CGarchitect News Feed

Christmas TV Commercial for CBS Network

Juan Luque — Thu, 23 May 2013 11:15:59 MDT

www.graff3d.com in collaboration with Riley Animation Studios developed this 3D animation video to be part of CBS Network's TV commercial series for the Holiday Season of 2012.

www.graff3d.com en colaboracion con Riley Animation estudios, desarrollo esta animacion en 3D para ser parte de una series de comerciales para el Network Televisivo CBS durante la temporada de Navidad 2012.

CGarchitect 3D Awards - Call for Entries

Jeff Mottle — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:00:00 MDT

10th Annual Awards with Over $96,000 in Prizes
DEADLINE MAY 24, 2013 (12pm MDT / GMT-6)

The CGarchitect.com Architectural 3D Awards were started in 2004 to recognize outstanding achievement in the field of architectural visualization. In such a competitive field it becomes more and more difficult make yourself seen. With the wide visibility of CGarchitect, what better way to use this exposure than to help the artists that make up our community. 2013 marks our 10th annual awards, which will once again take place in La Coruna, Spain during the Mundos Digitales conference. Past awards have taken place in Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston. Over the past nine years many extremely talented individuals and companies have gone on to form new alliances and partnerships and advanced their careers.

SUBMIT NOW

New Student & Interactive Categories

This year we've added two new categories and updated an existing category. We've added two new student categories for both images and films and expanded our Real-Time category. The Real-Time category has been renamed "Interactive" and now encompasses interactive kiosks, augmented reality, mobile applications, interactive web applications, real-time apps or any new technology (hardware or software) that is used to communicate design and architecture.

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Each year we continue to push the bar higher and this year is no exception. We have launched a brand new awards site full of award winning imagery, new categories and over $90,000 in prizes. However as hard as we work, none of this would be possible without the VERY generous support of our sponsors.We want to thank all of them for their help this year in launching our biggest awards ever.

Photorealistic rendering with Vray or mental ray

Jamie Cardoso — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:14:25 MDT

Lighting a scene realistically is one of the most challenging aspects of producing photorealistic renders.

This new article will quickly guide users through the process of creating photorealistic renders with VRay and mental ray:

http://jamiecardoso-mentalray.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/photorealistic-rendering-with-vray-or.html

State-of-the-Art 3D People models & Animation Soft

Diego Gadler — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:07:58 MDT

The NEW AXYZ has come to life!

A completely renewed website
and new products for MAXON CINEMA 4D!

Discover now!

NEW RAILCLONE2

Marketing iToosoft — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:35:17 MDT

Introducing iToosoftware´s RaiClone2. The new revolutionary parametric modelling tool for 3ds Max

New RailClone2

Marketing iToosoft — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:21:24 MDT

In 24 hours, the release of RailClone2: The new revolutionary parametric modelling tool for 3ds Max. By iToo Software.

Optimize render speed in V-Ray | Aversis tutorial

wouter wynen — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:21:36 MDT

Another new tutorial by Aversis, this time about optimizing render speed in V-ray. The final goal of the tutorial is to provide you with some very simple general settings, that you can use for preview and high quality renders.

But instead of simply providing these settings, we explain the all so you know what each of these do. By understanding each setting, you will be able to further tweak them to your specific needs.

Download 150 Free 3D Plants - Limited Time Offer!

stewart mcsherry — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:37:08 MDT

"Try Before You Buy"

We would like to invite all the fine CG Architect folks to download our 3d and 2d plants, and examine our modeling quality inside your own software.

So today we have setup for you a new free Species from each of our 31 worldwide plant ecosystems libraries and we hope you will enjoy these 150 plants in 10 different 3d Formats, absolutely free of charge.

The offer is for a limited time, so we urge you to act quickly.

Our hope with the giveaway is that you will enjoy the quality of our models and that you may now, or in the future, consider purchasing our powerful ecosystems for your environmental needs.

Best Regards,

The Xfroggers.

The Making Of Country Home

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 15 May 2013 02:00:00 MDT

Hi all. My name is Nicolás Molina managing partner of http://www.90-grados.com/, sharing with you from Cordoba, Argentina this tutorial on our work "Country Home". Thanks Jeff for giving us this opportunity.

MODELING

This is a project for a future presentation townhome "country" in an environment that emphasizes the architecture. In this case it was based on a model from 3DDD.ru, which was then completed with a new roof, ridges, drains, curtains, deck etc.

Original model.

Detail and ridge tiles, beveled walls.

Detail of drains, curtains and beveled corners.

3D Deck planking added.

Detail of the deck. They moved some planks to add imperfections. The same work was done on the roof.

LIGHTING AND CAMERAS

The scene is illuminated by a VRaySun and a 3D dome with a VRayLightMtl applied, which uses a map from VizPeople HDRI.

VRay Sun Settings.

Material applied to the 3D dome.

PhysicalCamera configuration. We added some imperfections to the ground next to the camera.

MATERIALS

The materials used are basic. We used VRayDirt in some cases and paid more attention to siding and drains.

VEGETATION

Vegetation was from Evermotion for flowering plants and Itrees for the trees and shrubs. We also used Multiscatter for the lawn.

Masks were used for the distribution of the two types of Multiscatter grasses: low near the home and higher as it moves away.

RENDERING

The final image was rendered at a resolution of 2500px wide using a fairly simple setup. It took a Quad Core no more than 4 hours.

Original render.

POST-PRODUCTION

Post-Production was done in Photoshop. We only used the reflection render element and did not do a lot of retouching. The biggest change was the curves and color balance.

Final render

As you will see is a fairly simple job. We wanted basic scene for further work that was efficient in terms of render times. I hope this tutorials has helped. Thanks for listening and good luck.

90-Grados.com

Inspiration - Rain Vol. 2

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:03:00 MDT

Fama AdvertisingAgency

linda zhang - 3D-SHINE DESIGN

ChromaStudio SAS

Gilvan Isbiro

Kuba Kolec - threexfour

Taha Alkan - Mental Design Works

Dennis Ekk - Bridge Visualization

Webinar: Creating Smart 3D City Models with Esri CityEngine

Jeff Mottle — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:17:00 MDT

Creating Smart 3D City Models with Esri CityEngine

Learn how to create stunning city models in less time with Esri® CityEngine® software—the tool of choice for 3D city modeling in urban planning, architecture, simulation, game development, and film production. CityEngine delivers a full suite of industry-leading procedural tools to aggregate geospatial data, layout and edit street networks, generate and modify buildings, create 3D road profiles and distribute street furniture, control the shape of the skyline, and rapidly prototype conceptual urban planning projects. Finally share your 3D city on ArcGIS Online and enable public commenting or export models to a third party software for rendering.

