Arch viz and game engines.

melviso

Hello guys,I must say I have learnt a lot from you guys here about realtime and I have come to love and appreciate the art.
I will be doing my thesis very soon and I am thinking of doing my architectural visualization using unreal engine 4 or cryengine.I am thinking of going for UE4 but I do have a problem with the 5% royalty thingy.Since we are paying monthly subscription,why should we still be paying royalties though I admit the percentage is small.

I wanted to ask about the market when it comes to using game engines to sell architectural designs or to make presentations to clients.Is this profitable?are there clients who are interested in this type of technology?I also feel if I do this,I also could work in games as well.
I feel game engines are the future for arch viz as the graphical capabilities are getting better and better though pre rendered seems to be the preferred approach.
Another thing I have come to appreciate about game engines is the absence of clicking a render button and waiting to see results and the endless tweaking of materials and the waiting...for the rendered part..I will just stop there.

Any advice or opinion will be greatly appreciated

electricsauce

With game engines you also have support for the rift.

You can get custom licensing quotes from Unreal to reduce or eliminate the royalty, bu I would expect the initial investment amounts to increase substantially.

peanut™

melviso wrote: »

I feel game engines are the future for arch viz as the graphical capabilities are getting better and better though pre rendered seems to be the preferred approach.

I once thought of something similar, so much so that i keep a nervous eye over the matter.

stevston89

Really?! 5% isn't that much. I would definitely talk with people over at Epic to find out how that applies to your specific situation, but 5% is really nothing. It was much higher with previous versions of unreal. Also you can cancel you subscription at any time and retain your licences you just don't get updates.

Nox

Another thing I have come to appreciate about game engines is the absence of clicking a render button and waiting to see results

Really? How about lightmass?

Look at this image rendered in Redshift:



GTX 470: 155 seconds
GTX 670: 123 seconds
GTX Titan: 77 seconds

Also, modern render engines allow you to see progressive rendering result while you work on materials.

Could anyone suggest how much time it would take to bake lightmass for such scene?

melviso

i don't know how long it will take with lightmass.With Redshift,its is quite clear it will work wonders with high end graphic cards which most ppl find too pricey besides it goes for 500 dollars compared with unreal engine which is $19.Also I think UE4 supports global illumination and indirect lighting in real time,so u can decide not to use lightmass.I haven't tried it out yet.

Also,once u use lightmass,your scene is set and u can create your cinematics or make changes for as many times as you want. Redshift probably will take more time especially for long animations because it has to render each frame.Some of us do not want to bother with renderfarms.
Besides, the interactive aspect of it is what I feel visualization should be all about. Practicality about space and dimensions.I do agree some of the renderers are faster.I have never heard of redshift soo..

melviso

Hermit wrote: »

If 5% royalties sounds like too much for you, think about this for a second.
How many lives would you need to create the exact same engine?
Do you still think 5% royalties is too much?

I did admit it is small but most ppl would prefer to pay for something without being bothered about this and that they need to pay after purchase.I truly appreciate the subscription pay and the availability of the source code.

Can we talk about arch viz and game engines?

Shrike

Well presenting a fully interactive (walking) environment to a client can be a very impressive thing, especially if they are used to only getting images. I guess with U4 nothing holds you back trying it out. I think CE3 is not as good however, as they use
realtime GI which is surely amazing for games, but nothing beats the visual power of offline GI (with higher samples/res than games usually use at best)

In unity you can do cheaty workflows where you import baked lightmaps from your offline renderer, which is also a cool thing to do, leaving you with a full realtime
environment that looks offline.

Keep in mind that unreal and unity baking needs lightmaps, which are a messy and
not justifiable thing to do in my opinion, especially if you come from an offline environment where that is done automatically in superior results. In unity, you can generate lightmaps easily if wanted, but problems with mirroring occur etc.
You will get lightmap errors often, and spend a lot of time doing lightmaps im sure.
(CE3 realtime GI shines here however)

Something like redshift is basically another engine again. You gotta export all your stuff again, do new shaders etc. Doing your renders in your proprietairy 3D app has a bunch of upsides, and visual quality is superior obviously. Things like keyshot or redshift and whatnot offer an easier material and render setup at faster render times, at the cost of exporting and learning (and owning) those I suppose.

Oh, and it also depends on your experience with offline renderers. if you are a vray/renderman/arnold etc beginner, then engines can be a nice thing, but if you spend a lot of time learning one of those, I dunno if its worth. If you are at a level where you know your shit in and out, then I would definitely move on to the next thing > game engines.

melviso

Thanks Shrike. From what I am gathered so far,t here isn't any room for game engines in arch viz companies at the moment. It seems clients are more interested in realistic renders presently especially for marketing purposes.

It appears when game engines get to the point where it has photorealistic capabilities,it might be considered.


Does anyone know if u cancel ur monthly subscription with Cryengine.Will you continue to use the version you have or u can no longer use the engine compared to UE4?