Author Topic: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?  (Read 292336 times)

2016-03-10, 23:24:53
Reply #210

melviso

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Ok. Thanks philippelamoureux. Rafael's work with ue4 is really good.

Seems Autodesk is taking Stingray very seriously. UE4 also needs to implement light linking. From what I gather it is in their to do list.

2016-03-11, 21:03:43
Reply #211

philippelamoureux

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2016-03-17, 02:19:38
Reply #212

melviso

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It looks really nice but something seems off. The materials look really good though.

Just stumbled on this new engine called Lumberyard by Amazon. Its based off the Cryengine sdk with better features and it's completely free. It seems to have fully implemented realtime GI unlike ue4.

Seems really cool. Also has hair, skin, eye, vegetation shader already that ue4.11 preview is all about.

I might try this out. Since I am having trouble downloading ue4.11 through epic games launcher. Tried everything.

Then again Cryengine is now free but it's backwards compared to Unity and ue4. I love the competition and variety of game engines out there presently. It seems game engines are the future. Makes me worry about offline renderers though.

2016-03-17, 04:07:14
Reply #213

philippelamoureux

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I may try Cry Engine eventually but without a good community it's not tempting. Unreal community is muuuuch bigger!

It's GDC 2016 right now and we're seeing amazing stuff. Like this car showroom made in ue4. Stunning


2016-03-17, 05:27:00
Reply #214

melviso

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Really good. The environment is really plain so I am not sure if the reflections are realtime. If there were moving objects in the environment, I am sure the realism would be broken. The car is static so there is a probability the lighting is baked? ue4 doesn't have dynamic realtime gi yet. Otherwise, very realistic and impressive especially for a vechicle concept animation rather than huge render times using offline renderers especially with the same quality.

Whereas Cryengine:

But like you mentioned ue4 has more support and an active community especially if you run into problems. I just can't get it to download with the launcher. Will keep trying.
« Last Edit: 2016-03-17, 05:49:13 by melviso »

2016-03-17, 05:52:39
Reply #215

philippelamoureux

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Imo realtime G.I is overrated. People are too lazy to make lightmaps? Quality is muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better than any realtime G.I solution.

Cry engine dynamic G.I is similar to vxgi, good for games but far from enough for arch viz. The shadows are not precise enough!

The car above could've been rendered without ''real'' G.I and just movable lights in the scene) as long as it looks good in the end.

Have you seen the Hellblade gdc trailer? amazing character models running in realtime.


What happen when you try to download it? get an error?
« Last Edit: 2016-03-17, 05:58:10 by philippelamoureux »

2016-03-17, 06:09:34
Reply #216

melviso

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She looks pretty impressive.

I keep getting
Install failed.
Could not download installation information. Please try again later, Code 0

I have followed all the solutions on answerhub. O well.

2016-03-17, 06:36:22
Reply #217

philippelamoureux

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Try to reinstall the launcher. Maybe it could work.

Or download the github version and build it yourself with visual studio 2015 (the free version is fine).

2016-03-18, 03:03:32
Reply #218

melviso

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I even uninstalled the whole ue4 (had 4.3.1 version previously,trying to download 4.11 preview version) and the epic launcher and tried again. This is just a little fustrating tbh. I don't know why they couldn't just go the way u could just download udk, install and use. Lumberyard is just this simple. Download, install and use.
I might just try the github version. This might discourage some ppl from using ue4. The only reason I might still give this another go is because it is widely used (though that might change with Cryengine and Lumberyard new license releases in the next year). The advantage UE4 had was its license compared to Cryengine and other engines in the past. Cryengine has always looked better graphically.
I was speaking with a friend today and he mentioned Lumberyard being the most likely to be successful out of all the game engines in the near future. With the heavy financial backing Amazon has, it's development will be very fast. They already have an up and running documentation . A lot of features on the same level now with ue4 and they are responding to people's feedback very fast. They also seem to have and are hiring the best devs to get things done swiftly and efficiently.

Will probably stick to Corona and 3dsmax for now.
« Last Edit: 2016-03-18, 03:19:19 by melviso »

2016-03-18, 08:13:49
Reply #219

Juraj

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With the heavy financial backing Amazon has

They all have :- ) Epic has been silent about it but they also got heavy (330mil. for 40perc.) injection from Chinese investor ( non other then Tencent themselves).

This is why they are all free. No charity is involved :- )
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2016-03-18, 09:24:51
Reply #220

philippelamoureux

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Cry engine is now free but No community and no real convincing architectural visualisation examples.

Lumberyard = No community, same as above

Unity = nothing more than ue4 afaik

Stingray = right now meh, we'll see if they fine tune it for architecture. Still no real community and examples yet.

If I had to try another game engine it would be Cry engine, but just for fun. If it was possible I'd love to have a look at the Fox engine too :-)

And as Juraj said, with Tencent in the game, money should not be a problem http://www.forbes.com/companies/tencent-holdings/
« Last Edit: 2016-03-18, 09:32:52 by philippelamoureux »

2016-03-18, 09:34:39
Reply #221

philippelamoureux

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Really good. The environment is really plain so I am not sure if the reflections are realtime. If there were moving objects in the environment, I am sure the realism would be broken. The car is static so there is a probability the lighting is baked? ue4 doesn't have dynamic realtime gi yet. Otherwise, very realistic and impressive especially for a vechicle concept animation rather than huge render times using offline renderers especially with the same quality.