This webinar covers:

Procedurally modeling new urban environments
Harnessing Existing City Data to automate the 3D City Modeling Process
The New Features for the upcoming CityEngine 2013 release
How to share 3D city scenes in the browser (WebGL)

If you missed our webinar, you can watch it online here:

About the speaker:

Geoff Taylor: Solutions Engineer (3D Markets) at Esri
Geoff Taylor is a Solution Engineer for Esri’s 3D markets. Working out of Esri’s Redlands, California office, he supports the 3D workforce in the movie, TV, gaming, and architectural industries with their 3D urban design needs & CityEngine implementation. Prior to working at Esri, he served as a GIS systems engineer for Clemson University and is also a founding partner of HewittNassar Studio, A landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm with offices in South Carolina and California.

umolab - Free bed model - 75% commision

umo Rich — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:22:16 MDT

umolab has offically launched. To celebrate we are offering 75% commission to anyone who has their models and textures accepted onto the site before Septe,ber 2013.

We are also giving away an awesomely detailed 3D bed model to anyone who likes us on facebook by the end of May 2013.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/UMOLAB/335522076530709#!/pages/UMOLAB/335522076530709
https://umolab.com/
https://twitter.com/UMOLAB

3D Searing Furniture from Viz-People

Andrzej Gasior — Mon, 06 May 2013 01:01:35 MDT

Viz-People released 3D Seating Furniture. Collection contain 80 high quality, detailed 3d models of Armchairs, Chairs, Benches and Sofas

Lenovo ThinkPad W530 Review

Jeff Mottle — Mon, 06 May 2013 00:59:00 MDT

Late last year while attending Autodesk University I had a chance to meet with the team over at Lenovo to get up to speed on their latest offerings. While reviewing the laptops, one in particular stood out to me from any other laptop I've seen before.

As many of you know I'm a bit of a color management geek and am fascinated by all things surrounding color management and the accurate reproduction of color within visualization. As such, I was very impressed to find the new Lenovo ThinkPad W530 had an integrated spectrophotometer. For those less familiar with color management, one of the things needed in order to achieve accurate and repeatable color is a hardware measurement device that is able to profile and calibrate your screen. Generally you use a device like a Color Munki (http://www.colormunki.com/) or i1 Pro (http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=323) to do this with laptops or desktop displays, but thanks to the integrated spectrophotometer on the W530, maintaining accurate color has never been easier or more convenient.

To calibrate the display only takes a few steps. Just launch the Pantone Color Calibrator software, set the white point and gamma, close the lid, wait a few minutes and you're done. While this software is no where near as encompassing as those included with the Color Munki or i1 Pro, I think this is a great thing in this case and is a great step towards mass adoption of color management. Given this laptop is a Mobile Workstation aimed at the visualization industry, among others, I am delighted to Lenovo push the industry forward.

INTEGRATED COLOR MANAGEMENT

I've included screen shots of each of the steps below.

GAMUT COMPARISON

One thing laptops are not generally known for are large color gamuts, so after the calibration software ran, I opened the ICM profile that was generated in ColorThink. ColorThink is a specialized application that can be used for visualizing the size of color spaces. Below you will see the triangles below represent the size of gamuts for a few devices and colorspaces. The horseshoe shaped background represents all of the colors the human eye can see.

Most desktop wide gamut displays are close in size to the AdobeRGB colorspace, which I've illustrated in black below. Next I plotted my desktop display, which is arguably one of the best and most advanced displays on the market today, the NEC PA301W. Keep in mind that I'm only comparing color gamuts and not display performance. Most desktop displays can not rival the PA301W, let alone a laptop display. In green you can see the gamut of the W530 and finally in red the sRGB colorspace.

The W530 is lacking a bit in the greens compared to AdobeRGB, but does a reasonable good job of encompassing most of the colorspace. To be exact 95% according to Levovo specifications. One thing I had to laugh about is the apparent lack of understanding displayed in Lenovo's marketing materials around their display's capabilities. Everywhere they reference "95-percent color gamut", which is a pretty ambiguous and analgious to telling someone " I drove 95 today". Is that 95 miles, kilometers, miles per hour? You get the picture. The proper reference they should be making is of course 95% of the AdobeRGB color gamut as there are many more standardized color gamuts in existence, sRGB for example.

BENCHMARKING

While the main feature that attracted me to this laptop is of course the spectrophotometer and Pantone software, while I had the laptop here in the office on review, I thought I'd also run it though its paces on a few benchmarks for CPU, GPU and Display performance. I'm not providing any sort of analysis on the results of each benchmark, but I've included links to each so you can run these same benchmarks on your own machines to see how performance compares to your current system or to others already submitted to each benchmark site.

The W530 I tested was equipped with the following GPUs and CPU:

GPU = Intel HD Graphics 4000 (GPU, 16, 400Mhz) + Quadro K2000M (GPU, 2, 745 Mhz)
CPU = Intel Core i7-3920XM @ 2.90GHz

V-Ray RT Benchmark

A few years ago Vlado from Chaos Group posted a test scene to use for benchmarking GPUs and CPUs using V-Ray RT. That scene and other artist's results can be found here: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?52400-test-scene

The results I got with the W530 were as follows:

GPU (Cuda Single Kernal) = 17m 21.7s

CPU = 37m 11.2s

As a point of reference someone recently posted a benchmark with two Evga Titans SC Overclocked to 1175. This scene rendered in 49.06 s. While the K2000M is no slouch, it's certainly no where near enough to do anything serious with GPU rendering. Right now you're not going to find any laptops that are, but given the increasing popularity of GPU rendering, I thought it worthwhile demonstrating its capabilities.

LUXMark

In similar vain to the V-Ray RT benchmark, LUXrender also has their own benchmark using OpenCL. I rendered the "Sala" scene using both GPUs and CPUs with the following results:

OpenCL GPUs Only                 = 182
OpenCL GPU (only Quadro)     = 105
OpenCL GPU + CPU                = 520
OpenCL CPU Only                   = 399

The higher the number the better. To download this benchmark and view other results please visit: http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxMark

SPECviewperf v11

SPEC has been providing benchmark applications for high end graphics applications for years so I have included results from their latest version 11 application below. You'll notice the missing 3ds Max results and there is a good reason for that. With the addition of so many new rendering modes in 3ds Max, Autodesk and SPEC partnered to create a new updated benchmark specifically for 3ds Max. Due to the amount of work involved they decided to charge for this benchmark. The personal version is $20 and $499 for the professional version. However, I soon discovered the resultant application was sub-par to say the least, specifically usability. Sub-par to the point of not even being able to get it installed! I paid $499 for the professional version only to find that you must have 3ds Max installed for it to run. A departure from their other benchmarks and not clearly identified on their website. Not only does it require 3ds Max, it must be 3ds Max 2011 and not the Design version. Needless to say I gave up after spending two hours trying to get this to work, only to find it needs three generation old software that I did not have to allow it to work and requested a refund. In my opinion the ball was clearly dropped in the creation of this benchmark which is unfortunate.

catia-03                = 34.03
ensight-04                = 18.07
lightwave-01             = 49.88
maya-03                   = 47.42
proe-05                    = 15.63
sw-02                   = 37.26
tcvis-02                    = 29.59
snx-01                      = 24.77

Dimtiris, a frequent poster on the CGarchitect forums, has some great GPU benchmark comparisons on his website here: http://pcfoo.com/specviewperf-11-gpu-scores/

CineBench

CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. Created by MAXON this benchmark is great for measuring CPU and OpenGL performance.

