Hi Michael,
I was looking through some of the other posts. I'm assuming you have the fbx writing materials and object names like the obj?

I'm working with a program that doesnt read object names and is looking at materials. It's handeling fbx better than obj, but isnt reading the styles assigned from your fbx export.

Can you discuss a little if and how you are writing the styles/material assigments in fbx so i can bring it into their discussion forum?

Thanks.

Hi Burr, no currently only geometry is written to FBX format, not object names and not materials.

Only OBJ and LWO formats export the full set of stuff from MoI currently. I do have it on my list to add more stuff like names and materials support to some other formats but it's not really near the top of the list right now.

Usually OBJ format is the main one used for mesh transfer, other than with Autodesk products. OBJ format is not really all that complex... What thing in particular does the program have difficult with for OBJ format? Does not not handle n-gons very well or is it something else?

- Michael

I'm evaluating Lumion right now. It definitely doesnt like ngons. It is not handeling the scale properly. I've seen a couple others mention it. I may just go with asking them about bringing in the objs, because you already have that pretty well rounded. They "DO" point to autodesk alot, because of max and revit and such..... I may consider Maya and Vray too because they have impressive output. But the cost :o and also not sure about the curve. Also, that impressive output may be from highly skilled users! :o

Lumion seems like the best alternative for me, but I will need a new computer too.. They dont like my quadro card. I'm bouncing around looking right now.

Thanks.

Hi Burr, if it doesn't like n-gons then you can solve that by exporting from MoI using "Output: Quads & Triangles" instead of "Output: N-gons". You won't really be losing out on that much - n-gons tend to be more useful when you're bringing them into a polygon modeling system where you may be doing some more stuff like applying UV mapping and things like that, if you're bringing your data into more of a pure rendering program that doesn't really do polygon modeling at all then there isn't really much downside to using "Quads & Triangles" output instead of n-gons output.

So it shouldn't really be a particularly big deal if you can't use n-gons.

re: Scale - if it likes to have objects at a particular scale you can put in a scale factor in MoI under Options > Import/Export > OBJ options > "Scale factor". If Lumion for example expects to have coordinates at some size 100 times larger than what you usually model at, then just put in Obj options > "Scale factor" = 100 and MoI will then apply that scale factor at export time.

So I would think either of those particular problems should be not be difficult to solve.

- Michael

"""""""""re: Scale - if it likes to have objects at a particular scale you can put in a scale factor in MoI under Options > Import/Export > OBJ options > "Scale factor". """"""""""""

Bam!!! Booyah..... POW! I missed that option.

This also handled a materials issue I was having with it! (I was fearing I would have to learn texturing and UV mapping and all that)

I think Maya is out now.

Thanks again for your attention.

Burr

No problem Burr, I'm glad that looks like it could work for you!

If you decide to go with it, it would be cool to hear some of the particular things you liked the most - I'm not very familiar with Luxion myself so I'd be interested to know a bit more about it.

- Michael

Oh actually I forgot last night that Luxion is the company name and the software is KeyShot! It should be a great solution for something particularly easy and quick to use for product type shots.

Maya is like 100 times more complicated, really mostly more for movie FX animation stuff.

- Michael

Keyshot version 4 is due to be released on valentine's day ... If you purchase before then you will get a free upgrade to v4. I love Keyshot, it's fast and easy, but its materials editor is somewhat restrictive, not seen the v4 one but v3 is definitely a pain at times. Also KS supports step files and it works perfectly with what MoI exports out ... Named objects come in as named layers and the style setting comes in as the name given plus rgb colour code. KS does offer animation sets, and if you go the whole hog you will be spending close to the same cost as Maya but just for a render engine ... But oh boy it's a good render engine.

I use Keyshot, so you can hunt through my posts to see the quality of the renders, you may not like my style of rendering, but if you can see past that, you'll see the render engines accuracy, also all the posts i have done here and in the gallery have all been done with the live render engine and are just screenshots and not the full blown renderer

If you don't need animation then you will be close to the expense of Maxwell render.

Hope that helps ...

Martin Spencer-Ford

@Burr
Lumion is the more easy and funny Prog that I have seen!
Absoluty crazy and a "game boy" UI !
Ocean, snow, wind, clouds, terrain creator as like Zbrush, pets, personnages, vegetations, still renderings, animations etc...astonished
You win a factor 7 for architectural Projects rendering against other progs !!!

The only problem is the price! Hoppefuly a free version exists for Hobbyst ;)

""""""""""Oh actually I forgot last night that Luxion """""""""""

Yeah, Luxion is Keyshot. I have an older version of keyshot and simlab uses a luxion render engine.

The software i was refering to is "Lumion" and is more aimed at architectural visualization.

They have taken a different approach as it's more like a "game engine" that can pump out higher quality. Very fast and easy setups, animating and good quality animated objects.

Not a full blown animation package with power in materials and textures and finite controls.

What becomes appealing for me with this are the "realtime presentation" abilities it will provide.

I'll let you know if/when i get it and show you some stuff with it. I have a job pending that I will use it for.

"""""The only problem is the price! Hoppefuly a free version exists for Hobbyst """"""""""

Hey Frenchy,
Yeah, you turned me on to Lumion. Yes, the price is not cheap, but I will try to punch the price into a job I'm doing, and then I'll have it.

They DO have a free version, not for commercial use. It adds a watermark, and also is limiting in the amount of materials you can apply, and so forth. It's good enough to evaluate it, which is what I'm working right now, to be sure I can do what i want. The "other" downside for me, is it likes "gaming cards" like the new GTX cards. My current system is quadro based. I'll need to punch out a new Game rig to use it well also, which adds 3-4 K, but i have a few other apps that like those also and it seems to be more the "wave" with alot of stuff.

Hi Burr,

> The software i was refering to is "Lumion" and is more aimed at architectural visualization.

Oops, I got my wires crossed there with Luxion/Lumion . I am not familiar with Lumion at all so it would be cool to hear how it works for you if you do end up digging into it.

- Michael

Dont forget Luxology, Lux Render, and Goldy Lux! :o

What about Artlantis Studio if you're into architectural rendering http://www.artlantis.com/index.php?page=products/studio/index

Hello Dr.Burr
if you are interested in real-time visualization,especially in stills, here is a new tip:
RandomControl,house of ARION and FRYRENDER(no more released) will release a LIVE plug-in for Rhino 5 !!!
what means this:inside Rhino you can have a realtime preview with one of best unbiased renderers quality
set UV's,materials,lights and everything else in Rhino than convert or apply Arion materials,so you can launch the render,or better..a real-time digital photo..
Arion use all cpu's+gpu's(nvidia)at same time or,if you want,you can choose which device use to render(if gpu or cpu)
If you buy Lumion base =1500 $ approx. that is same price buying both Rhino+Arion live
mantain your"old" quadro for navigation and UI display, and add a new one like a Gygabite geforce 660 ti 3Gb videomemory for computation(Arion ask you which graphic card you want to use)
so...1500+300( geforce 660)=1800$ approx

this new could be useful also for all Rhino users here

cool hat that one in the gallery !

M

FYI: I believe that Octane is also developing a real-time plugin as well.

Octane It's now also a "stand alone" ;) 199 € or 265 $

The new version is just released!
Import of Wavefront OBJ format with parameters and material import
Import supplied vertex normals or calculate them via supplied smooth groups

http://render.otoy.com/features.php