Smarttec

There is also a bunch of work being done with Unity ( and for that matter Unreal Engine 4 ) but have seen this work by Tridify ( I think a Danish company ) to interface BIM to Unity and that opens up VR experience. Be nice to have those tools here. See this latest post from Unity With our partner, Tridify Cloud Service, you can now quickly streamline your large 3D BIM and CAD models for real-time visualisation in Unity - perfect for applications like product design, engineering, VR/AR training and high impact customer experiences. Join our webinar to get started in 3 easy steps! Streaming Live at Tridify's YouTube Channel (bit.ly/TridifyYT) on 27 Jun 2019, at 1800 hrs Singapore time (GMT +8). Our presenter, Jukka Muhonen, Head of Production, Tridify will answer questions after the walkthrough session, join our Discord channel (discord.gg/bznxRx7) to post your questions. Try it for free before the webinar, download at bit.ly/BIMTools

Des, you are correct in the massive uptake in BIM - firstly with ArchiCAD that started it in the early 80's and then Revit that has taken a real foothold on big documentation and visualisation projects for architectural work. I am familiar with the Australian and Japanese market, both different. In Australia formZ had a good base prior to the BIM take up, but we saw more and more formZ users being replaced by the use of ArchiCAD & Revit that did both documentation and 3D, but at the same time Sketchup came out as design tool that spread in a simplistic use amongst the architectural designers for simpler tasks (mainly) that and Rhino grew for predesign because of the 3rd party capabilities. Since then ArchICAD has lost significant ground to REVIT due predatory Autodesk marketing and discount sales. Most architects still hate REVIT too, they are now asking for realtime modelling design tools ( Revit & ArchiCAD are not ) however, most architects income comes from documentation and that's where BIM software works. ArchiCAD is big in Japan and down to Singapore. I have seen some interesting some interesting Real time rendering (cloud based ) that are only now starting to take off - this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO5YE3FK5LI uses ArchiCAD as the core and iRay for rendering in the GPU cloud. There are Japanese companies working on similar stuff. Choice of renderers and architecturally specific front ends to modellers are essential and although BIM is taking over, there is still room for modern 3D design software that provides versatility, power and ease of use - as well as choice of a 3rd party ecosphere. Rob

With the MacPRO monster just announced Apple also released a developers kit at the recent WWDC for Metal development by existing software vendors like the renderer companies. So far only Maxon Cinema4D with Redshift and oToy with Octane have announced future support. Given that the MacPRO is still 3 months away for availability and the Metal development platform has just been announced then it's very early days. Maxon “Tapping into the amazing performance of the new Mac Pro, we’re excited to develop Redshift for Metal, and we’re working with Apple to bring an optimized version to the Mac Pro for the first time by the end of the year. We’re also actively developing Metal support for Cinema 4D, which will provide our Mac users with accelerated workflows for the most complex content creation. The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon It’s all pretty new and future stuff but Metal is being used apparently, the point being Apple has a ‘cunning plan’? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/pro-app-developers-react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/

*fast CPU renders

The whole 3D rendering space is in major upheaval and change. Particularly as GPU rendering has entered then scene. That is not to say that there are not past CPU renders as well but denoising acceleration with CUDA based nvidia cards is amazing. However, that doesn't help Mac users and thus 'cloud based' rendering systems will become the answer -ie Rendering as a Service (RaaS). Maxwell is certainly brilliant but the next step in acceleration/speed has taken a while to update as you may see a different direction and a new product is also due soon see this teaser roombox3D.com There is an update for Maxwell Render itself soonish. Rob

My experience with users using Win 7 when they upgrade to Win 10 a lot issues go for formZ, Maxwell & V-Ray. The clocking is ticking down for Win 7 EOL.

The old question about using high end graphics cards that support CUDA, is supported on these cards (1080Ti / 1080 Titan X / 1070ti/1060 and better coming) well and generally cheaper with these GTX cards than the high end spec Quadro cards ( more expensive ) used by Catia and Solidworks etc - but there are some very high end Quardro cards now (Quadro P5000), much more powerful than the gaming GTX cards. Both will work but I suggest most new GTX cards offer a cost effective GPU rendering and video output solution. Rob

Has your graphics problem been fixed...? if not try support@formz.com

Has your graphics problem been fixed...? if not try support@formz.com

Hope so or something new and better... and reliable.

on Support.... - I think Paul was a unique talent that had a long term knowledge that may now be hard to replicate internally. Internally they have just had to replace the rendering capacity that was RenderZone with V-Ray; a major project that took some time and they are now back on track with v9 development. Who knows what will happen with the 'components' there certainly has been a lot of 'noise' rightly about it's functionality (sic) but we can only hope the new world of v9 ( sooner than later ) includes a whole new direction - it needs it to keep up! They don't have a big development team and the more sales they get from new users to buy software, updates and support the better to fund more staff... ... by the way keeping the formZ up to date ie. 8.6.2 now and its increments is best to check new functionality or fixes. Yep time to change Windows 7 it goes back to 2013 - time to get used to the new world. Rob

Have you tried 8.6.2? Rob

It looks like formZ just crashes - are you using formZ 8.6.2 and latest Vray 3.6.1 - What Mac OSX version? It looks like the render is well advanced before the crash - and how long has it taken to this stage? Does it render OK in Progressive?

Sorry I meant LESS active... I personally want them to spend more time and personnel on developing v9

Sorry you are having problems - you are probably right about formZ support being more active as they sell a separate annual support plan called 'the Family Plan' as you only get 4 months from purchase support. Also it is the 'Memorial Day long weekend holiday'.... I did see that you are using a very old OS Win 7 ??? ( going dead soon ) and I think v8.5.3 is not the latest v8.5. I'd recommend looking at v8.6.2 (http://www.formz.com/products/formz/update/formz_86_Pro.html) as they have improved Open GL support. You can run both versions. Rob