Using their latest Cinebench 11.5 I got the results below:

OpenGL = 43.86 fps
CPU = 7.14 pts

Benchwell

For Maxwell Render users there is a benchmark called Benchwell which tests CPU rendering on a test teapot scene. Using the 304.74 benchmark I was able to render the scene in 15m 16s. To test with this benchmark and to see other results you can visit the following link: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Benchwell+Test

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Overall the laptop performed well and even after hours of running benchmarks back to back, the bottom left of the laptop was warm to touch is nothing was hot. Lenovo obviously did a very good job of cooling this machine down. Design wise, I found the appearance to be pretty uninspired and utilitarian, but if you're only interested in a mobile workstation that performs ,this may be of less importance to you. I tend to care about aesthetics so I like all of my devices and software to look "pretty" too. As you can see below it has a full compliment of ports and connections, including a biometric reader and card readers.

From a placement standpoint, I found the location of the CD tray release button to be unfortunate. Every time I went to pick up the laptop by its sides I released the tray. My wife who uses a Lenovo at work, commented on the same thing. I also wish the keyboard was lit. I found it difficult to see the keys when working in the dark or a dimly lit room.

SPECIFICATIONS

A full list of system specifications and configurations can be found here: http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tech-specs/laptop/thinkpad/w-series/w530/

The machine I tested was equipped as follows:

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3920XM (2.90 GHz, 8MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)

Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz

Harddrive: 500GB (5400rpm)

Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® K2000M 2GB VRAM

Battery: 9-cell (94Wh): Up to 11.1 hrs

The w530 with color sensor pricing starts at $1322 on the Lenovo website and tops out around $3700 USD fully loaded.

TripolyStudio - 3d Architectural Visualization

Raj Patel — Sun, 05 May 2013 01:25:02 MDT

TripolyStudio.com.com is professional in 3d renderings, 3d outsourcing. We offers the highest quality 3D rendering services, 3d architectural renderings, 3D visualization, architectural animation, 3d architectural visualization of all types, 3d walkthrough animations, real estate animation and more.

50 % Off All 3D Models and Software

stewart mcsherry — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:05:38 MDT

Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid use our plants - how about you?

Due to popular demand and difficult industry conditions, we are pleased to announce that our half-price sale is extended thru the entire month of May.

We hope our 50% discount helps you to afford some of our varied 3,000 plant species, libraries, bundles, as seen in Avatar, Oz, Hobbit, Brave, Snow White, Alice, Rango, Harry Potter, Grimm, Gump, Xmen and more.

Promenadd HD Player for iPad is now available free

PA Lindemann — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:25:12 MDT

Promenadd HD Player for iPad is now available on iTunes App Store for FREE

Feel free to download our new App for iPad here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/promenadd/id619996118

App Features:
- play all projects created with 3DS Max and Promenadd VIZ Plugin
- Access to your projects with a simple url
- Download your projects locally and play them WITHOUT any internet connection (offline mode)

About Promenadd:

Promenadd offers to architects, engineers, designers and graphic artists the ability to transform their 3D creations into virtual worlds using ‘Panorama 360' view. The process used by 'Promenadd' keeps 100% of the rendering quality and details of original projects while offering optimum performance when viewing HD.
The plugin Promenadd VIZ is directly integrated into your 3D software (Autodesk 3DS Max). It calculates navigation paths and points of interest. Using capabilities of the 3D software (with most of rendering engines), 'Promenadd VIZ' automatically converts rendered images in multiple resolutions thus avoiding having to use postproduction software.
'Promenadd HD Player' allows sharing 3D creations on any web page, website and Apple iPad tablet.
'Promenadd HD Player' adapts the quality of the content taking account of the network connection and media used. These tools provide the ability to share 3D projects easily and navigate in a 360 degrees universe. It is really immersive and intuitive.

Share your projects
Involve your stakeholders
Convince your audience
WIN NEW BUSINESS WITH PROMENADD!

Autodesk updates Architosh on what's happening

Anthony Frausto Robledo AIA — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:27:58 MDT

architosh™ — the leading Internet magazine dedicated to Mac & iOS CAD and 3D professionals and students worldwide.

PICKUP3D Free models collection vol.1

Jacek Krupa — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:18:16 MDT

Pickup3d FREE models vol.1 vailable for download

DOWNLOAD NOW: PICKUP FREE MODELS COLLECTION VOL.1

Collection contains:
4 different 3D models of chairs
- Erns Mockl Kangaroo chair
- Hee Welling chair
- Gubi chair
- Vad chair
3D Large Knot Pendant Lamp, Table and Tableware, Hi-Res wood and concrete textures, Editable blackboard PSD files, Blackboard font.

3DBOXX 8980 XTREME: "This is Your Workstation" com

Joe Pizzini — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:06:38 MDT

BOXX Technologies 8980 Extreme Workstation - Take a inside look at the fastest dual Intel Xeon workstation in the world and don't forget to participate in the CGARCHITECT.COM ARCHITECTURAL 3D AWARDS for a chance to win our 3DBOXX 4050 Extreme Workstation.

pickup3d free models collection vol.1

Jacek Krupa — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:56:57 MDT

Pickup3d presents free models collection vol.1 that will appear tomorrow 26.04.2013 on our website.
Collection contains 3D models ready for use in your scene, high-resolution textures and specially prepared for the need of this collection PSD files.
Do not miss this event and visit our website tomorrow PICKUP3D FREE
You will find information about the free models collection vol.1 on our fanpage: PICKUP3D ON FACEBOOK

Render Higher resolution images with “Render_autos

Jamie Cardoso — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:37:26 MDT

Check out this ingenious and simple new script that allows users to set 3Ds Max to automatically save the render periodically

Architecture unchained! - Archviz ontest

Matúš Nedecký — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:01:22 MDT

Hello FlyingArchitecture fans After a very long break in contests, we are back with the new one. The most exciting contest of the year is here Join the contest now and win really cool prizes.

Apr 9, 2013 4:21pm | Facebook

Punnen Thomas — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:37:58 MDT

crowd creating utility

Studio Emanuele Trevisani - progettazione, archit

Emanuele Trevisani — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:24:25 MDT

Design studio :architecture, design, industrial design, graphic design, 3D modelling, renderings, web, art direction.

Correcting the colour display of imported AutoCAD

Jamie Cardoso — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:39:16 MDT

Take a look at how to quickly fix the current "bottleneck" of 3Ds Max NOT being able to retain the drawings'(DWG) original colours, when added into a new Layer, using the “Manage Layers” Toolbar...

END USER EVENT 2013

Jeff Mottle — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:05:22 MDT

End User Event 2013 has just announced the starting speaker line up. If you have never been to this event, you're missing one of the best events of the year.

