johnalexander1571

Now is definitely the time to put up these super well done videos. Youtube itself could propel getting formZ in front of a lot more people.

I have even been using the billboard trees again because AI simply re-renders them as photoreal trees!

I think Youtube videos will hit better now, the audience is just so enormous.

Hi, I know I always get a big nay nay response when I try to intuit the future of something. But TM and Unreal have become go to ways to use formZ models. Now, if AI isn't thrown out or laughed out of existence, which I doubt, it will become the new way to render arch models. It is already capable of this and being used well just a year later. To have an easy to use mac/win modeler right now, with the right advertising can be a new vista of customers. Most people won't be wanting to learn or pay for those AutoDesk expensive suites. The new videos will help this. It just seems like opportunity is here again. LinkedIn, Instagram, are fertile grounds for some sort of advertisements. Sorry, I go back to work. My 2 cents.

Hi Des, thanks for that, I went over and voted it up. Just thought they would have added it by now. Oh well it still looks good.

Jean-Luc, is there user accessible AO in the latest Twinmoton? It has come a long way.

Yay! Evan is back! World's longest soul patch sir! I can't throw stones, I've been through various facial hair phases. I guess it is part of your character after all this time! Great videos. It helps so much in any video in my opin to see the narrator. I'm ugly so I can't do it, lol.

Hi, they let you do a few tests for free, so you can see if it's for you before you commit for a month. I am really expecting this to come out in something we already pay for like Photoshop so it won't carry it's own price tag.

Shaded work before Vray render.

I foresee Photoshop having a magic detail brush that you wave over your render or blurry photo and it adds this detail. It's possible now with what's out there. Just needs to be packaged into a tool.

Hi ZTEK, An example is the supervisor wanted a realistic background for the sound curtains (we sell). I snapped up this file from Turbosquid. I spent about half an hour just setting up colors. So just dragging materials out onto the cad file. Then I dropped it into the scene and let the render and the AI finisher do the real work. I think it looks convincing, but this is all it is, a 3d model with colors assigned. You do need a 3D model for everything in your scene, this way you can ensure that the result is repeatable to the degree it is actually useful. Yes, I have thought of this as a way to rescue some old work, and documentation of it as well.

While this may not look like much at first, it is a big advance, I think. I was also able to use upscale on a midjourney image I asked for of corrugated metal. I was able to apply that 1 to 1 to the walls and ceiling, so they appear in the original render. It really replaced tons of lighting and texture work, because it addresses the whole image. It doesn't allow the AI mouse to run off with the cheese too far and do it's own thing. The new image fits right over the render, so it is a real way to harness AI for image finishing. I mean, I really don't do people in images because they suck so bad. But now, I think this gets people into renders. It will generate a new person every time, but that is part of the fun. It does have it's out of control moments at times, but I can truly use this as it brings realism to the finals.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/BXKVxl Artstation still doesn't let me get a full size post, but you can see the final here better I hope.

Hey Jaakko, I hope you can see this example well. Maybe I can put the files up somewhere if you can't. The top is my VRay render, then the bottom is the magnific.ai version. Now, I did overlay the AI version over the original and erase and details I didn't like. It didn't take too long to do this. You can see how this upgraded the renderpeople in the scene to photo realistic and added detail to everything in the scene. It even appears to add some additional effects to the lighting. This will be coming soon to photoshop itself I am willing to bet. I scaled from 2199 (the apps current start limit) to 4392 wide. Then I did one render at 4392 to get a nice sharp render to erase over. I am guessing now the render larger in Vray trick is probably only as good as a PS upscale is now. I was just using that for photos. This really works nice with Midjourney images, which is how I found this.

Essentially, I am now using formZ and Vray to tell AI exactly what to generate with my regular old render. Then I go back and overlay the AI version over the render and then tune the opacity.

Hi, I verified yesterday that if you simply load an image as the background in VRay, set the image size you want (large) and render with no objects, it will give you a larger version of the image. I am finding this useful right now because the new AI enlargers (like Magnific.ai) add too much detail for my taste so I like to take the upscaled render and overlay it in photoshop and set the opacity to about 50 percent. I have found this adds a whole layer of detail not even possible with VRay. It adds wear and tear and makes rendered people look like photos. It isn't perfect (but damn near miraculous compared to what we had), but with some photoshop ingenuity I have found something I will likely apply to all renders going forward. Magnific.ai is 40 bucks a month right now, but I see this upscale while allowing AI to conjure up details over an image coming to Midjourney and Photoshop someday. They can't let this capability be only in the hands of other image apps.

Ok let me see what I can do, I'll try to make up a tutorial here soon.

Sorry, I recall now that I had to move my geometry up a few inches from where it was to the visible ground in Unreal, as I wasn't using my own ground plane from formZ. So the view match should be good, the render method I can show is a capture tho, not sure yet how to do a pathtracing render. It made a 5600 wide image though in about 5 seconds and the result was great.

Hi you guys, I have made progress on getting a view into Unreal Engine and getting a high res image. Is anyone interested in a rundown? It wasn't a perfect match, but we can probably sort it out, but I made a huge render with it just now.

Thanks everybody!

I still make our STEP files from Solidworks into Revit BIM families by exporting them from formZ to Revit in dwg 13 format. Once imported, right click and choose explode all, and if it survives this (some rare models won't) turn of handles and assign the material and the other data. I use a template to fill out the data. Our items use differnt springs for different loads, so it's great, I change them based on the weight. I do have to make it all in formZ though. I do very little modeling in Revit it is so terrible. But, yes dwg 13 is how I get good sopild geometry into Revit.

Hi Santa, Thanks, it hope so too, but I am really glad I did it for a change. I usually have an idea, don't push myself enough to enter, then see that the entries weren't sooper dooper you know so I should have entered. There is some really nice competition this time though, just my luck. I don't expect to place but maybe some more people watching will emerge as I get better at doing characters. I told some people a year or so ago I wanted to do this, and I am so glad it's done now. I can say look here, I do the stuff I say even if it's crazy sounding. Being able to render 90 seconds of animation in 6 hours or less is just wonderful, really now it takes me longer to dress, set up, and animate a shot than it does to actually make the clip. Two things aren't working in this I couldn't figure out. All the plants should be gently moving in a light wind, but do not work. Yoda is supposed to have physics based flesh as well, but I don't have this quite developed into the character yet. Also, I haven't quite determined (but I am close) that the guitar actually move too and be parented to his spine bone, and then a strap that has physics.

...and I got most of my full day of work in on an industrial model as well. Will have to work late on that, though.

Oh, I have gone and done it. I have entered the Unreal Engine Furious Elegance animation contest. Here is the Youtube link: I ran out of time, I thought I was going to get Friday too, but it was due today. I made the house in formZ, also the guitar. Yoda's robe is really a Z mesh too. The rest is stuff that Unreal Engine gives you free. This is all real time rendering. I started yesterday at 6pm, exactly 24 hours before it was due. I had to play the guitar parts and mesh them with the story board I made. I always wanted to do this and said I would someday. I can cross this one off of my bucket list. I kept remembering two quotes, one from George Lucas. "You may not be able to make just what you want, but you have to make something." The other was "Already you have, that which you need." Best guys, John A

If they could access and run a smooth modeler under the hood it would be amazing. It will be some STL or NERF stuff at first, I presume. Or at first just a scene you can rotate and that's about it.