Rendering an architectural scene

G3L

Hey everyone, was wondering if I could get some advice, helpful tips or anything in my current situation.

I'm creating a prototype for an environment my friend wants me to do for him to present to a group of people. He doesn't mind if it's as realistic as possible or not, since this is being presented in 3D and that alone is already going to hit big with the presentation.

Problem is I want it to look pretty damn awesome, as awesome as I can make it in the time alloted. Blame the artist in me!

I'm having trouble deciding where to render this out in. My choices are Mental Ray, UDK and maybe even CryEngine.

Thing with CE is the SDK just came out, it looks amazing, but I would need to brush up on it and right now I don't have too much time. So it might really come down to UDK or Mental Ray.

The latest UDK renders I've seen are amazing and would go great for this project!

I think my question really boils down to, if you were building something that isn't for a game, it's really just presentation and rendering, or to be more specific, architectural visualization, what would you choose to render it out in?

This would apply to any jobs/projects that concern anything with architecture, laying out the foundation for a new building in 3D, etc.; those type of jobs. With game engines really coming up in their render quality, it's a question I seem to have been wondering about the past few weeks. Plus if you hadn't seen this article from UDK...

http://www.udk.com/showcase-takenaka

Thanks!

iamtravis316

It just depends on which one you know better. I would personally use mental ray because since its not going into a game there's no real reason to use a game engine. Also I think you could probably get better results in mental ray (if you already know how to use it). When I did Arch-viz I used VRay but that can kinda get pricey and there's a lot to learn.

So I would recommend Mental Ray unless you feel confident that you can get better results with UDK, that's my opinion.

-Travis

G3L

Cool thanks!! Was hoping more people could give some insight into it but that is a good point you make though. It's true I could get better results but it might take me a bit longer seeing as how it's been like 2 or 3 years since I last rendered in mental ray

Yeah I do wish I had V-Ray but I don't have it plus it's something I would need to learn first. At least with Mental Ray I've got some experience with it already!

RezNik

Is this a real time presentation? If not then why are you trying to use a gaming engine?
If your looking for the highest possible quality... Mental Ray.
Also, how long is this sprint?

AnimeAngel

If its not for a real-time application I would just stick with mental ray

Snight

More and more architectural firms are leaning towards real time game engines instead of using pre-rendered solutions these days. My wife is an interior designer and we've often discussed this. Lighting and post process have gotten so realistic in game engines such as UDK and Crysis that it's becoming more common to be used to give clients the ability to walk through the space you are helping them envision. So I wouldn't count out game engines as a solution.

G3L

Hey Snight! It's me Gabe :P

Not just because Snight is a friend of mine, but that was kind of the reason I posted up the article in the first post, because I've been noticing that it's possible to do this type of work now in game engines.

At this point, I'm going to use Mental Ray for my friend's presentation since it was kind of last minute.

I will definitely consider UDK or CryEngine for something like architectural visualization. It would bring in a new dynamic, where, as Snight mentioned, you could walk through the space and really helps bring that vision even closer than before. Plus there's a couple of other advantages to creating in a game engine..

My only question would be how to approach it in a game engine? With Mental Ray, I can subdivide my meshes to build them out with as many polys as I want, do some crazy material stuff, etc, the drawback being rendering times.

But if putting it together in a game engine, would you still follow the rules of having a low poly, having normals baked from high to low, etc, as you would when in game production? I can't foresee placing my 10,000 poly lamp instanced 10 or so times in a game engine and still having to put in other objects in the space. O_O

Snight

Oh hey Gabe, didn't know that was you. Yeah, that would be the drawback. Considering it's still in real time you would have to restrict yourself to certain budgets. I'm assuming you won't be demoing this on the console, so you could probably push it pretty far. I'd say it's really what your PC can handle.