Best Rendering Option

[menggong2005]

Hi guys,

I have heard that Revit isn't very good when it comes to realistic renderings and that it's best to import your model into Max or other applications to render. Just wondering what will happen to the model once it is imported into Max in terms of materials, ability to alter thigns etc, is ther any other applicatiosn that are as good? And does Revit support V-Ray?

Thanks!

[cliff collins]

Revit uses the mental Ray render engine--which is the same as 3dsMax.

So--you can get very good photo-realistic renderings in Revit.

However, Revit can only use 4 processor cores when rendering-- so rendering speed
is limited by that, especially for interior views with lots of artificial lighting.

The reason for exporting from Revit ( via FBX format ) into 3dsMax is for better control
of materials, lighting, cameras, animation--and especially rendering speed, since Max
can use an unlimited number of multiple processors, with Backburner or distributed bucket rendering--which drastically speeds up rendering times.

The FBX file export from Revit preserves all materials, lighting, etc. in the Revit model
when imported into 3dsMax.

Revit cannot use VRay. 3dsMax can use it by substituting it for the render engine.

I would suggest trying some quick, simple renderings in Revit, and you will be surprised at how good the results are.

See the attached example we recently did ( 100% Revit ).

cheers............................

[SCShell]

Hi guys,

I have heard that Revit isn't very good when it comes to realistic renderings ....!

Hey there,
I hear that a lot; however, most of the time it is because they only talk to folks who have used the older past rendering engine, Accurender. Now, with MR, I think people may be thinking differently. I know a few personally.
Best of luck
Steve

[dpasa]

Revit uses mental ray... but Max gives better results... Making materials in Revit is strange, there is no possibility of background images or HDRI lighting or.... motion blur, or import 3d objects like you do in Max, or use plugins like forestpack or Onyxtree or...to give you the ability to render millions of polys using instances....use displacement.... use hundreds of 3rd party great model collections.... you can only use RPCs....
Too bad there won't be any improvements with this version too...
If you don't want to make detailed and hi-end renderings, don't use Max... If you want to make great images, forget Revit...at least for the next 1-2 years... Maybe you could try something cheaper or a standalone rendering app...

[swalton240189]

I attended a class on Revit rendering.
One of the disappointing pieces of information I got was that Revit wasn’t designed for presentation renderings. We should think of it more for our internal use for quick low quality renderings. You can get decent 8x11 and 11x17 renderings but not amazing and defiantly not poster size images or walkthroughs. We will need to use 3ds max for presentation images and walkthroughs especially with a lot of artificial lights. Try and limit it to 1200px wide.

The teacher recommended sticking with The draft or low default settings. If you find specific quality issues with the rendering you can adjust specific settings by clicking the pulldown where you select draft, low medium, etc. And selecting edit. In that menu you can select low then copy to custom and edit the custom settings.

If you can't afford a copy of max or a rendeing farm I get your settings right at lower quality settings and run it at high quality over night.

[azmz3]

If you don't want to make detailed and hi-end renderings, don't use Max... If you want to make great images, forget Revit...at least for the next 1-2 years... Maybe you could try something cheaper or a standalone rendering app...

There are plenty of companies out there doing presentation, poster size rendering in Revit. Yes they take a long time to complete, so hopefully you have a station just for rendering, but it is using what you have, and making it work for you. Firms are doing it now, without using 3dS Max for rendering. Revit renderings can look just as good as renderings from Max.

[Revit for Breakfast]

The lacking component for me is that you really have to have lighting inserted into rooms (Which is a giant pain in the ***) to get any internal renderings to come out nice. Beacause of this I have to 'take the roof off' to render.

[patricks]

I attended a class on Revit rendering.
One of the disappointing pieces of information I got was that Revit wasn’t designed for presentation renderings. We should think of it more for our internal use for quick low quality renderings. You can get decent 8x11 and 11x17 renderings but not amazing and defiantly not poster size images or walkthroughs. We will need to use 3ds max for presentation images and walkthroughs especially with a lot of artificial lights. Try and limit it to 1200px wide.

