Twinmotion Realistic Render Settings

[Mahmod Ohner]

Twinmotionhas rapidly become one of the popular visualization software for architects and designers. Nevertheless, akin to any software, beginners often encounter Twinmotion rendering mistakes when initially venturing into the platform. This post is a comprehensive guide to the most common mistakes that new Twinmotion users make and how to avoid them, ensuring a more realistic render.

In summary, Twinmotion's appeal lies in its capability to deliver remarkable visualizations, making it a top choice for many professionals. However, the initial stages of learning can present challenges. By being aware of these Twinmotion rendering tips and adopting the provided solutions, users can ensure a smoother journey, unlocking the true potential of this powerful rendering tool. Whether you're just starting out or refining your skills, understanding these pitfalls is the first step to creating impeccable Twinmotion renders.

Hi Simon,

I appreciate your compiling and presenting this table! I have yet to take the plunge into rendering my models, and am interested in your evaluation of SU Podium. I see that some others responding in this thread disagree that Twinmotion has the high learning curve you assign.

Do you (or others here) have any more specifics comparing SU Podium to Twinmotion? If anyone has used both, what are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

In the absence of a detailed review by a respected body that has had sufficient experience of all render software, we are likely to get a limited overview since such software is quite pricey and very few people are going to want to invest the money or learning time in more than one package. So if I come across a fanboy of a particular one, I appreciate that it may just be that they like what they know.

Generally, I think traditional renderers need more tweaking with materials, lights and settings.

I have only used the version of Twinmotion that was free (worked with SU2018 or 2019, if I remember right). It was fairly easy to play with and it had fun atmospheric effects and the like:

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I have not personally used Podium. I understand that it is somewhat simpler to use than, for example, V-Ray.

I'm an interiors/interior architecture designer and have only had experience with Enscape. It's been great for quick mock renders for solid quality renders, but don't expect anything close to VRAY or 3DSMax. The speed and export possibilities are awesome. They have an okay asset library, though none of their assets are immediately editable. They've been expanding it though, and adding more vegetation, but unclear to what level of depth, variety, etc. you may need for your scenes. I do know Twinmotion has some interesting timelapse for vegetation growth, life stages of plants, etc. which Enscape doesn't have. Also, I've found Enscape to be relatively easy to learn and use too...

I'm finding myself seriously considering learning more about Twinmotion. The biggest reason is I'm starting to realize how maddening the Enscape lighting systems are. They have the different light types, but they all produce VERY similar results. Example: I have a rectangular light that is still casting an oval glow; the same happens with line lights, as if there is a single light source in the center of the Enscape generated plane/line. I'm getting into some more heavy lighting scenes requiring more realism and Enscape just doesn't seem to be anywhere close to par for generating a truly realistic lighting scheme. In order to acheive the effects that should be happening, you either have to overcompensate with luminous power of your light sources or fidget with the actual render settings (i.e. artificial brightness, exposure, etc.)

This has been something that's always sort of irked me, but until recently I've been working in more conceptual space proposals vs realistic spaces. But on top of that, Enscape is raising their licensing costs and haven't touched or improved their lighting systems or interface since I started using it over a year and a half ago.

This may seem like I ragged more on them for what I'm currently unhappy with than what I have been. It's been a godsend for my quick concepting projects, things that don't have to be super tight or accurate. But if you start to wander into realism, the shortfalls become glaringly clear in my opinion. This is not to say Twinmotion is any better, I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but definitely assess what your needs are for your work and workflow.

Unreal is beautiful and has some amazing features but it is definitely not for my work. You need to build shaders from scratch or rely on third party ones. Last time I tried their RTX integration for refraction was lousy and documentation is also all over the place, sometime it takes hours of work digging in forums to figure out how to solve a simple problem.

Forgot to say, the solution that seems to have the best quality is the D5Render. Haven't tested it a lot though. They seem to be able to reproduce better vegetation, specially far away, better lighting and glass. Also their soft shadows and detail lighting seems better. Unfortunately they don't have a luve sync with R

I found another post where users were trying to find better ways to generate more realistic grass, and further conversation brought me to Twinmotion to help me render elevations quickly.

Here is a link to what I learned and shared on setting up an environment with grade and trees that is ready to import your CA model...

Here is the link to both the background.tm and the Grade folder... (will need to be unzipped - see detail in above post for more details) =sharing

UPDATE: Updated background files and details at the end of this thread.

See steps in posts below to set up.

FYI, I have been overwriting the background as I have improved it - it now has grass added from Twinmotion.

I've been messing with this and imported a white house, and for the life of me, I cannot get the house model and exterior trees, etc details to match. Meaning, the house just looks translucent, and no mater what I try to reduce the translucence it in twinmotion I cannot get what I want. Maybe someone at some point will have some work arounds.

Ok, so this is my final background at this point. I think it will serve my purposes very well. It should give anyone wanting to produce a nicer rendering than CA and possibly charge a nice $400+ , could be a nice way to make a few extra bucks.

Here is the link to both the background.tm and the Grade folder... (will need to be unzipped - see detail in above post for more details)

=sharing

Dark siding house example without any changes to controls - just dropped in from CA with 3DS file - no grade

White siding house example without any changes to controls - just dropped in from CA with 3DS file - no grade

You still have access to many of Twinmotion tools to control lighting inside and out, add landscaping and material for your drive and sidewalk as needed.

You are getting this look because you are not using supportive maps in twinmotion, such as normal/roughness/displacement/metal maps. I would also suggest using generated grass as opposed to a grass texture

I saw the video working on the hillside, the building itself still lacks the secondary maps that would make it realistic. Also noticed you aren't using the pathtracer...I would suggest that you start to build out materials with supporting maps to save to your twinmotion library, and also consider using scene backdrops so you arent flooding the background with trees to hide the undeveloped terrain..this is the purpose of the scene backdrop.

This scene for instance only uses two trees, the background is a spherical HDRI

You can see it clearly with these two, two totally different HDRI's

Ah! That is making sense to me now. I'm assuming the maps can be applied to my materials, like siding?

And I will look more into the backdrops - at the moment I am using the sky images

I plan on messing with it more tomorrow. I would like to get the grass down too

I got more together and got some really nice grass put together. I feel like my environment is very nice and I can make it better from here.

Do you have a video where you show how to apply the secondary maps to the model?

Thank you,

FYI, I have been overwriting the background.zip as I have improved the file - it now has grass added from Twinmotion.

Here is the link to both the background.tm and the Grade folder... (will need to be unzipped - see detail below) =sharing

Yes, I did update my background files to include grass from TM. Now when I place a model I need to erase the grass I do not want.

You have a .zip file above with the old and that is fine also as it is another way of offering a nice settings. I have kept a copy of that myself.

I will add a video here to explain other things I am learning about TM and materials...

Might be best to remove those first posts and/or details. I'm currently working on a B&B siding in CA and I think it's doing a good job. I'm using one of their materials and modifying it. I have learned over the past few years just to make white siding as my default and then I can color it to what ever I like. I have most of my materials connected to my template materials so making changes if easy and uniform...

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