allanjl Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 As new options to render within FormZ come along, I have tried quite a few of them. One of them, which I think can be very powerful and convenient, is rendering in Lumion. While the software is expensive, it makes rendering and doing walkthroughs painless. Since it's so fast and intuitive (once you get the hang of it) it's virtually stress free. To use Lumion now I export my model via Sketchup. Once in Sketchup, using the Live feature, I am able to update my Lumion model by updating parts of my sketchup model. Having the Live feature incorporated straight into FormZ would be great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allanjl Posted October 13, 2020 Author Share Posted October 13, 2020 Forgot to mention. Lumion's renderings are almost as good as Vray's, except they take a couple of minutes at most. Even when they are over 7k pixels wide. The advantage of Lumion is its large library of assets. In my case, trees, shrubs, flowers, cars, and people make Lumion very attractive. Files can get large though. I have a model of a five acre project. Complete with three buildings, parking, planting, cars and people. Some of planting has heavy geometry, yet it is still easy to navigate (must have a higher end video card). My project is 1.1 GB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Montoya Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Hey Allan, I haven't tried Lumion, but I have used TwinMotion which is similar, but built on the Unreal engine. Similar to you, built and textured in FormZ then I exported into Rhino and used the FREE TwinMotion Live Link to create a quick presentation. The cool thing about TwinMotion was that it translated all my VRay materials, so I didn't have to redo them in Twinmotion. Enscape is lacking in that area among others. I'm curious if you have VRAY for Sketchup and can test if Lumion does this as well? Lumion was the king of this real time type presentation, but much more affordable options like TwinMotion have me testing those. Maybe you could download Twinmotion and give us a comparison? I agree a Live link in FormZ would be amazing too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jldaureil Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 Hi Alan We work actually with twinmotion It's really a great software with a very dynamic développement and communauty I've already ask for a direct link with formz Actually we export Ou models in. Fbx À direct link could be a real p'us You can submit this idea Here https://portal.productboard.com/7pu88c9kpmqtzt8hwg6arujh/tabs/4-under-consideration/submit-idea?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJlbWFpbCI6ImpsZGF1cmVpbEBhbGljZXByby5mciIsImlhdCI6MTYwMjYyODEzNiwiZXhwIjoxNjAyNjcxMzM2fQ.BE5PDnVgmhaImcxaP-msfBL6hcQPdGKVJAW5ZNamG7I Our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkYGCZPEs-6RIv-s4f8gQDg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timgarner_10 Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 New to this thread, I currently model in formZ and render using the Vray plugin. I'm definitely interested in other animation software options as formZ seems to be lacking & not very intuitive (I probably need to just schedule a class for it). But I had a big presentation recently that definitely could've used some animation and I just wasn't able to pull it off due to timing, also not being confident in even attempting it. I did some research and came across Lumion and it simply looks amazing! I'm going to look into twinmotion now as well, but definitely want to keep this thread going. I'm interested in how everyone exports their formZ files with vray materials into these other programs, or if you just have to use the materials in these programs? With image maps, etc. already all done in formZ it would be great if you didn't need to redo everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allanjl Posted October 14, 2020 Author Share Posted October 14, 2020 Timgarner-10, You don't need to redo everything. Bringing your formZ models to Lumion via sketchup retains the textures. Now, Vray materials are a different matter. Once in Lumion you can tweak the materials as you want, but at least you already objects texture mapped and the materials just need a little tweaking. Also, Lumion comes with it's own library of materials. like glass, wood, metal, etc. Animation is very easy. Just a matter of creating snap shots by moving the camera where you want it. Lumion creates a path based on this. You can edit them after the fact and refine them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Hi! This sounds interesting. Maybe someone can share some visualizations. Thanks guys for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dworks Posted October 16, 2020 Share Posted October 16, 2020 I'm rendering with Octane for a few years right now and very happy with it. Workflow currently is to export into Cinema 4D where i setup scenes and render via the plugin. A direct connection would be cool, of course. Rhino has it, btw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipo Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Hey guys I thought I would throw in my five cents worth here We have been using Lumion since version 7.....but really only a usable option since version 9 The most important consideration is end use .... I don't consider Lumion as a tool for still images full stop , only for animation. The reasons for this are the GI is not advanced enough and the lack of ray tracing require reflection planes to be manually placed of which there are a maximum of 10. Don't get too excited about the "vast" libraries as realistically , only a fraction of this is of medium quality. That being said it is possible to produce animations of