#bonzai3d

I got an email regarding troubleshooting emitter lights in SketchUp using Maxwell Render over the weekend, and I thought I'd post my answers here because it could be useful for you. Lots of people struggle with emitter lights when they're first starting out using Maxwell Render and think that the software just doesn't work when in fact you're probably just used to the brute-force techniques required by other rendering programs. I know this because that's what happened to me when I first tried using emitters in Maxwell. 

Here's the Q&A:

Dear Evan,

We are lighting specialists and I am starting to use the Maxwell plugin for Sketchup, for the 3D rendering for our clients. So my issues with the plugin are mostly regarding lightings.

So I played around with the plug in and what’s brothering me is I am not able to create a lighting point even though the material has been set to emitting surface.

Do you know what is there problem, it is frustrating…

Thanks in advance!

There are many variables that could lead to this, so my answer may not lead to a solution immediately. It's going to take some trial and error depending on where you are in your learning process/experience. I’ll do my best with the information you’ve provided. I had the same problems the first time I tried to make interior lighting, so you’re not alone. Here’s my take:

Maxwell is expecting real world values for everything including (1) emitter values, the (2) direction of the polygons that are emitting light, and (3) the exposure values for the camera. 

1. Make sure your light-emitting geometry is about the same size as the real world bulb. Some people make the geometry too small. It needs to match the real world properties of the bulb in terms of size so there is sufficient surface area for the light to flow out of. If the bulb you’re trying to emulate is a globe or curved glass, it’s best to simplify it. My advice would be to start with a simple rectangle and learn how everything works before trying to get it to work in a complicated scene. Once you understand the process, you’ll be off and running. 

I have a tutorial on emitters here (3 parts) that cover this in FormZ. Even though you are using SketchUp, the same methods and lessons apply, so check them out. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

2. Make sure the direction of the polygon normals are facing the direction you want the light to go (I covered this in the 3-part video series above). In SketchUp, select a face, right click it, and select the Reverse Face option from the contextual menu. If a face turns purple, it’s backwards. This is not what you want to see. Reverse it so you get light coming out of it, not going into it.

3. Camera exposure is key. If you have a bright environment, you’ll never see the light, just like in the real world. If you’re in a daylit environment, with a physical sky, it will drown out any emitter light. I have a tutorial about understanding exposure in Maxwell here.

I get asked all the time what 3d rendering program I use and why. I think it's an important question so I finally took some time to write about it.

Sometimes a visitor to this site is looking to try photo real rendering for the first time, maybe they are looking to take their skills to the next level, or maybe they are looking for a post-purchase justification... or any other number of reasons. So this article is coming from my particular point of view and what I've played with and have devoted time to learning. There are lots of other options out there depending on your budget, time available to learn, desired style of renderings produced, skill set and more. If you ask me if I've used 'X' program that's not part of this discussion, the answer is probably no.

Here's where I'm coming from: I do architectural work. I do my own design. I also work in small, medium and large teams on small, medium and large architectural projects. I mainly use FormZ, SketchUp and Revit for modeling so the rendering program has to have tight integration with all three. You may not do the exact same thing as me, but I'm sure there's some overlap if you're visiting my site or else you wouldn't be reading this article.

I hope this write-up is useful for you. Tell me in the comments what you use and why. It's good to share!

Which rendering program is the best one for me?

I’ve narrowed it down to the two I talk about most here and try to keep it limited to those so I don’t have to think about it. The two, as you’ve probably been able to tell if you've visited here over the past few years, are Maxwell Render and Artlantis. They both have different strengths so it’s not too hard for me to choose. It really just depends on what I want out of the job. Make no mistake - I really like them both.

A quick history 

I’ve used many other rendering programs in the past including Vray (too many settings), Renderzone (formZ & bonzai3d only, outdated), Electric Image (which I used the crap out of in the past because it was ungodly-fast, but outdated now), Cinema4d’s built-in renderer (obviously c4d only), and Podium (SketchUp only). They were all interesting and good at rendering. The reason why I don't use any of these any more is because they are either application-specific, or haven’t kept up with modern graphics processors (GPU’s) which make scene setups so much faster. Or, quite possibly, I've just moved on and haven't kept my finger on the pulse of each one. That's pretty much impossible anyhow.