Maxwell Render - Spanish HDRI render competition!

Jeff Mottle — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:29:50 MDT

You've been challenged to create a render, 'estilo español' (Spanish style), using hi-res backplates or high dynamic range (HDR) domes straight from Valencia, Spain! Choose from 4 Valencia location sets (each consisting of one backplate and a matching HDR dome) provided by our friends at MAGROUND, create your 'Spanish' scene, and then render it with Maxwell Render.

Cinema 4D petition

Peter Hoste / bmd — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 04:47:41 MDT

Since R13 the renderbatch feature was replaced with the (more powerful) renderqueue but this renderqueue doesn't give you a realtime 1 on 1 full size preview and doesn't show the multi passes because it isn't connected to the pictureviewer.
This visible renderprogress is very important for ArchiViz work and is now missing in C4D

Please sign this petition if you feel Maxon needs to reconsider this, Thanks!

CINEWARE by MAXON

Jeff Mottle — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:48:42 MDT

With MAXON CINEWARE in the new After Effects your compositing workflow will be catapulted into a new dimension. Import native CINEMA 4D scenes as assets in After Effects and utilize CINEMA 4D’s powerful multi-pass workflow as layers to achieve your vision.

50 % Off the price of All Products - Extended!

stewart mcsherry — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:06:11 MDT

Our week-long Sale has been so successful that we have decided to extend to you 50 % Off on all 3D Plant Models, 2D Plant Cutouts(TIF w/alpha) and all 3D Software products(Xfrog for Maya, Xfrog for C4D, Xfrog Standalone, Xfrog Tune, AND Terragen 2) thru the entire month of April. We have seen many non-studio purchases in this past week's sale period, and realize many of you may enjoy a little more time to decide if the offer of a half-off discount is right for you. Please try us before you buy - we invite you to examine any of our 100+ free samples in 10 different 3D formats, available from each 3D plant library and the 2D collection. Click the link to begin.

Free Floor Texture Package from Viz-People

Andrzej Gasior — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:59:40 MDT

Viz-People release free 6 high resolution floor textures. Every map come with additional bump and reflection maps for creating various effect!

Half-Off: Spring Sale ends 9 PM MONDAY

stewart mcsherry — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:46:43 MDT

CG Architect Readers: We Invite you to Purchase at Half-Off all Xfrog Software (C4D, MAYA, Standalone) and Half-Off all 3,000 3D Plants and 3,000 2D plant billboard cutouts.

Quite a Bad news week for CG - Tippett(40% layoff), R&H(sold), MILL TV(closing), Superfad(closed).

Freelancers and small shops, i hope our sale may be helpful in some way to your future.

stewart mcsherry
product manager
xfrog inc
www.xfrog.com

sales1@xfrog.com

Autodesk Debuts 2014 Entertainment Creation Suite

Jeff Mottle — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:30:00 MDT

SAN FRANCISCO, March 26, 2013 -- Autodesk announced the new features of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite 2014 today. The versatile workflow includes award-winning 3D animation, visual effects and creative tools, Autodesk Maya 2014, Autodesk 3ds Max 2014, Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, Autodesk Mudbox 2014, Autodesk Softimage 2014 and Autodesk Sketchbook Designer 2014, all which have been updated to offer new workflow enhancements that help artists collaborate, manage complexity and move data through their pipeline more efficiently.

"Modern production teams must manage multiple complex, visually demanding projects at any given time, and Autodesk works closely with world renowned entertainment studios to develop the most powerful solutions," said Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president, Media & Entertainment at Autodesk. "The Entertainment Creation Suites provide a unified and flexible workflow, offering teams of all sizes the ability to better manage across a globally distributed creative workforce. Each product in the toolset saves valuable production time, while giving artists more creative freedom to work with the best tool for the job at hand."

Flexible Toolset Scales to Project Needs
With three configurations, the Suites scale to meet the demands of any sized team, budget or project. The Standard edition includes industry-recognized 3D software and offers a choice of either Autodesk Maya 2014 or Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 with Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, Autodesk Mudbox 2014 and Autodesk Sketchbook Designer 2014.

The Premium edition offers all the software of the Standard Suite, but with the addition of Autodesk Softimage 2014 3D animation and visual effects software.

With the Ultimate Suite, customers have access to the value of the Premium edition, with the added benefit of including both Maya 2014 and 3ds Max 2014.

"Our objective is to create videogames that ... push the envelope in matters of emotion," said Guillaume de Fondaumière, co-CEO, Quantic Dreams.

Hundreds of Autodesk customers harness the power of the Suites to create thrilling entertainment projects. Quantic Dream, a 180-person Paris-based game studio, took advantage of the Suites to create their next video game, BEYOND: Two Souls. Channeling the power of the Suites, the Quantic Dream team created true-to-life characters to breathe life into their upcoming psychological action thriller.

The title stars Academy Award nominee Ellen Page (Inception, Juno) as Jodie, a young woman whose link to an unseen entity gives her supernatural powers. She is supported by another Oscar nominee in Willem Dafoe (Platoon, Spider-Man) who plays Nathan Dawkins, a government scientist who works with Jodie to analyze her powers. In BEYOND, gamers will play through fifteen years of Jodie's story, experiencing the most striking moments of her life. Like its predecessor Heavy Rain, BEYOND will allow players to shape the course of the story through their decisions and actions taken in the game.

With Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, all the characters of BEYOND: Two Souls come to life with realistic textures, emotions and reactions. Gamers will instantly recognize the critically acclaimed actors as their emotions bridge the virtual world to enter every gamer's living room.

Upgrades Deliver Powerful Creative Enhancements
Every tool in the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites offers new ways for artists to efficiently bring more life-like and realistic behaviors to their creations.

Autodesk Maya 2014 Puts Creativity Back at the Artists' Fingertips
Autodesk Maya 2014 helps artists and developers create content to meet the increasing expectations of modern audiences. The 2014 update includes an expanded, integrated modeling feature set; intuitive Grease Pencil; and innovative new Paint Effects features that are designed to improve productivity and enhance creativity. The Maya DX11Shader, working with enhancements to Viewport 2.0, enables artists to work in a high-quality real-time environment that closely matches final output. New Scene Assembly, a File Path Editor, and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) support tools allows for easier building and managing of large and complex worlds.

Autodesk 3ds Max Extends Artist Creative Capabilities
Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 offers new solutions to answer today's modern 3D challenges. The new Populate feature saves artists time and allows them to quickly and easily generate moving or idle crowds with life-like human reactions and activity. Additional updates include: a significantly enhanced and more efficient Particle Flow toolset; and a performance-enhanced viewport that now supports Microsoft DirectX 11 shaders. Perspective Match and Vector Map tools allow artists to extend their creative capabilities by crossing the 2D/3D divide.

