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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Real Time Visualization Software and Revit

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Luke had a post recently about Lumion so i figured I would respond with my own post instead of simply in his comments...

I have been testing out Lumion, Stadia3D, Artlantis, and Twinmotion for the last month or so and they all have their pros and cons in my opinion.  Lumion and Twinmotion take a bit of work to get a Revit model into.  Once the model is in the programs it takes even more work converting their materials to the software.  **Disclaimer** I have not been able to try the absolute latest Lumion exporter for Revit **

Artlantis is a tad bit easier with a direct plug-in exporter from Revit.  It carries the materials through so you can just select the Revit material and update it to the software's materials.

Stadia3D is by far the easiest connection with Revit.  What ever you see when you render in Revit is practically what you see in Stadia. It requires a tiny add-in to be installed and the rest is done in the cloud.  The quality of your video card is the only limit with the quality of the renderings...

I plan on using a variety of the aforementioned software's this upcoming semester and hopefully return to you all with some more in-depth analysis and results.

Have any of you had experiences with these pieces of software?  Am I missing one or two other?  Comment below!


Posted by at Wednesday, January 25, 2012

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Kieren Porter's avatar - Go to profile

Kieren Porter · 687 weeks ago

Jeff, I too have been playing with all of them since the start of the year (save Artlantis - which I'm off to download now) and after a few teething problems getting Twinmotion to actually import ANYTHING (my hardware, not their software) and have been running around in it today - with Revit materials from our models, with no issue - although the materials in Twinmotion are far nicer than any of those we've used in Revit, and swapping them globally is pretty easy with the breakdowns by-category (at least in my opinion) Lumion feels a lot nicer, but I worry it's simple GUI might be limiting later on (and the .fbx from Revit without a plugin came through sans texture) and Stadia3D is wonderfully simple - and I had a really good chat with Robert from EarlyBird about it. But it is worth noting Stadia3D is based on Unity - so I'm playing with that now.
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aissajez's avatar

aissajez · 681 weeks ago

I'm a student and I was doing exactly the same, well I prefer artlantis but I'm facing problems with materials, sometimes when you change a material in artlantis, that material may be connected to some other materials even if It wasn't the same in revit, for example I change the toposurface material to grass, I've noticed that the glass panels took that material as well a bit tedious because i didn't know how to brick this connection and make those material independant...
Finally, I'm intrested in Autodesk Showcase, what do you think, and/or exporting to 3ds max (fbx) and rendering with V-ray (RT) 2.0
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Truls's avatar - Go to profile

Truls · 672 weeks ago

Hey Revit Kid!

Lumion is almost made for Revit. Here is the LIVE proof: http://youtu.be/pYHVVtdeCas

Revit to Collada (.dae) Exporter is updated and the only way to get your Revit files into Collada without 3DS MAX.

So should try it again, it is easier than any other architectural visualization software to import your model, build up a scene with the huge content of foliage and models faster.

watch the video and do the same with your revit model.

The only thing that is difficult regarding Lumion, is finding another archviz software that does scene creation and renderings faster and in the same high quality.

Cheers :)
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Edward Peinke's avatar

Edward Peinke · 669 weeks ago

Lumion is by far the best!
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Chester's avatar - Go to profile

Chester · 668 weeks ago

For speed and ease of use nothing comes close to Stadia. I can export part of the building that I am modeling, and have it rendered in the could for me while I continue working. Now that is automation! It is a simple tool, that you don't need to be a visualization guy to use.
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Chester's avatar - Go to profile

Chester · 668 weeks ago

I also wanted to mention that Autodesk has made it near impossible to get the materials to come into other gaming engines like Unity, etc. when exporting as an fbx. There is no easy way to reassign materials either. I tried using 3ds Max as a go between, but when I tried to bake the lighting it would fail. Quick and easy works for me.
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RevitAddict's avatar - Go to profile

RevitAddict · 664 weeks ago

I would like to hear any updates on this thread. I am trying to reccomend one of these to test with my firm and would like to know witch is the best for everyone! Engineers, Architects, Designers alike. I am leaning toward Lumion.

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