Re: Download Physical Sky Plugin Cinema 4d
Evaristo Nicholls
I have been working on some rendering in Vectorworks with some volumetric lights with gobos. And the renders seemed to be taking an extra long time. So I downloaded the Cinema 4D trial to see how that would affect it, it went faster to a point, and the volumetrics looked a bit nicer, but not a huge difference. So my question is this, what are all of the benefits to using Cinema 4D to render instead of Renderworks? I know they use the same render engine, but I wanted to see if there were any additional settings that would make a big difference to use Cinema instead?
Yes - it is technically the same render engine, but if you put a Ferrari engine into a Volkswagon, you are still sitting in a VW. If you just run vanilla Cinema, your workflow has improved, but when you start to add some plug ins and render engines, things go to apples and oranges very quickly. Look at Poliigon.com for example - with their plugin, you can add any of their materials to a scene with three clicks with all maps in the right place.
I use VW as a modeler and to generate sheets and elevations from - but I do all the materials, lighting, camera work and rendering in Cinema. If you look at my website - everything there is build this way. Happy to answer more specific questions.
@EAlexander Those are some very good points! I mostly am doing entertainment design, and my background is Blender and Maya. So I was thinking Cinema might also match the workflow I'm used to a bit better, and integrate that with Vectorworks for creating plans and the 3d then rendering and texturing in Cinema. Your work looks awesome as well, definitely what I would want to shoot for in quality.
If you already have experience with Blender and Maya, I think you'll find Cinema very easy to pick up. The workflow with Vectorworks isn't perfect, but it is pretty great. Let me know how else I can help.
I think my initial post comes across as a bit harsh on VW - I love VW and I use it every day. I think VW and Cinema together are a great combination. VW frustrates me and I stay about a year behind development for stability - but all software frustrates me to some degree. Renderworks has improved a lot and I do open GL and realistic white interior renders of a lot of our work for clients. I appreciate the work that goes into it.
Two different programs with two different objectives IMHO. I think it's great that VW has a rendering portion to it, so we can do greyscale and openGL renderings, and make our drafting look good. Some users might be happy with the best Renderworks has to offer as well. Cinema and its cousins/brothers out there in the rendering world are used to make movies, motion graphics, product shots. It is a heavy hitter in the rendering world and will get you better renders every time compared to VW. I would even argue that even if you knew nothing about the myriad of options available to you once you send to c4d, just having team render set up in your office or the ability to outsource a batch of renderings to a 3rd party rendering service so you can keep working will speed up your workflow.
That said, I would not/could not draft a show and present draftings to a shop for building by just using C4D. So the reverse is also true. Technically you could draft plates in C4D, there are plug ins for dimensioning and what not, but it is not meant to do that.
@EAlexander and @grant_PD I'm looking into requesting Cinema 4D after all of your great suggestions. Would rendering time decrease with the default Physical Render engine in C4D? Or are there options I can lower specific things to decrease the rendering time? (I feel like when using renderworks, I can lower settings but it greatly compromises quality, there is no in between)
Moving to a third party render engine will save you tons of render time right out of the gate. All the third party render engines for cinema use their own materials, cameras and lighting systems. A lot of them CAN render native materials and lights, but not as well or efficiently as using that engines native systems. I know Corona and Redshift have automated conversions for materials - these still need some tweaking, but it gets you close to where you want to be automagically.
Since I switched to Cinema for my workflow - I don't do any cameras, materials or lighting within VW - but that is just me. Others might have other workflows. See what Grant says and also talk to @Wesley Burrows who does a VW to Cinema with Corona workflow similar to mine. I know Grant is trying out Corona as well.
I wouldn't mind switching over to a different render engine. I am used to a PBR workflow, and I think that does a really good job of selling realism. Would spotlight instruments work in these other render engines do you know? I'll have to try some out probably.
You'll have to try them out. Some will work if you just add a Tag from that engine, others would require you to replace the whole light. Focus on the engine that speaks to you most in overall workflow once you try a few out. Corona was not what I was looking for, but it spoke to me right out of the gate with ease of use, integration with Cinema and the way that it handles light (the best, in my eyes). Redshift and Octane have given me great stuff as well.
@EAlexander I have a few more questions for you that I have been thinking of. I decided to push Vectorworks as much as I could to get the most out of it and understand the limits. The extremely frustrating things are handling any type of mesh imported in, it goes so slow. And then the cameras are one of the most frustrating things I have ever worked with. And the lighting of the Physical render used in Vectorworks really doesn't look realistic. And the lack of PBR materials is really hard to get something believable as well. So I am looking into switching again to C4D and either Corona or Redshift.
1. How do you handle creating the hardware for the lights in your sets? I notice that you have the 3d geo there for them, do you create them in C4D or Vectorworks and then do you just add in a custom corona light and glow texture for the lens and rotate the light hardware to make it look like it is producing the light?
2. How would Redshift compare in reliability and look compared to Corona? I work on large venues, usually recreating an entire ballroom with trim and details, and then all of the chairs and lighting. Is this something that would be too much for Redshift to handle and be better suited for Corona?
1. I put the lights into the vectorworks as much as possible - especially on sets or concerts where the lights are exposed and essentially part of the scenery. I want them in my sections and ground plans. Most of the major lighting companies have 3d models of there products online in CAD form - though they tend to be pretty simplified. For electrics that are overhead or far away, these will work just fine 90% of the time. I have a collection of hi poly 3D lights for Cinema that are a combination of purchased lights and ones I've built (mostly in Cinema). So if I need something close to camera or to be the hero of a shot - I'll use those. Since the units coming in from Vectorworks are Symbols - I can just replace the master symbol and the whole plot will update for me. My lights are built as nested children - something like this: Base>Yoke>Head>Lens. So If I rotate the yoke, for example - the head and lens move as expected. I'll put a luminous material on the lens so I get a glow from the head and with Bloom and Glare in Corona (or Redshift) - I can get a nice flare out of it if I want. See below for info on getting volumetric beams.
2. Redshift and Corona are great engines and you can't really go wrong with either one. I prefer Corona for it's ease of use - Redshift has lots and lots of controls and lets you dial in the samples and clarity of each and every component - and while that's great - I want it to be simple. Corona has the least amount of sliders and functions of any engine I've used and thats it's superpower - you get great results simple and easy. Corona, however, doesn't handle Volumetrics well - so that is why I added Redshift. I have a complicated workflow where I'll render in Corona and then copy the whole file and switch to Redshift to render volumetrics. I put a black texture on everything and add Redshift lights to the lens of the lighting and dial in the beams and render - then I comp it all together in Photoshop. If you did it all in Redshift - you could simplify the process.
Redshift seems to do okay with larger scenes. Corona is pretty bulletproof. I just prefer Corona - it's so easy and well integrated and it handles light really well. I feel like I know what to expect from the engine, so my work is not experimenting with the render engine - its just experimenting with lighting looks.
Keep in mind - Corona is a CPU render engine and Redshift is a GPU render engine (specifically - only on Nvidia CUDA based cards) - so what hardware you have matters here. When I started with Corona, I was on Mac and had no choice. Now I am on Windows and have a machine with 2 graphics cards, so I can use either engine. Outside of hardware - it really just comes down to personal preference. But I would say the learning curve on Corona is about 1/3 of that of Redshift to get good looking stuff.
@EAlexander Thanks for that feedback! So will you add in the Corona lights to the light symbol in C4D? And then when you rotate the hardware of the light, the connected light rotates as well? Or do you just position the corona light where you want then move the hardware to match?
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