What’s your thoughts on Autodesk Showcase for relatime 3D? or are things like Unity3D and CryEngine etc a better bet?
Dunno. Once I saw the form required to download a “demo” of the product and the fact they require you to install a 9MB?? download manager it’s not even worth trying.
This is true for all AD software tho and there is also the possibility to download without if i am not mistaken.
Showcase is a different thing than Game Engines. For example it also comes with a Full iterative GI renderer that you can switch to.
It has features your normal game engine does not (Clustering, Powerwall support, etc etc) and includes a very good tesselator (Aruba).
It is more intended (and suitable) for product viz , rather than Achitectural stuff or big environemnts. It lacks on the animation
end, but has some nice Variant management features etc.
All in all…as per usual…depends on the task.
Regards,
Thorsten
This is what I suspected. Excellent for product viz, but kinda limited of not useless for Archviz as the scenes with furniture, shopfronts, merchandise etc is just too huge for such a thing.
Is there any realtime engine out there that IS suitible for Architectural and large environments? (when I say arhviz, I dont mean just a bedroom or bathroom or 1 room building, I mean something like a detailed shopping mall or a detailed office complex.)
I’ve got no idea how complex these get. It is handling a few million polys nicely. I was rather thinking about workflows than raw power. If you go realtime you have to sacrifice i am afraid.
Regards,
Thorsten
can you use and navigate through your scene (or object 
) relatively simple on an old pc with the viewer, or do you need something super duper like a graphics workstation?
I worked with a vendor, for awhile, on Showcase. It works, but I found it a little clunky. The end user would need the showcase view to spin the model.
would that end user need a powerful computer like us, or any old thing will do?
(when you say clunky - you mean uncomfortable, or you mean it is jerky?)
Clunky.. it reminded me off lightscape. I don’t think I had any issues viewing the model on older PC’s.
how large scene could you navigate? (seeing as the things you post is usually houses - well mostly)?
I was going to use it for parts, like details, or kitchen cabinets. You should contact your MEP Autodesk vendor and have them hook you up.
details and cabinets? hmmm so sort of like product viz in a way. Instead of a whole archviz scene?