Interactive 3D Architecture Vizualization

[Repenseks]

Hello all,
for sometime I am trying to find the way to make my 3D arch models (which i made in 3DS max 10, vray) interactive, so user can interactively walk around, interior and exterior.

I have seen Quest3D can do it, but looks like is very difficult, after you import 3DSmax models into Quest3D, you have to almost start from the beginning not being able to import texture and lights, all in all interface is way to difficult...

Another interesting one is Unreal Development Kit but not sure can you make a program for user, or they have to have a game engine.

Is there some easy way to make architecture models interactive, and good quality preview?

Regards
Srdjan

[Neilg]

There are a lot of ways to do it, unity/quest being the best standalone options - UE3 being a good balance and cryengine looking the best and being the easiest to set up.

Easy is pretty subjective though, some I found harder than others and none I tried really looked good enough after my limited experience.

Not tried UE3 yet though, going to play with that soon.

[Repenseks]

Hello cubiclegangster,

thanks for the post.

Yeah, it is subjective about difficulty, I guess I am used to 3DS Max, Vray, Photoshop with standard tools. Quest3D is structured differently, and I am frustrated that I can not easily able to keep materials and mesh from max. I have got a fealing that once you are in Quest you have to almost redo whole scene from almost scratch.Maybe I am expecting too much, too fast, import into program, assign opening of the doors, end make 3d movie out of it in one go... I hope that there is somebody who tried and using regularly, can give me an idea.

[glorybound]

interactive

I Googles and found this

http://www.eonreality.com/raptor/

[Neilg]

Maybe I am expecting too much, too fast, import into program, assign opening of the doors, end make 3d movie out of it in one go... .

I think this may be true - I found this out the hard way. I still want to figure out a good solution though. It's just getting the time to scratch away at it.

One solution which on paper looks perfect (but is limited in how clients can view it) is using a plugin like flatiron (going to be very helpful for realtime work anyway) to bake full vray lighting into a model for UE3. Then running it on a custom setup which you have control over, instead of giving them a file.

I cant see giving the client a file to run ever working consistently well, unless requested - most will be running integrated graphics and some may not even know what a 3d card is.

[dbuchhofer]

Theres nothing really that you cant do with quest/unity/virtools/<insert package here>, its all about the effort required to get to a certain level of quality, and the publishing.

As a 6-7 year user of virtools, I'd lean towards unity, because of its great publishing and its large helpful community.

prepping for realtime work requires a little extra knowledge/effort to get the most out of it, you want to format your meshes/materials differently if you wish to get the best out of the realtime engines, and really it means keeping your models a lot cleaner than we're used to now, somewhat along the lines of what was needed 6-7years ago for rendering.

now that we're in the land of unlimited ram and proxy objects, its progressively harder to just 'convert' a scene to realtime without a fair amount of work~

(Not that it can't be done, but it takes time, [or scripting ] ! )

A few unity examples I've set up:
Link removed ~6mb, AO baked into 4 1024 lightmaps (So its noisy as hell currently), should be playable on most computers.. Realtime Glow, selectable AA settings

Link removed ~7mb, fairly slow on older systems, no baking, just ingame lighting. Realtime AO, Glow, Water.. no model cleanup from the original, thrown together as a quick test.

When you start looking into more complex stuff like realtime reflections, it can start to get a bit complex however.

[dbuchhofer]

I cant see giving the client a file to run ever working consistently well, unless requested - most will be running integrated graphics and some may not even know what a 3d card is.

Thats a large part of the problem currently! and squeezing the most performance out of a model is where the tricky part comes! making it look nice isn't necessarily hard usually! making it look sexy on high end systems, and still play, and degrade gracefully on older systems is a pain in the arse~

[Repenseks]

Hello glorybound,
Sounds as a ideal solution, max plugin, I still have to check, thanks for the link

Hello cubiclegangster,
you are right unless they ask for it, it might be pretty useless to give technology to some who would not appretiate

Hello dbuchhofer,
basketball arena......impressive, very impressive, wow. I am speechless!
You really took my breath away...

Let me try to ask you about learning curve? can you preserve Vray materials and lights? is it baking?

Regards
Srdjan

[dbuchhofer]

Repenseks, This version is baking yes, though i had a previous version that looked about the same visually, but was using realtime AO instead of baked AO, I went with the baked in the end because it played faster on lower end systems and only added ~1.5mb to the final download size. even though its much much much more of a pain in the arse to set up.

Everything needed to be converted to standard materials, as the input format is an FBX, which didn't support the vraymats/lights

[glorybound]

360

I remember about 10 years ago Archvision had a plug-in that allowed you to create a 360 along a path. Basically it was a cross between a 360 render and a walk through. as you moved forward you can spin 360 degrees... really sweet!

[dbuchhofer]

you should check out this thing, its insane.. http://www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsb...ality.com/demo pretty much what you described except in a video camera!

[Repenseks]

Hello dbuchhofer,
definitely something to look at and that 360 movie in definitely incredible, I am sure it is the easyest thing to do, much easier than 3d


Hello glorybound,
360 along the path, that sounds nice. Initially, I was thinking to pickup few spots and to have them 360 preview in the flash. That is basically, what is happening in the Unity 3D, I am sure it is a bit automated there, at least you don't have to battle with the flash yourself.

Best regards
Srdjan

[Ron Martin]

Did you try Nova already? It's a plugin for 3dsmax as well as a standalone tool which provides a very easy workflow to convert a 3dsmax scene into an interactive realtime environment.

You can grab some examples and a trial version at www.vertice.fr

[percydaman]

I Googles and found this

http://www.eonreality.com/raptor/

I can only find a version for max9 and earlier.

[squeakybadger]

Nova looks interesting, but do you have to bump all the vray materials down to standard to get it to work?