Whereas Cryengine:

But like you mentioned ue4 has more support and an active community especially if you run into problems. I just can't get it to download with the launcher. Will keep trying.

By the way you can download that playable scene. Check the youtube description there's a link. It's not as good as you think tho when you test it!

2016-03-19, 02:35:32
Reply #222

melviso

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They all have :- ) Epic has been silent about it but they also got heavy (330mil. for 40perc.) injection from Chinese investor ( non other then Tencent themselves).

This is why they are all free. No charity is involved :- )

Ok. Didn't know that. Amazon seems to be taking their engine very seriously. They just recently added a full brand new FBX importer, support for importing meshes from Blender and support for substance plugin. They are taking feedback and getting stuff the community is asking for included with speed even compared to Unreal. Their community is gonna build up really fast the way they are going. :-)

Cry engine is now free but No community and no real convincing architectural visualisation examples.

Lumberyard = No community, same as above

Unity = nothing more than ue4 afaik

Stingray = right now meh, we'll see if they fine tune it for architecture. Still no real community and examples yet.

If I had to try another game engine it would be Cry engine, but just for fun. If it was possible I'd love to have a look at the Fox engine too :-)

Evey product starts from somewhere. At some point, a community gets formed around that product.I have been gathering some intel and a lot of people are actually downloading Cryengine and Lumberyard to try them out which means some might stop using unreal if they like the other ones. On the unreal forums, ppl have already started pointing out some of the things ue4 is lacking like realtime reflections, good G.I, among other things. What epic games has going for them right now is the community support, tutorials  e.t.c. Stingray on the otherhand, isn't the best imho. I feel it doesn't look graphically as good as the others. They have a lot of stuff they need to add and their pricing model compared to the others.

Frankly, I am quite pleased with the competition presently. Gives you a lot of options. The next few months will determine how things go. I kinda have a feeling koola might do a small scene with cryengine or lumberyard. Don't know why.

As for the Cryengine vid, I noticed some things were off, especially with shadows. This is not the new Cryengine V and for it's time, it was pretty impressive. I am not sure if the version used has distance AO. Enabling AO probably would have solved or improved the shadows.

I don't think it's a bad idea to try these engines out .Especially Cryengine and Lumberyard in one's free time. Ue4 is already set in stone but I have a feeling things are going to change in the next coming months and it is going to be interesting. :-)

If it was possible,would like to try out Frostbite engine.
« Last Edit: 2016-03-19, 06:19:28 by melviso »

2016-03-19, 06:54:33
Reply #223

philippelamoureux

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I wonder if glass can look better in Cry engine but I haven't found good examples yet.
You are right, competition is always good for software development!!!

I think svogi in Cry is the same as Vxgi in ue4. I tried vxgi but it's not good. It's okay for a game with stylized graphics but not for architecture.
You don't get contact and soft shadows with svogi/vxgi.

I'll keep an eye on Lumberyard...it is like an improved version of the cry engine?

2016-03-19, 09:10:37
Reply #224

melviso

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From this thread:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?104251-CryEngine-becomes-free/page3

It seems Cryengine has better reflections than ue4. But I recon Cryengine is less convenient to use?

Someone trying out Cryengine's volumetric clouds earlier today.
I am not sure game engines can perfect refraction/glass properly yet. Probably next gen?

Found this:https://gamedev.amazon.com/forums/questions/4517/cryengine-vs-lumberyard.html

Seems Lumberyard is missing some new features the new Cryengine has like "Heightmap-Based Ambient Occlusion, Designer Tool UV Mapping, Character Attachment Merging, New Depth-of-Field Implementation, Improved Motion Blur and Volumetric Fog Quality, Improved SVOGI". They plan to add new features roughly every 4-6 weeks. So I am sure they already have things planned. They just released an update 4 days ago and are looking for ways ppl can download these updates without huge download times.

For me, I feel Lumberyard might be more reliable because they seem to be making changes and listening to customers. Cryengine on the otherhand seems to be more rigid in their approach and with their reputation in the past, we have no idea what might come out of this pay what you want module. I gather Cryengine is hoping to make money from marketplace and support subscription. In otherwords, if u need technical support, you have to have a subscription account. I think Lumberyard will grow fast and acquire new features if it's community builds up fast.

Realtime GI and reflections in Lumberyard should be good enough to get you good results. Someone said, these game engines are basically the same, if you are a talented artists, your quality of work should be top notch regardless of what engine you are using. Right now, I don't think people trusts Crytex considering their past and how tight fisted they have been about their engine.

I haven't really gotten round to testing Lumberyard yet. It is possible I might not like it. At least I have used ue4 before so I have something to compare it with.

« Last Edit: 2016-03-19, 09:19:36 by melviso »