Autodesk Softimage 2014 Easily Integrates into Existing Pipelines
The new Camera Sequencer toolset offers the ability to cut between multiple cameras to edit clips, leaving the original animation data unchanged; directorial control over scenes; improved CrowdFX and ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) features enable artists to use the concept of passes and partitions in any combination with any aspect of ICE; and an improved High-Quality Viewport delivers a higher fidelity interactive experience. Autodesk Softimage 2014 now offers easier integration into existing pipelines through improved support for animation data exchange via the Autodesk FBX 2014 format.

Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014 Helps Studios Refine Motion Capture
With Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, studios can more efficiently manipulate and refine motion capture and other character animation data for use in onset visualization, previsualization, virtual cinematography, feature film production and game development. Linux operating system support is now available, as well as new motion capture workflow options; artist-friendly methods for positioning, measuring and selecting objects; the ability to use custom viewport renderers; and an API (Application Programming Interface) for file referencing.

Autodesk Mudbox 2014 Allows for Easier Iteration, Creative Freedom
The latest update to Autodesk Mudbox offers single-click automatic and manual options to manipulate meshes or to precisely control various aspects of the output mesh with a user-directed solution. Artists can now concentrate purely on aesthetic considerations as they sculpt, without altering the underlying structure. Enhanced multi-touch workflows now include support for stencils and additional touch-enabled input devices.

Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2014 Offers Maximum Creative Choice
Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2014 is an intuitive hybrid paint and vector toolset that enables exploration and presentation of new ideas for characters, props and environments. Additional benefits include: sketching, painting and image compositing workflows; easy color manipulation; mixed media workflows and an industry-unique transformation tool. The dynamic, scalable user interface is optimized for both pen and mouse interaction and is designed to offer maximum creative freedom.

Availability
Product availability varies by country. Details and license purchasing options are available at http://www.autodesk.com/purchaseoptions .

For the full product details, visit the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite product page.

Visit the Autodesk Unfold Virtual Launch Event

Jeff Mottle — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:38:32 MDT

See our new Autodesk M&E 2014 3D animation software in action. Browse our new interactive site and get face time with our product managers who will be answering your questions on 3ds Max 2014, Maya 2014, Softimage 2014, MotionBuilder 2014 and Mudbox 2014. Learn about Gameware products Scaleform, Scaleform for Mobile Platforms, Beast, Navigation, HumanIK and more.

Business Cut Out People From Viz-People

Andrzej Gasior — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:21:48 MDT

Viz People Business v4 is latest, most sophisticated 2d People product. Delivers 546 digital high resolution images of Business people. This collection brings many new features like, Bird View, Groups of People, Sunlight and Ambient Light lightening condition.

Short Sale 50 % OFF All Plants and Software

stewart mcsherry — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:08:41 MDT

Spring has Sprung Amigos y Amigas!!!

Until Friday enjoy our Spring Sale --- 50 Percent Off our entire store of film-quality plants and software - ALL Plant Bundles, Libraries, and even Individual Species, and ALL Organic 3D Procedural Modeling Xfrog Plugins and Xfrog Standalone Software visit www.xfrog.com or click thru this page

Modeling & Rendering iPad Apps for Architects

Anthony Frausto Robledo AIA — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:38:22 MDT

As part of our Ultimate iPad Guide: Modeling & Rendering Apps for Architects covers what is available and interesting within this challenging category of mobile development. The rest of the series covers everything Architects might want to have on their iPad.

architosh™ — the leading Internet magazine dedicated to Mac & iOS CAD and 3D professionals and students worldwide.

LumenRT 4 Studio Now Available

Matt Riveccie — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:58:43 MDT

LumenRT is a complete system for transforming 3D models and designs into rich, nature-filled videos, images and real-time immersive media.

New features include:
- Bentley MicroStation Integration
- Revit Plug-in
- Generic 3D File Import (incl. Vue scenes!)
- Large Scale Scenery Handling
- Animation Editor
- IES Point and Spot Lights
- Night-time Skies
- Moving Vehicles
- Enhanced and Expanded Plant Library
And a lot more...

Watch the all new presentation videos, learn more about the new features and download the free trial at www.lumenrt.com

Inspiration - Wood Vol. 2

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:50:00 MDT

Bradley DeWald

NOTOS

3dVis Design

Federico Ciavarella - SAE

Elnur Hajialiyev

CGRendering.com

Galyna Lebezun - Ginko Visuals

Jeremy Jaramillo - Notio image

Claudiu Buzilan

mimesis .

NVIDIA Unveils Industry's First Visual Computing Appliance

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:00:00 MDT

SAN JOSE, Calif.--GTC 2013--March 19, 2013--NVIDIA today introduced the industry's first visual computing appliance - enabling businesses to deliver ultra-fast GPU performance to any Windows, Linux or Mac client on their network.

The NVIDIA GRID(TM) Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) is a powerful GPU-based system that runs complex applications such as those from Adobe Systems Incorporated, Autodesk and Dassault Systèmes, and sends their graphics output over the network to be displayed on a client computer. This remote GPU acceleration gives users the same rich graphics experience they would get from an expensive, dedicated PC under their desk.

NVIDIA GRID VCA provides enormous flexibility to small and medium-size businesses with limited IT infrastructures. Their employees can, through the simple click of an icon, create a virtual machine called a workspace. These workspaces - which are, effectively, dedicated, high-performance GPU-based systems - can be added, deleted or reallocated as needed.

"NVIDIA GRID VCA is the first product to provide businesses with convenient, on-demand visual computing," said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. "Design firms, film studios and other businesses can now give their creative teams access to graphics-intensive applications with uncompromised performance, flexibility and simplicity."

NVIDIA GRID VCA is an easy-to-install, easy-to-manage 4U appliance. Its 16 NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA GRID VGX software provide NVIDIA® Quadro®-class graphics performance for up to 16 concurrent users, with low latency, high resolution and maximum interactivity for unparalleled quality of service.

Industry Support for NVIDIA GRID VCA
"We've had enormous success using remote GPU acceleration on our content-creation applications," said James Fox, chief executive officer at Dawnrunner, a San Francisco-based film production company. "Thanks to NVIDIA GRID VCA, we don't spend weeks configuring workstations and transcoding files and projects. Instead, we have more time to deliver a higher quality product for our customers. And we can take on new projects with tighter deadlines."

"Performance is important for creative professionals, and our long-standing relationship with NVIDIA has assured they are able to work with images and videos in a much faster, smoother, more engaging way," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. "NVIDIA and Adobe have a shared goal of providing our customers with the latest technology advancements with flexible deployment options so they can focus on their jobs and have more time to be creative. The innovative advancements in virtualization introduced today with the NVIDIA GRID is an exciting new direction that underscores that commitment."

"NVIDIA GRID VCA enhances the design experience for SolidWorks users from any PC or Mac," said Bertrand Sicot, chief executive officer, SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes. "With centralized access to fast GPUs, designers can more quickly and easily deliver high-quality 3D models."

"NVIDIA GRID VCA will provide tremendous functionality and performance for our small business customers," said Carl Bass, president and chief executive officer, Autodesk. "It delivers easy, high performance GPU access to our applications for the highest quality design and visualization experience."