The teacher recommended sticking with The draft or low default settings. If you find specific quality issues with the rendering you can adjust specific settings by clicking the pulldown where you select draft, low medium, etc. And selecting edit. In that menu you can select low then copy to custom and edit the custom settings.

If you can't afford a copy of max or a rendeing farm I get your settings right at lower quality settings and run it at high quality over night.

Wow, I can't believe someone would teach those sorts of things. Maybe he/she wasn't really familiar w/ the nuances of rendering and creating materials in Revit. I have done quite a few myself in the past year and I'm continually amazed at how much better the renderings look now than they did before with AR.

Now yes I do use Photoshop to put real backgrounds behind renderings, and sometimes in front of renderings, but the building itself can still look great straight out of Revit.

On my machine, a 2700p wide image took 15 minutes to render on the High setting. Here is that one and a few others. The last one shows a re-built/restored bell tower on an old church. The church is a photograph obviously, but the tower in the foreground as well as the building additions were rendered in Revit.

[Mike Sealander]

We use Max mostly because the finessing with lights is much better. Max, in my opinion, will give a better interior with sun rendering than Revit, largely because of control. Also, Max's ability to tweak OOTB materials is valuable.

[mthurnauer]

Something that I have been wanting to try, but have not found the time for yet is to export a revit model and bring it in to Kerkythea. It is an open source rendering application that appears to be very powerful. Since it is free, there is no investment in trying it out other than the time to learn it.

[trombe]

Something that I have been wanting to try, but have not found the time for yet is to export a revit model and bring it in to Kerkythea. It is an open source rendering application that appears to be very powerful. Since it is free, there is no investment in trying it out other than the time to learn it.


There is another option - Indigo.
Indigo is FREE, however, it uses plug-ins for: Autodesk 3ds max, Blender, Maxon Cinema 4D, Google Sketchup, SoftImage XSI, Autodesk Maya, Sidefx Houdini).
No Revit plug-in so far.
http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/

For Kerkythea......... If you do not have SketchUp Pro or 3D Max etc., you will need to have an (.obj) converter to get a Revit file you have already exported as a dwg, then run through the converter into an .obj to hget it into Kerkythea right now.
dpasa might have a better handle on this than me.

trombe

[William Troeak]

[QUOTE=patricks;960631]Wow, I can't believe someone would teach those sorts of things. Maybe he/she wasn't really familiar w/ the nuances of rendering and creating materials in Revit. I have done quite a few myself in the past year and I'm continually amazed at how much better the renderings look now than they did before with AR.
[QUOTE]

I agree.......when I cover rendering in the Revit class I teach my students blow me away with the renderings that they can produce. One thing that I do tell them is that we have 3 hours in the class room and that if they are going to render they need to start within the first 30 min.

[SCShell]

Hey there,

Sometimes, I am just amazed at the differences between now and then and how it impacts what we have come to expect.

Back then:
Architects would do a design. If it was a small project, his own hand drawn presentation was usually more than adequate. If it was a big project, the Architect would have to hire an artist to do a nice watercolor or maybe a marker w/ prismacolor pencil rendering.

Now:
With Revit, Architects can produce near photo realistic renderings with just a few hours of setting up various elements. And, for most of us, that is wonderful! If we are lucky enough to do a large project, there would be enough in the fee to simply hire a "Digital Artist" to produce the huge renderings and animations.

I guess it comes down to your own personal expectations of what this software can and should do for you and what you think you need to provide as a service to your client. No two opinions are identical and the folks at the Factory are trying to make everybody happy. This is not an easy task.

Hopefully, there is enough for everybody. And if there isn't, there is always that "other" 3D BIM software, or Autocad or even Hand Drafting.

Good luck
Steve

[al.hart]

The AccuRender folks have created a new rendering engine for Revit - AccuRender nXt. This is an integrated renderer which sets it options, materials, etc. directly from Revit, and then launces the rendering as a separate process - so you can continue to use Revit while the rendering is completing.

