josephus

Per earlier threads I posted, I’m thinking about some changes in my workflow in the near future. We do residential architecture and include exterior renderings as well as interior animations (just started that). We do most of our modeling in Archicad, and after reading the replies to those threads, this is the principal workflow I’m considering: Archicad> MAX or C4D. I’m not familiar with some of the render plug-ins that it seems most are using…I don’t know what comes w/either MAX or C4D in the box. MAX appears to be (or has been) the de-facto industry standard program for this with lots of plug-ins available, as well as that most of the “for sale” 3D models I’ve seen have been in MAX file format. I’m aware of the significant cost difference between the two programs and have read here in the forum that some considered C4D to be easier to learn. I have the feeling (perhaps wrongly) that MAX produces a slightly higher quality image. Anyway, here are some issues…wonder if any of you who use either or both might just mention really briefly your thoughts on these. Frankly I’m leaning towards C4D, but don’t want to come to the place in two years that I wish that I’d gone with MAX instead, for whatever reason (btw I’m not much of an Autodesk fan…prefer a smaller company) Your comments would be REALLY helpful. Thank you in advance.

Learning curve
Render quality
Render speed
Ease of animation setup
Ease of use with render farms
Ease of lighting setup (GI?)
Plug-in for Archicad and Archicad>MAX or Archicad>C4D workflow?
Tech support?
Other features I should be concerned about, particularly for an arch viz workflow??

AJLynn

I don't use Archicad but I hear good things about Archicad to C4D. They sell a plugin for it for an extra $95, there's a page describing it under the products section at Maxon.net. The C4D Engineering Bundle is also intriguing, but it doesn't come with Advanced Render.

The best things about Max are Autocad compatibility and Vray availability. The Autocad compatibility doesn't sound very important to you, and you can get very good results with Cinema's Advanced Render or FinalRender, and there is a Cinema to Vray plugin in the works anyway. What I like most about Cinema are the intuitive interface, the way it organizes objects and the variety of things you can get the materials and render engine to do. Animation interface is easy to use and powerul, and you can keyframe basically any setting down to the details of the camera, render parameters and all the material settings.

What I don't like about Cinema is that I find it more difficult to get a very realistic render than with Vray, and the GI can be very slow unless you're using FinalRender. It comes with some great extra shaders that aren't compatible with FinalRender and also make the render slow, so I stick with the standard shaders or FinalRender shader tree setup.

STRAT

i'm personally more used to Max as a modeller. and Max's abilities for spline work, especially from CAD imports, leaves C4D standing still. this is VERY important imo.

but then, i love C4D's material/texturing/rendering facilities. i find (as long as you know how) the GI rendering very fast and realistic straight from the box. and very easy to set up and use. MUCH easier than max. thats why i changed from Max to Cinema. i cant wait for vray for C4D to be released, only because it's another render option. as it stands, i'm quite happily getting vray quality rendering in C4D.

but download the demos and try them out for yourself. one is not better than the next, just different. it's all down to how it suits you and your working methods.

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Wokka

I've been using ArchiCad for about 10 years now (pretty excited by Version 10) and the workflow to C4D is great. Switching back to modelling changes from ArchiCad is pretty seemless as long as you take care of you materials properly in ArchiCad (which is necessary for good documentation anyway). I find it much easier to build the main model in ArchiCad due to it's great library of available parts and literally export straight from my elevation layer combination. All the components for 'real' images are best left for C4D (furniture, trees etc).
The one problem, as mentioned earlier, is the rendering. You certainly need advanced render for any decent results and the GI is pretty slow (especially for any large images) and awkward compared to third party render's that are available. I suppose it depends on the level of realism your after, as the scanline can be OK in some cases. The good news is Final Render S2, Maxwell and VRay (in the pipeline), are all available as plugins. I haven't made my choose yet, I was about to jump to Maxwell, then FR2, then Maxwell, then FR2 till I heard about Vray being ported soonish, so I'll have to make a decision soon.
Good luck in your decision, maybe see if the ArchiCad>Max combination can be updated from the original model. I can't tell you the number of times in the old days (V7) I set up the model perfectly in ArchiCad, exported it as a 3ds file, assigned materials etc and then the %*$#^% Architect (sometimes me) decides to change a window layout. Nowadays (with the ArchiCad export plugin) I just update the ArchiCad model, export as a native C4D file and it updates the model in C4D. All the textures are retained. This way the ArchiCad/documents are updated AND it's almost instantaneously updates the C4D model to be re-rendered.
Cheers

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Wokka
C4D R10.5 - VRayforC4D 1.087
ArchiCad R11

josephus

We just switched to Archicad from Autocad the first of this year. Felt like it was time to switch from a 2D>3D workflow to a 3D>2D flow. Although I've used 2D Acad for years, I was always quite hateful of the Softdesk attempt at 3D, and its migration to ADT has not changed that. After a nightmare learning curve I feel that Archicad has been a very good choice for us.

Seems like if/when the Vray plug-in becomes available for C4D, that there would be very few "cons" left to consider for C4D. I can't find any "announcements" regarding Vray for C4D, can you give me any more info regarding this?

Thank you very much for your help.

josephus

I've not seen any press releases concerning this, are there some links you could point me to?

I'll do that...working on a big animation project at the moment, although I'm not such a software wizz that I can do much with these demos, but I supose that I could get the feel for its interface anyway. I agree that one is not "better" than another, I've seen some great things done in ADT, even its predessor Softdesk, a program I hated. I just did not like ADT at all, maybe because we were already using FormZ which is such a great modeler, but lacks modeling parametrics which are a huge time saver, and it also lacks a high end render.

Reading others' experiences with these two begins to give me a pretty good picture of what to expect with each. So far C4D is starting to seem like the better choice for me....would like to know more about the Vray connection though. Thank you very much for your time.

Wokka

Try this, it was posted as a news item a week or so ago but I was on holidays and missed the original.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/newsfeed.asp?nid=3173

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Wokka
C4D R10.5 - VRayforC4D 1.087
ArchiCad R11

josephus

Thx for your helpful post, looks like Archicad with C4D is going to be the best combo for me. I do have Maxwell and have seen some awesome renders with it, just stunning, and have plans to use it when needing a very high quality interior still, but will need a much faster render with GI for both exterior still views (may use Maxwell for these as well), but mostly for interior animations...so needs to be really good and FAST.

I've been hearing good things about Final Render so I'll need to look at that closer. Any "official" press releases regarding the Vray plugin for C4D?

Thx again. These posts are VERY helpful to me.

josephus

Now that was a FAST reply , it was already there before I posted my reply to your post. So maybe the end of the year....sounds really good...it's going to take a few months to get the hang of C4D anyway.

Thank you!