Although I work in a large office, I like having the ability to be self-sufficient. I also do my own work on the side and I also need to have the ability to take a project from conception to visualization to realization without relying on someone else to keep costs down. Plus, I love tinkering with this stuff. 

My needs

I need something easy to setup and use when I'm under the gun. I also like to stand out from the crowd. Unlike most architects, it seems, I like learning new tools and techniques because I have a knack for it and it makes me more valuable. I think most people just stick with the images SketchUp spits out because they are either lazy or their priorities are different than mine. Yes, that's a bit of a rant and a generalization, but you know it's true :) Besides, I have no problem being worth more than my contemporaries.

I also need something that is artist-friendly. A cluttered user interface will send me running, and I have a deep respect for programmers that make applications that are both intuitive and powerful under the hood. 

What I like to use

My job requires I work with my own conceptual design models, other people's conceptual design models, and BIM models. That means I use FormZ, Bonzai3d, SketchUp and Revit all the time. I have gotten more out of Maxwell and Artlantis than any other app lately because they are stand-alone rendering programs that work with all of them. No matter which modeling program I use, I can get similar quality renderings from them because they all work together. Maxwell gets a few extra bonus points here because it actually plugs into all of these host applications (and many others) for materials and lighting, making it a bit faster to setup. 

I like Maxwell because it’s so easy to use since the setup is integrated right into the host app. When I launch a rendering, a separate program (Maxwell Render) launches so I can continue to work on the model at the same time if need be. When I have my views all set, I then start my renderings at the end of the day to go overnight because it’s probably going to take that long, if not longer. The renderings look seriously amazing, so I think it's worth it. Plus, I can stop them anytime I want if they look good enough. The entire image develops over time, not in pieces like Artlantis. I've previously talked about why I render to Dropbox when I use Maxwell which is another advantage to the way it renders.

I like Artlantis too for many reasons. It is a bit different in that it is completely standalone, and I have to be pretty much done with my design before I go to it for rendering. Of course I can update my model and re-send it to Artlantis, and that happens all the time too, but is an extra step in the process. Artlantis is usually much faster and sometimes that’s solely why I use it. Unlike Maxwell, the final image comes together in pieces (also known as buckets) so I have to wait for it to complete the job before I have a useful image. 

Both are very artist-friendly, which is actually why I like them both above all else.

There is something else - both of these programs offer real-time previews that utilize the GPU to make sure I'm getting the lighting, camera angles and materials setup right from the beginning. This is a huge time saver and more and more programs have implemented this as GPU's have gotten more memory and faster processors.

Choosing one per project

I never start in one and go to the other. I pick ONE and just stay with it all the way through. Again, keep it simple. My job is hard enough already, and deadlines rarely move.

So, how do I choose? Well, what are my constraints? What am I looking for in the end? Here are some reasons why I might choose one over another for a particular job:

Maxwell Render:

super realistic light & materials

grass

scatter (rocks, trees, etc.)

displacement (although Artlantis 5 now has this too)

to be able to control lighting during and after a render (Multi-light - tutorial coming soon)

if I have plenty of time to get exactly what I want because it's slow

perfect materials and lighting quality

easy 360º panoramas (tutorial coming soon)

great depth of field

am I or the client going to want to tweak colors? Maxwell makes this easy with the Material ID channel.

can handle an enormous amount of geometry

You can find my Maxwell Render tutorials here.

Artlantis:

realistic enough

day & night shots (using the heliodon controls, which I love)

soft shadows (although Maxwell Render v3 now has this too)

animation

it’s super fast

easy placement of entourage to populate my scenes with the built-in Catalog

the ability to queue up batch renders (one after another) so I don’t have to babysit the computer

You can find my Artlantis tutorial course here.