Pricing and Availability
Available in the United States in May from authorized value-added resellers, NVIDIA GRID VCA is offered in 8 GPU or 16 GPU configurations, with pricing starting at $24,900, plus an annual software license of $2,400. More information is available at www.nvidia.com/vca.

About NVIDIA GRID
The NVIDIA GRID portfolio - comprised of hardware, software and appliances - delivers GPU acceleration from data centers to any user. It includes NVIDIA GRID enterprise solutions; the NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) for small and medium-size businesses; and the NVIDIA GRID Cloud Gaming Platform for gaming-as-a-service companies.

3D Home Gadgets from Viz-People

Andrzej Gasior — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:00:25 MDT

Viz-People released 3D Home Gadgets. This Collection contains 80 High Quality 3d models for interior spaces. Features:
- Moody retro electronics
- Contemporary electronic devices
- Small mobile electronics
- Bags and cases
- Shoes
- Fruits and sweets
- Drinks and bottles
- Cosmetics and perfumes
- Caskets and trunks
- Sculptures
- Flower bouquets
- Books rows
- Newspapers
- Toys

The Making Of House La Invernada

Jeff Mottle — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:44:00 MDT

Hi my name is Evan Mandala. I am one of the founders of 2G Studio and 2G Academy. First i want to say thanks to Jeff Mottle and CGarchitect for giving me this opportunity to create the "making of" house la invernada.

It's really been a while since I made my own personal project as I've been so busy. When I found time I visited archdaily to brainstorm ideas and I saw the house la Invernada by Philipe Montequ and I decided to use it as reference.

For modeling of the building I used SketchUp and camera match to get the proper size of the building.

Creating the building was not hard, but the most time consuming part was the wooden planking on the walls and the wooden deck. I created the wooden deck from scratch using SketchUp, but for the wooden planks on the wall I use floor generator. All of the plants are 3d models: the trees using archmodels, the grass using i-cube igrass, the dead leaves were created manually. Below you can see the clay render.

Ok, lets talk about the wooden planks on the wall first. The wooden planks were created using floor generator from cg-source.com. This script really helps to save a lot of time. Its free, and very easy to use but can be a bit tricky. Since the name is floor generator, it won't be able to create vertical planks. So what you need to do is to rest the pattern on the ground and generate using the floor generator. Once it generated, select the object, rotate it, and put it on the wall. You can see the process here:

There are two ways to apply the texture for this kind of object. First we can use multitexture from cg-source.com (again, its free) and second we can use multi/sub-object. The weakness of using multitexture is on the thickness part of the planks. As a result I decided to use multi/sub-object for a better result.

First I create the multi/sub-object in the material editor slot and create one wood texture using arroway wood texture.

I put a reflection map in the reflection slot and used Fresnel. I put a bump bitmap also. For me, Fresnel is the best way to create reflection because Fresnel is physically correct. And the reflection will change based on the angle. After the wooden material is done, I copied it to another slot and make five 5 different materials.

You can see I used color correct to change the color of the diffuse bitmap. I then assign the material to the planks. Make sure you assign a material by element modifier.

The wooden deck was also created the same way and I also used multi/sub-object material.

The rest of the material is a simple V-Ray material.

The next step is to distribute the trees. I use Archmodels trees and convert then to Vray proxies. I divided the trees into two categories: background trees and foreground trees. The background trees are all Vray proxies. The foreground trees are 3d models as I wanted to see the displacement of the bark on the foreground trees. Remember, keep everything close to your camera with as much detail as you can.

I then placed some bushes to make sure we do not see the horizon.

With the trees complete I worked on the grass. I didn't want to only use the grass material for the entire ground surface as I wanted to make it look more detailed. I used a mix material and a black and white bitmap.

I continued to distributed the grass using multiscatter and using the 3d model from i-cube i grass.

Now lets continue to the rendering part. I used Linear Workflow gamma 2.2 to make sure I get as photorealistic as I can. Here are the settings:

Here are my preset setting, which are nothing special really.

Next I set the Vray physical camera and the lighting. For the camera setting I used an f-number of 8, shutter speed 15, and ISO 100. For the lighting I used cgskies HDRI. You can download it at www.cgskies.com. You can download the 3000 pixel sample and do some tests before you buy. I choose cgskies because cgskies HDRI is 12000 pixel. We don't need to use any backplates to do the post production since the bitmap is already big enough. Also cgskies hdri have less noise. Less noise means faster render times. I put the HDRI into vraylight dome and connected the vraylight dome to the vray sun. When I rotate the dome the vray sun also will follow. You can see the settings below:

Below you can see where I put the vray sun.

I wanted the vray sun to hit directly on the building and to go through the tree leaves.

Here is the raw render result.

It's not that good actually, but no worries, I saved it as an EXR so I would have the freedom to do the post production.

Here is my post production process:

1. I open the EXR and convert it to 16 bit.

2. I duplicate the rendered image using screen mode and delete any overly bright parts using a mask.

3. I duplicated the rendered image again and used softlight mode. I then deleted some parts that were too dark using a mask.

4. I added hue/saturation and color balance to adjust the color

5. I used Magic Bullet to add diffusion

6. I used Nik Color correct to get the dynamic contrast and deleted the parts i didn't like.

7. I didn't like the green color of the grass so I decide to make it less saturated.

8. After that I added a chromatic abbe ration effect using Magic Bullet.

9. The last step is putting the 2G Studio logo on it :p

Well guys, that all, nothing magical right? Actually the workflow is very simple and almost the same as other artist workflows. And it looks very easy, right ? Easy if you think it's easy and hard if you think it's hard.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to offer some advice. The key to making a good visualization is actually not in the preset setting and not only in the lighting. All components are integrated with one another. The render preset must be supporting and must be set to optimum settings, not the maximum settings. To use somebody's preset setting is easy, but understanding the preset settings is not that easy. It needs a deeper understanding.

Using HDRI and connecting it with a vray sun its not the answer for good lighting. The key is how to balance the lighting. Putting lots of tree, stones, grass is not the answer, but putting the detail in the right places and knowing how to create the details. Adding grass on the entire ground plane is easy, but you cannot use multiscatter just like that. You need to use a bitmap to define where you need to add grass and where you don't need to add the grass.

To get best material is easy, you can find them everywhere, but to create an optimum material setting is not that easy. If you use the best material setting using very high subdiv, you will need lots of time to render. All of descriptions above are the reason my partner and I partnered to create the 2gacademy. We decided to explain it step by step and give you a deeper understanding. I will explain and give a deeper understanding. Such as why I use vraylight dome subdiv 24. Why I decided using max subdiv 8 for the DMC sampler. Why I decided to use -4 -2 as the prepass in irradiance map and many more.

Hopefully you all enjoying this article and bring lots of benefit for you all.

