, and manually create the files you dont have to buy Lumion.  That route will take a LOT more learning.

 

 

 

Unreal engine is fairly good too.  Again, not nearly as easy as Lumion (no matter how easy this video looks).  Although Unreal is now free too ...that is a change.  Wow that that its free that is very cool.  Unreal might be your best bet.

 

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ake a "movie" with tay traced images in Microsoft Movie Maker.

It is not a walk through but if the RT images are sequential you get the same idea

but better looking images.

I do usually import my images to adobe premiere - and then up load to youtube. 

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In fact, here is basicly Lumion without lumion - using just the engine.  All most the programs that do this type of work are interfaces and pre-packaged objects in the Cryengine.

 

My point is if you wanted to freely download cry, and manually create the files you dont have to buy Lumion.  That route will take a LOT more learning.

 

 

 

Unreal engine is fairly good too.  Again, not nearly as easy as Lumion (no matter how easy this video looks).  Although Unreal is now free too ...that is a change.  Wow that that its free that is very cool.  Unreal might be your best bet.

 

this is beautiful stuff.  and eventually I would love to be able to do that.  never really sure just how much I will be able to learn when I start something new.  but I always try and because of the money sometimes it causes some anxiety not knowing if I will be able to learn.  I am finding with this program that it is not only used for work but its sort of becoming a hobby.  lol words of a bored old married guy I know. 

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Here is one I did.

I didn't want you to think I didn't appreciate your uploading that for me. being my clients give me tons of personal information - as a rule of thumb I never down load from this computer, but will from my other.  I will connect it later.  thank you

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this is beautiful stuff.  and eventually I would love to be able to do that.  never really sure just how much I will be able to learn when I start something new.  but I always try and because of the money sometimes it causes some anxiety not knowing if I will be able to learn.  I am finding with this program that it is not only used for work but its sort of becoming a hobby.  lol words of a bored old married guy I know. 

 

This looks impressive, but its actually not that hard to do.  I downloaded a free version of Unreal and was shocked how easy it was - very similar to Lumion, but with more options.  This is going to give me some pause next time I have to upgrade Lumion.

 

The only real issue I am seeing with Unreal is the product licensing.  They provide the app for free, but they want a piece of the "royalty".  Im curious how this works for architectural.

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So what is the Guru recommendation to the Newbie conclusions here that wants pro quality videos to present to clients and put on a web page? Since time is money it does not make sense to get a cheap or free software then spend more time on the learning curve. 

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Wish it were that simple. There is a trade off of image quality between the more automated programs and the, shall we say, more complex programs. The image quality on the automated programs has improved greatly recently, but for some types of renderings they do not offer the same level of detail that a full non biased ray trace engine can provide. I would imagine that the gap will continue to narrow on the image quality issue.

The other thing to consider is not only time invested in the learning curve, but the time required to produce the video production itself. This is actually where the more complex applications start to become more interesting. With the advent of faster GPU technology and new software that has the potential for real time unbaised ray tracing and holographics it makes the decision a bit more complicated.

Where I see this heading is that even the currently more complex applications will maintain their vast array of tools that allow for finer control of image quality, and it appears that the production aspects will become more akin to simply moving the camera or a headset and the rest will become more automated.

Free is good, I just wish all this stuff would just get here already. The beginnings are supposed to come to market sometime in 2016. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the marketplace.

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So what is the Guru recommendation to the Newbie conclusions here that wants pro quality videos to present to clients and put on a web page? Since time is money it does not make sense to get a cheap or free software then spend more time on the learning curve. 

 

Time = money is a true statement, but i've found it to be true in every sense.  You will get paid more the more you know, and the more you do.

 

I took the entire course by Lynda on Unreal, and I am convinced this is the way of the future for architecture.  What Unreal has that Lumion doesn't is the ability to have a video-game-like charter move and interact with the environment.  You could send a client the file of their home, and they can walk around freely in it (full rendered), open doors, turn on sinks/showers/tubs, turn lights on and off, and even jump in their cars to make sure they can easily drive in and out of the garage just fine.

 

Easy to use, pre-packaged scripts exist for everything I said above - but I can see where there is a fairly big learning curve on implementing this.  I've decided to learn Unreal and dump Lumion, although I am still not clear on how Unreal will get paid.  At this point it looks completely free, but that seems too good to be true (and you know the saying about that).

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If I were to make a wish it would be to have Chief develop around the best features available in other programs. Even if they were not the very best, Chief would still be my preference for a great many reasons.

First would be easy access to changing materials without having to go through file exchanges. Material changes should be possible inside the rendering engine such as is possible in an interactive renderer such as Octane Render.

Interaction with the model itself like johnny mentioned would be seamless as well within Chief. From a practical standpoint these are huge time savers. Chief's walkthroughs in ray trace with GPU rendering would be quite desireable, even if it were not the highest quality image it would still be good enough for most circumstances.

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To answer at least a part of your question. From what I have seen so far regarding the development of rendering and animation software my personal choice is to invest the time required to learn programs such as Blender, or Unreal as johnny suggests. Nothing against Lumion, it is just that investing time into learning about graphics in general is not a bad thing given the importance this topic.

Where I am spending my time currently is working with Octane Render. It is not that expensive to start with, and the quality and speed are exceptional. This is an interactive near real time rendering program with very limited orbiting tools, but I am finding ways to use this to advantage when creating short partial rotation video clips.

I am not familiar with paperless video production, but what I am familiar with is the production pipeline strategy employed in the gaming and video production industries. This basic concept applied to 3D geometry utilizing best of breed software "not necessarily most expensive" is where I am focusing my attention now. That does not actually mean waiting, it means checking things out in order to decide where to invest your time and money.

Why I prefer Octane is because for one it is very powerful, and if I decide to use a particular animation program in the future there will probably be a plug in for Octane as the GPU rendering engine for it. If not, I would imagine that path animations will be supported in the not too distant future in Octane.

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It be nice to show a build sequence video to cut down on the amount of drawing's and production schedules, eventually needing none as more of the 2D camera views go to 3D in BIMS. Be a great way to get more accurate bids and communicate with trades, reduce errors. Most guys doing bids have computers to watch vids. I'd even supply my trades tablets if I could cut down on drawing time. I think I am going to create my own BIMS, to monitor progress. 

 

I want video for that and also I want to put one in my model home so I don't have to rely on Rel Estate agents to miscommunicate why my builds are better and the difference is complex when you get into net zero or positive designs. Some that work sub-division sales have conflict of interest between builders. Alot do not follow or want to learn new designs so can not be trusted. So the video take all this out of the equation. I'm sure all these have an ability to point the CAM at yourself and talk. 

 

Of course having a pretty video for new clients be nice. 

 

I am needing more than short videos, I'm thinking 30 minutes min.

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