Author Topic: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?  (Read 292483 times)

2014-10-13, 14:55:39
Reply #15

Juraj

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I am not saying that and even remotely compare the two. What I am saying is that Unreal 4 is starting to become a great alternative and hopefully that will force Lumion to change for better the product and the price tag.

Oh yeah, just checked the price. What the hell :- O When did that... ?
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2014-10-13, 15:29:29
Reply #16

CiroC

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A little bit off topic, but I still remember that the first version of Lumion had an affordable price and then when they introduce Lumion 2  the price went to thousands of euros\pounds\dollars. This was something that happened maybe 3/4 years ago. Yes, Lumion has some nice trees, 3d models and visual effects, but sometimes it feels like driving a car using just one gear. You cannot tweak geometry individually and you can only use very simple animations (move, rotate and scale)

I know that Unreal's team is not promoting themselves as the next big thing for architectural visualization, but when I compare the Unreal and Lumion Pro, I want to take some time to understand the workflow and start exploring Unreal's potential. And I hope that Unreal this creates at least some pressure to make them to improve substantially the application or drop the price.

2014-10-16, 09:33:11
Reply #17

tomislavn

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Unreal Engine 4.5 released :) Gotta check it out today!
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2014-10-16, 10:57:36
Reply #18

CiroC

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Unreal Engine 4.5 released :) Gotta check it out today!

Have a look at the interior scene (simple two rooms and a tree). Beautiful light

2014-10-16, 20:27:52
Reply #19

Juraj

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Anyone played with yet... ?

I love the new raytraced shadows, unexpected but nice feature !
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2014-10-16, 21:39:46
Reply #20

racoonart

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I'm currently working on a (non-archviz) scene for UE. The big problem is: it's so much more work to do it right (or even acceptable) ... You must make sure everything has good non-overlapping UVs for baking and as soon as something moves (especially interior) everything gets a lot more complicated. You can't simply take the models you use for your normal renderings, it won't work that way. Screen-space reflections and reflection spheres have both pros and cons but it's nothing compared to raytraced reflections - you will always have to fight against ugly side effects.
Another thing is that some features are just not really ready yet. It's also very easy to run into limitations (max texture size, limited amount of dynamic lights, distance field shadows and the geometry you use etc...)

I'm not a game artist (and I probably will never be ;) ) but I doubt that this will revolutionize the Archviz industry anywhere soon.
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2014-10-16, 21:56:28
Reply #21

Juraj

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Absolutely, I am repeating this to everyone :- )

I have Unreal4 for 6 months by now I think and CE3 for far longer (I used CE in school before I knew 3dsMax, I imported by Sketchup models and created environment from Crysis Assets) and I knew it's useless for regular Archviz, the work amount is simply not worth it unless budget and time don't matter anymore. And that's the practicality of the output..well.

But I am just having fun, creating small game assets for personal pleasure and watching others daydream of the "revolution" around corner...
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2014-10-16, 22:05:55
Reply #22

racoonart

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But I am just having fun, creating small game assets for personal pleasure and watching others daydream of the "revolution" around corner...

That's a very healthy way to see it ;)
Unfortunately I had some very long talks with clients why those archviz UE4 demos are not just "realtime" versions of what people normally do in max with vray or corona.
"It looks good, is realtime and you can even change things on the fly in the editor..."  yeah.. no... :D
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2014-10-16, 22:13:13
Reply #23

Juraj

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I can see the pain of that :- ).

I had such discussion with Ronen in Venice, it does seem far too easy to most.
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2014-10-16, 22:26:32
Reply #24

borisquezadaa

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C'mon... i'm starting to feel curious about.  And since Corona has make my life less complicated i think maybe i have the time to do some unreal architecture levels to demolish interactively.
Corona render to texture (Cof!... cof!)---
What i do with Corona My Corona post of random stuff rendering
WARNING: English.dll still loading...

2014-10-16, 22:31:06
Reply #25

Juraj

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Corona render to texture (Cof!... cof!)---

You would have to "hard-bake" it as overlay for each object's diffuse texture (and create unique variation of the same shader thus) because at the moment Unreal doesn't support importing of lightmaps.
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2014-10-17, 00:07:53
Reply #26

borisquezadaa

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Exactly!... thats the only way i can think of using a full render solution from corona. That way i only use Unreal engine as a realtime walktrough generator.
Sadly the amounts of unwrapping to make a level is insane, it remembers my time doing modeling and rendering for games. Very fun times.
AFAIK Corona can output diffuse, reflection, refraction, translucency and emission channels using shading components both direct and indirect and  I guess is fairly enough for now for a  game engine (also AO pass) that way we can use unreal's own ligth system, but for really stand out needs a pbr material like output.
But almost every renderer can. So the main idea of using Corona as a map generator is useless.
Maybe is time to let aside my obsession with animated dispersive caustics and start doing some unwrapping.
So... corona is about materials... unreal is about unwraping.
I will try to find a interior scene with minimum unwrapping required... is there a problem if i try with sample scene?--- lets hands on.
« Last Edit: 2014-10-17, 00:54:26 by borisquezadaa »
What i do with Corona My Corona post of random stuff rendering
WARNING: English.dll still loading...

2014-10-17, 10:15:00
Reply #27

CiroC

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The thing with Unreal 4 is that it still is a game engine. Before start it pays off having some basic knowledge of how game engines work. The things that DeadClown mentioned are part of the process to create games and in this case to create arch viz.

2014-10-17, 11:25:01
Reply #28

Ondra

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I was always curious, why do you need to unwrap everything? There are automatic ways to do that...
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2014-10-17, 11:25:44
Reply #29

tomislavn

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I was always curious, why do you need to unwrap everything? There are automatic ways to do that...

I am also interested in that, it really puts me off from using it :)
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