3D Awards Call for Submissions Coming Soon

Jeff Mottle — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:37:00 MDT

CGarchitect.com is hosting the 10th annual Architectural 3D Awards. The winners will be awarded at the exclusive awards trophy in partnership with the 2013 Mundos Digitales Conference in La Coruna, Spain and be given prizes by our generous sponsors. The competition will be open to everyone in the Architectural Visualization industry to highlight the best imagery, films and real-time/technology projects done in 2012/2013.

The call for entries will open the first week of April 2013 and run until mid May 2013.

This year's awards are divided into seven categories:

- Image (Commissioned)
- Image (Non-Commissioned)
- Film/Animation (Commissioned)
- Film/Animation (Non-Commissioned)
- Real-Time/Emerging Technology
- Student Category (Film)
- Student Category (Image)

From the submitted entries a panel of expert judges will select the top five nominees in each category.

Brand New Site Design

This year we’re launching a brand new 3d awards website layout leveraging responsive design rich in award winning graphics.

Three New Categories

This year we've added two new categories and evolved one of our existing categories. We now have a new Student Category for both architectural film and images. We've also expanded our Real-Time category to include emerging technology implementations in architecture. This includes everything from augmented reality, custom applications and hardware to present/display architecture, mobile applications etc.

Limited Sponsorships Still Available

If you are interested in sponsoring the most visible and prestigious awards competition in architectural visualization, please get in touch with Jeff Mottle at jmottle@cgarchitect.com. We have a few sponsorships left, but they won't last long!

LightWave 3D Group Unveils Architectural Design BundleLightWave 3D Group Unveils Architectural Design Bundle

Jeff Mottle — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:23:00 MDT

LightWave 3D Group Unveils Architectural Design Bundle

Offers everything designers need for3D visualization with industry-leading modeling, rendering and animation tools

Burbank, CA – March 13, 2013 – The LightWave 3D^® Group, a division of NewTek, Inc., announced today a new Architectural Design Bundle that couples LightWave 11.5 3D modeling, animation and rendering software with WTools3D’s LWCAD 4.5 CAD tools for LightWave. The bundle includes a powerful set of features that architects, set designers and interior designers can use to cost-effectively create professional 3D visualization and animation for the most demanding design projects.

“LightWave and LWCAD have always had a strong presence in the architectural community,” says Viktor Velicko, creator of LWCAD. “By collaborating with the LightWave 3D Group to put together this new Architectural Design Bundle, architects and designers now have all the tools they need to create professional 3D visualizations and walkthroughs that are impressive and affordable.”

Some of the many features in LightWave 11.5 for architectural visualization and animation include:

Real World Measurement Capabilities: Utilizes real-world measurement units with numeric conversion via a mini-calculator and support for metric and imperial values.

Multiple Lighting Solutions: Offers image-based lighting and Skytracer for physically-based day and night lighting scenarios. The Sun Spot Modifier provides accurate sun positioning based on latitude, longitude and time zone. Time lapse settings allow for easy day and night cycles, and photometric illumination using standard Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) files.

Interactive Modeling Tools: Introduces new tools such as UV Unwrap, Edit Edges, Place Mesh, Slice, Thicken and Heat Shrink to complement the already robust 3D modeling toolset.

Instancing Features: Duplicate object masses with little memory overhead while taking advantage of new features like object control for scale, stretch, offset and rotate. Instancing can also be used to randomly scale, position, rotate and surface objects differently from the source object.

Advanced Rendering Options: LightWave’s production renderer is the same renderer used to create highly realistic visualizations for television and film, supporting up to 999 render nodes in one LightWave license. Interactively view global illumination and work in progress in a viewport window with Viewport Preview Renderer (VPR), which supports depth-of-field (DOF), motion blur and anaglyph stereo as well as instancing and volumetric systems in the interactive render window. And the rendering for print capability sets the camera frame to the correct dimensions for print, taking into account DPI and bleed.

LightWave 11.5 also offers interactive flythrough and walkthrough technology with plug-and-play support for the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator device. Additional features include After Effects Interchange tools, a Shadow Catcher for compositing objects in a scene, Linear Color workflow for control over color profiles, support for multiple file formats, dongle-free licensing with free technical support, and more.

About LWCAD 4.5

LWCAD is a complete set of standard CAD tools for LightWave created specifically for architectural design and visualization. Some of the many new features in version 4.5 include:

Powerful CAD Tools: Extend the LightWave Modeler with CAD specific 2D drawing capabilities such as primitives, lines, curves, and arcs; 3D CAD tools include trim, knife, extend, blend, offset, fillet and many others.

OSNAP Engine: Construct precise models using Snap types such as point, center, intersection, tangent, perpendicular, ruler, projection, angle, grid and more.

Real-Time Booleans: Cut, slice and edit models with real-time Boolean options that are available in many of the software’s tools.

ViewPort Interactivity: Speed productivity and access LWCAD’s onscreen controls directly in the viewport.

LWCAD 4.5 also includes a Universal Coordinate System (UCS), Shape Tools to manage instances and conversions to polygons, interactive wall grids, furniture tools and shapes for fast interior modeling, architectural presets for interior and exterior elements, and much more.

Pricing and Availability

The LightWave 11.5 and LWCAD 4.5 Architectural Design Bundle is now available and priced at $1545 (USD). Customers who purchase this bundle will download LightWave 11.5 directly from the LightWave website and receive a coupon code to download LWCAD 4.5 directly from the WTools3D website. All software and support for LWCAD 4.5 is provided directly by WTools3D.

Registered LightWave customers can upgrade to the LightWave 11.5 and LWCAD 4.5 Architectural Design Bundle for $745 (USD). The offer is not available for educational licenses of LightWave 11.5 software.

For more information about the LightWave 11.5 and LWCAD 4.5 Architectural Design Bundle visit www.lightwave3d.com/lightwave_lwcad_promo.

Download and try a free 30-day full-feature version of LightWave 11.5 at www.lightwave3d.com/try.

To locate an authorized LightWave reseller or for more information about LightWave visit www.lightwave3d.com.

About LightWave
LightWave 3D combines a state-of-the-art renderer with powerful and intuitive modeling and animation tools. LightWave includes hundreds of cross-platform render nodes for near limitless rendering, support for Windows and Mac UB 64 and 32-bit operating systems, free technical support and more. LightWave is enjoyed worldwide as a complete 3D production solution for feature film and television visual effects, broadcast design, print graphics, architectural visualization, game development, and more. LightWave is responsible for more artists winning Emmy® Awards than any other 3D application.

LightWave has been used in the creation of CG and visual effects for leading feature films and television shows, including “James Bond: Skyfall,” “The Hunger Games,” The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Adventures of Tintin,” “Avatar,” “The Walking Dead,” “Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome,” “Fringe,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” and many more.

For more information about LightWave or the LightWave 3D Group, please visit: www.lightwave3d.com, Twitter, YouTube or connect with us on Facebook.