To learn more, take a look at the AccuRender nXt Forum

http://nxt.accurender.com/forums/143.aspx

[iankids]

The AccuRender folks have created a new rendering engine for Revit - AccuRender nXt. This is an integrated renderer which sets it options, materials, etc. directly from Revit, and then launces the rendering as a separate process - so you can continue to use Revit while the rendering is completing.

To learn more, take a look at the AccuRender nXt Forum

http://nxt.accurender.com/forums/143.aspx

Hi Al,

Thanks for letting us know. I see there is now a version which works with 64bit Revit. I will download and give it a whirl.

Ian

[dpasa]

For Kerkythea......... If you do not have SketchUp Pro or 3D Max etc., you will need to have an (.obj) converter to get a Revit file you have already exported as a dwg, then run through the converter into an .obj to hget it into Kerkythea right now.
dpasa might have a better handle on this than me.

trombe

Indigo is a great option with really nice results
As for KT, you can import 3ds too but obj is much better.... I don't have any better way to make this than the one you mention but I have a kind friend that did this for me....
Now I bought MAX so I can do whatever I want... Of course I have to study a lot first...

[trombe]

yah,

lucky you I guess.
3D Max, is just not a viable option for me due mainly to the cost of it, + the subscription following on.
Its cost is prohibitive.
I appreciate Max is an excellent tool and training is one of those things you have to suck up or find a way through, however, I also think that Revit really should have m.r. in a much better implementation because Revit is a premiere software application and m.r. could still be hugely improved inside Revit without risking sales of Max.

I am keeping a weather eye out on all competing products now if for no other reason than the fact of the m.r. implementation and the apparent lack of commitment to carry on with its implementation ( all it would take, is just a couple of words from officialdom with regard to the future in this are and I would desist but communication with small users is zero so what choice do you get ?)

I am not sure that buying another AD viz product is the best option after this experience , despite the fact I think m.r. is an excellent solution.
I hope VRay or Fryrender do something for Revit in the future - especially if there is no further implementation for mr coming.

And despite Indigo being created by a fellow kiwi, they would not reply to mail queries regarding Revit, with Max their chosen means so I am not looking in that direction now.

cheers
trombe

[mthurnauer]

The rendering in revit is very good and I love that I can tie in with the project documentation. I.E. you can define your materials with how they will render, how they are represented in the drawings, and assign them a mark for documentation. This ensures a coordination between the documents and the presentations. The biggest complaints I have about the rendering in revit are:
1) There is no rendering queue so you have to be able to dedicate a machine to render and you need to open the view, render it, and save it. This is a serious draw back.
2) I feel there is no middle level rendering. It is either shaded or mental ray, but I would like to be able to just have a quicker ray-trace render engine as well. This would seem less important if there was a rendering queue.
3) One of the things that seems to add a lot of rendering time to interior views with daylight is that for a given view, you cannot select the specific doors, windows, and curtainwall systems that act as daylight portals. I have used the section box to try and clip the daylight portals, but this is not a very effective method. it would be much better if there was a button to pick the daylight portals.
4) In an attempt to accelerate interior rendering speed, I often would like to make specular surfaces only account for for specularity in ray tracing and not use BRDF, but it seems very difficult to get specular materials to look good unless the rendering settings are very high.

[dpasa]

The rendering in revit is very good and I love that I can tie in with the project documentation. I.E. you can define your materials with how they will render, how they are represented in the drawings, and assign them a mark for documentation. This ensures a coordination between the documents and the presentations. The biggest complaints I have about the rendering in revit are:
1) There is no rendering queue so you have to be able to dedicate a machine to render and you need to open the view, render it, and save it. This is a serious draw back.
2) I feel there is no middle level rendering. It is either shaded or mental ray, but I would like to be able to just have a quicker ray-trace render engine as well. This would seem less important if there was a rendering queue.
3) One of the things that seems to add a lot of rendering time to interior views with daylight is that for a given view, you cannot select the specific doors, windows, and curtainwall systems that act as daylight portals. I have used the section box to try and clip the daylight portals, but this is not a very effective method. it would be much better if there was a button to pick the daylight portals.
4) In an attempt to accelerate interior rendering speed, I often would like to make specular surfaces only account for for specularity in ray tracing and not use BRDF, but it seems very difficult to get specular materials to look good unless the rendering settings are very high.