reasonable quality as long as you don't get to hung up on the correctness of the render quality. It is an extremely expensive app for what it does.......the updates are frequent but you pay a huge price each time for only very limited enhancements. See below a few examples.....I will post a few more recent ones done with the latest 10.5 when the projects become public so everything below is done with version 9.5 Jaakko, Martin Malinski, ZTEK and 4 others 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Des Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Thanks for posting these Pipo, they are outstanding. Do you mind if I ask how much FormZ modelling was involved and if so did you hit any road blocks getting data in Lumion? Also, was there a team involved or did you do all that yourself? There's a lot of work there. I think if I were to go down the path of realtime rendering it'd have to be Twinmotion using the UnReal engine as I'm on a Mac system. Well done, very impressive! Des Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaakko Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Thanks for sharing Pipo. Very nice work indeed, true professional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timgarner_10 Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Amazing work Pipo! I can't wait to learn how to create these types of animations. If only there was an easier bridge between formZ and one of these animation programs that kept all the vray maps/textures I use in formz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 (edited) On 10/16/2020 at 3:41 PM, 3dworks said: I'm rendering with Octane for a few years right now and very happy with it. Workflow currently is to export into Cinema 4D where i setup scenes and render via the plugin. A direct connection would be cool, of course. Rhino has it, btw. I'm giving some thought to Octane and it's standalone application. I don't want to hijack this Lumion thread, but I'm curious to see your work! Edited October 23, 2020 by snow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allanjl Posted October 25, 2020 Author Share Posted October 25, 2020 Amazing work Pipo! I have done some animations, with Lumion too, albeit smaller projects. It's too bad the principal refuses to show them to the public. I am working on animating cars and the sun the way you have. Any tips would be appreciated 😊 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 (edited) Nice work @pipo! Am I correct in concluding that the use of form.Z is restricted to the architecture? How do you achieve such a seamless fit with those beautiful and vast landscapes? Are they real, or predefined from Lumion libraries? Move over vray! Edited October 25, 2020 by santa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkcn Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 Very nice job Pipo!!! We tried both Lumion and Twinmotion. We are ok with you: we were disapointed for still images (regarding Maxwell renderings). We translated projects in .obj format but didn't try to keep Vray materials (anyway, glass and other procedural materials probably need to be reworked in Lumion/Twinmotion apps). They are ok when architectural projets fit into a natural landscapes but unusable when you try to include your project into an existing urban context. Otherwise, the videos produce a "whow" effect on clients! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipo Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 On 10/23/2020 at 9:51 PM, Des said: Thanks for posting these Pipo, they are outstanding. Do you mind if I ask how much FormZ modelling was involved and if so did you hit any road blocks getting data in Lumion? Also, was there a team involved or did you do all that yourself? There's a lot of work there. I think if I were to go down the path of realtime rendering it'd have to be Twinmotion using the UnReal engine as I'm on a Mac system. Well done, very impressive! Des Hey guys , thanks for the all the positive comments Little bit of background info on setting all these scenes up.... A lot of the major architectural models are fz , actually all are very simple 'sketchy' geometry. Sketchup plays an important function for setting up scenes , instancing and texturing....unfortunately not the strong areas for fz , however we don't use the live sketchup plugin For the same reason use maxwell studio. Fz really needs to improve mapping and terrain modelling ! The complex landforms are all sketchup built In short , Lumion imports in a myriad of formats , the biggest issue being scale None of these animations are marketing documents , just design development tools. Our team is a two person operation...long hours and lots of determination (and coffee) My advice is not to get to hung up on a streamlined system....use methods that work for you...Lumion excels with speed....and as for real time , forget it ! The render times for these animations runs from 10 to 200 hours on a 2080ti And finally , we are primarily a mac based studio....PC's only for Lumion crunching Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Thanks for the quick reply @pipo, and forgive me for harping on this, but your landscapes blow me away! In the ACC Aboriginal Cultural Centre model, for example, did you use a particle system for the trees? How many are there? What is the file size? I have tried to achieve a similar look (on a very large scale personal project) using an image mapped GIS terrain, but it's nothing like yours I'm afraid! It looks good from high above, but dies at eye level due to distortion, despite high resolution UV mapping. We need how-to "master class" videos from guys like you! Kudos to you and to your other half. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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