About NewTek

NewTek is transforming the way people create network-style television content and share it with the world. From sporting events, Web-based talk shows, live entertainment, classrooms, and corporate communications—to virtually any venue where people want to capture and publish live video, we give our customers the power to grow their audiences, brands and businesses, faster than ever before.

NewTek is privately owned and based in San Antonio, Texas. For more information on NewTek please visit: www.newtek.com, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or connect with us on Facebook.

● LightWave 3D is a registered trademark of NewTek.

● NewTek, TriCaster, 3Play and LightWave are trademarks of NewTek.

● All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

3D Render Party Competition Winners Announced

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:42:00 MDT

Season 6 of the 3D Render Party architectural rendering competition recently wrapped up and CGarchitect is proud to exclusively announce the winners.

The competition started December 2012 with competitors asked to render a scene using a bridge model provided by Arya Siek. The goal of the competition was to create a 3d environment and a unique mood for the bridge structure. Competitors were also asked to submit as many work in progress images as possible througout the competition to solicit comments and critiques from the community.

The judges of the competition were: Arya Siek, Andre Akatsuki and Reinaldo Handaya

Below are the finalist and winning imagery. Congratulations to everyone who competed in the challenge and to Juan Gayarre Calvo the winner of season 6!

Winners

1st Place - Juan Gayarre Calvo

2nd Place - Rio Febrian

3rd Place - Juan C

FINALISTS

Triadi Tyaswanto

Yudhistira Pasa

Glenn Lombogia

Nanang Subagio

Ghaisan Ghauts

Rio Febrian

Rico arch

Rhapael Languin

Fabrizio Granata

Geraldy Ars

Karwan Muhamad

Benkq Benks

Jose Miguel Mendez

Yory Khori

Dian Firmana

Juan Gayarre Calvo

Santi Sanchez

Metheus Passos

Juan C

Adi R Indra G

OctaneRender for ArchiCAD released

Sam Lapere — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:21:39 MDT

OTOY New Zealand has just released an astonishingly useful integrated plug-in of OctaneRender (the fastest unbiased GPU renderer) for ArchiCAD, so users can enjoy the speed and quality of OctaneRender inside ArchiCAD. Surprisingly, the price for the plug-in is only 99 euros (or 279 euros for a combo pack of the plug-in with Octane standalone). An extensive overview video is at the link.

WIN Pickup3D vol.1 collection

Jacek Krupa — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 05:53:09 MDT

WIN Pickup3D vol.1 collection
For more information go to Pickup3D facebook fan page
shere contest image and win:
3x Pickup3D vol.1 collection
3x selected scene from Pickup3D vol.1 collection
3x 3 selected models from fireplace section

Inspiration - Nights

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:00:00 MST

matthew bannister - dbox

Antonio Grajales - AG/VIZ

Chris John - Be Creative

Tomek Miksa - DOWNTOWN

JAVIER CARO - JavierCaro Infografia & arquitectura

Eduardo Silva

BAHADIR OZBEK - Nookta Architekturvisualisierungen

leqso tsiskarishvili

Kim Hyunho

The Making Of Snow Museum

Jeff Mottle — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:00:00 MST

Aldo Garcia breaks down his scene: The Making Of Snow Museum.

Hi everyone. First of all I want to thank Jeff for the opportunity to share this "Making Of" for CGarchitect, it's cool for me share this "Making Of". I will try to be clear and above all explain in detail my work process. I did this project two years ago and back then I applied the HDRI differently than I do today, but at the end I think the result is good. The render was inspired by a Michel Rojkind project. The idea was to create an easy and beautiful 3d model that allowed me to test the lighting. The most important goal was to create contrast between the snow and the red of the museum.

An important point to note is that the scene is full 3d. In my opinion there are two kinds of "CG Art", some people make full 3d scenes, and other use compositing in Photoshop. I thinks it's like comparing a watercolor with an oil painting, both are different canvases and techniques, but I do not want to be a bore, lets rock.

References

Unfortunately I don't have the plans, so I download images from Google. Here are the images:

Modeling

OK, the way to model a project without plans is using the "scale tool", so with the help of the car in the image and a CAD program we can take measurements and make an approximate model.

The first step was to create a box with the Standard Primitives and convert to Edit Poly, then deform the model. For the red structure just use Edit Poly, but for the white edge use the modifier Lattice.

The second step was to model the environment. The rocks were created with the rock_generator script. Perhaps I don't know how to use it, but I don't like the script because the rocks are very heavy even in proxy mode.

Bags were Standard primitive boxes with Edit Poly + mesh smooth + FFD 4x4x4 modifier:

Final Model:

And finally the snow: The snow was created with the snowflow plugin. This was the first time that I used it for optimizing the calculating time. I made the snow calculate by parts and at the end, merge all the snow's geometry.

Final Model + Snow

Lighting

I used a Vraylight Dome for the environment with an HDRI, and for the moon I used a Vraylight Sphere. To achieve a good moonlight I used Vrayfog.

The green volume (Fog mesh) is a deformed spline, and its volume was used to be the fog. This way we can achieve a good lock for the moonlight.

Light and Camera Parameters

Materials

For the materials I only used VRaymtl. The textures are from CGtextures and everything else was made in Photoshop. Here some examples:

This is the material for the columns

This is the material for the front road

Final Render and Post Production.

Final Raw Render

Here are some post production tests

Well that is all! I hope this "Making Of" will be of help, greetings.

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umolab - Free bed model - 75% commision

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pickup3d free models collection vol.1

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Apr 9, 2013 4:21pm | Facebook

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END USER EVENT 2013

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Cinema 4D petition

CINEWARE by MAXON

50 % Off the price of All Products - Extended!

Free Floor Texture Package from Viz-People

Half-Off: Spring Sale ends 9 PM MONDAY

Autodesk Debuts 2014 Entertainment Creation Suite

Visit the Autodesk Unfold Virtual Launch Event

Business Cut Out People From Viz-People

Short Sale 50 % OFF All Plants and Software

Modeling & Rendering iPad Apps for Architects

LumenRT 4 Studio Now Available

Inspiration - Wood Vol. 2

NVIDIA Unveils Industry's First Visual Computing Appliance

3D Home Gadgets from Viz-People

The Making Of House La Invernada

3D Awards Call for Submissions Coming Soon

Brand New Site Design

Three New Categories

Limited Sponsorships Still Available

LightWave 3D Group Unveils Architectural Design BundleLightWave 3D Group Unveils Architectural Design Bundle

3D Render Party Competition Winners Announced

Winners1st Place - Juan Gayarre Calvo

2nd Place - Rio Febrian

3rd Place - Juan C

FINALISTS

Triadi Tyaswanto

Yudhistira Pasa

Glenn Lombogia

Nanang Subagio

Ghaisan Ghauts

Rio Febrian

Rico arch

Rhapael Languin

Fabrizio Granata

Geraldy Ars

Karwan Muhamad

10th Annual Awards with Over $96,000 in Prizes
DEADLINE MAY 24, 2013 (12pm MDT / GMT-6)

Winners

1st Place - Juan Gayarre Calvo