Then it would be Max inside Revit !!!
Be able to use mental ray but have a scanline too, being able to use subobjects and change their properties etc...
There should be a Revit Vis Suite, just Revit and Max...Ok, maybe Acad but for most of the Revit Users, the only reason we update the installed Acad is just because we got it... The detailing or the little help we need for Revit could be easily be done with Acad 2000.
But, a Revit 2010 and Max 2010 would be the best for me...

**************The top would be a cheaper Revit without rendering features and a combination with Max.****************

[trombe]

dpasa.....

I notice that there is an option in Maxwell for fbx.
Have you tried to export direct out of Revit into Maxwell using the fbx option ? and if so, with what success ?

regards
trombe

[markusb]

I am running into a problem when rendering larger images.

The very simple way I understand the rending process to work in Revit, in regards to what I see on the screen, is a 3 part process. First the area where the image is goes black, then it slowly gets filled in with a rough image, third and finally the rough image gets refined.

However, on some of the rendering I have tried it does not do the 3rd part. Does anyone know why that would be?

My guess is the image size? I have tried all different qualities (minus Best) with the same inconsistancy.

Any help is very much appreciated.

[mark.98140]

this may well be a lack of ram to handle the file size created... in this case the render will simply stop... typically i find 8mb is ideal... but will vary according to file size, resolution, quality settings etc.

[timothy.bungert]

I am running into a problem when rendering larger images.

The very simple way I understand the rending process to work in Revit, in regards to what I see on the screen, is a 3 part process. First the area where the image is goes black, then it slowly gets filled in with a rough image, third and finally the rough image gets refined.

However, on some of the rendering I have tried it does not do the 3rd part. Does anyone know why that would be?

My guess is the image size? I have tried all different qualities (minus Best) with the same inconsistancy.

Any help is very much appreciated.

I had some instances like this with my old computer when doing very large renderings. A workaround that I found worked for me was to use the "region" rendering selection, and split the rendering into 2 pieces, then photoshop them back together. Make sure that you have some area that is rendered in both images, so that photoshop can merge them together seamlessly.

I typically render at a maximum of HIGH quality. The visual difference between high and best is not noticeable to 99% of people, and saves loads of time on rendering.

Here are some examples from my thesis using the techniques I've mentioned here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bungert/sets/72157617018965305/detail/

[bulletproofdesign]

My reseller suggested that rendering is mostly written to disk as it is processed. This is why your HDD runs constantly when rendering. wouldn't this mean that image size isn't affected by RAM or processor speed?

[mthurnauer]

My experience has been that rendering size does effect the amount of memory consumed by the renderer.

[bulletproofdesign]

This is a very simple render that took less that 2 minutes with modo.

Was made from a FBX export from REVIT...

(Just so you know, I shrunk it and optimized it in imageready the full affair was vga...)

[trombe]

Yes there are many good solutions out there now.
After deciding mr is very unlikely to get any better, I checked out Luxology modo and from trialing it for use with Revit geometry via DXF or FBX found both worked fine. Arch Viz animation possibilities seem to exceed your needs and hopes by some margin and the rendering engine is pretty much a fully featured commefrical offering and its not slow like mr inside Revit on same hardware.
Check out gallery for complete imagery of program use including arch viz, product design, gaming, and some 2D graphics effects on top of 3D modeling - night time time lapse photography of an urban scene done inside modo, or the one with a day time time lapse render of a small building exterior and so on (full camera controls = DOF, lens size, lens length, lens distortion, lens wide angles / telephoto and so on)
http://www.luxology.com/gallery/

trombe