Now to make things a bit more complicated (sorry!), you can use the Maxwell Render engine in Artlantis if you pay the additional cost. This is almost the best of both worlds because it allows you to use Maxwell Materials and the physical camera right inside Artlantis. The reason I say almost is because you still can’t do grass or scatter so there are some limitations. It does use Artlantis’ intuitive lighting setup which is lovely and intuitive.

And finally

Another thing I’m almost always looking for is a new skill I can learn within a project. Now that I think about it, I usually choose the app I need to learn something in to make myself worth more. Sound familiar? It’s the main reason I started Method and why I share my experiences here.

What about you? What are your experiences? Share them in the comments below.

Your crash-test dummy,

Evan

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There have been a bunch of small and large announcements recently about the tools I talk about (and use) a lot, and here they are in summary:

FormZ v7.3.4, Bonzai3d 3.2.4 Updates

Updates to FormZ v7 and Bonzai v3 are out that address many small issues, and are available from within the app when you check for updates. There are a bunch of refinements that make the apps more stable and predictable - basically better to use in a production environment. We all know how important it is to have the most stable software instead of whiz-bang new features with these maintenance releases. You can read more about the FormZ fixes here and the Bonzai3d fixes here. 

Maxwell v3.0.11 beta for FormZ and Bonzai3d

The latest plugin for Maxwell 3 for FormZ 7 and Bonzai3d 3 has been posted to the Maxwell Beta site. I've been beta testing this for a while and I recommend grabbing this one because it fixes a bunch of stuff. Something new is that you can now download all of the beta plugins for Maxwell so you don't have to wait for the official releases. You can read the release notes and find out exactly what the latest fixes are when you login to the Beta site. Here's how:

Next Limit delighted to announce the launch of the Maxwell Public Beta Area. Customers can now get access to the most recent builds, and won't need to wait for official releases to get the latest fixes. It will also help us to reduce development cycles, meaning that you get better versions of Maxwell, faster! 

For more information about how to access the public beta area, please visit our forum:  http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41692

SketchUp Pro 2014

Trimble SketchUp Pro 2014 is out, and just like previous releases this is an iterative, refined and more powerful version of SketchUp. While there aren't any new features that make my eyes pop out of my head, there are a few nice upgrades to the ubiquitous modeling program that affect us architects and designers from previous versions:

Faster shadows (up to 15x faster depending on your setup)

New Arc drawing tools (nice, finally!)

Classifier (a new way to add metadata to objects in your models - think BIM)

While these may seem small, these are very welcome updates. The Classifier alone is a great new foundation in SU because we now have the ability to tag types of geometry, do quantity take-offs, and when using the new IFC exporter you can pass that data along to a higher level BIM tool so it knows that a wall is a wall, a slab is a slab, etc. Having faster shadows is a big deal for real-time walkthroughs. I actually do our presentations on the fly right inside the program, and I'm looking forward to not have to wait for the shadows to pop into existence only when I stop moving. That's always been jarring to me and I hope this will fix that problem. If it's jarring to me, I know it's jarring to my clients watching the presentation.

There are other advancements under the hood and on the web regarding the extension warehouse, underlying Ruby API framework and more. They seem to be going more in the direction of BIM which is a big deal for a program that costs $590. I expect a lot of people to jump on making some very cool plugins for SketchUp in this area in the future because it's a huge market.

New Layout features for creating documentation of our designs include:

Auto text

Smart labels

Improved vector rendering

Much better handling of large documents

These are all things that, if you haven't tried for yourself, have been major slowdowns in previous versions. More and more people tell me they are looking for a single tool to do their architectural work in (which I don't actually condone), and the team at SketchUp is clearly listening. And I get it - learning a few programs and their quirks takes longer than learning a single program. I'll talk more about that in another blog post.

If you haven't tried using Layout in a while, I suggest giving it a try. I think it's one of the most underrated and easy ways to document and present your 3d work as printed documents, PDF's or as a Powerpoint-style presentation. While some people have dug in and have been using it for construction documents for a while now, these new enhancements will make it easier for new people to adopt the program in this way. 

SketchUp 2014 runs on both Mac and Windows. As far as I can tell, the Pro version is the one getting all these updates. There is also SketchUp Make which replaced the free version last year and is not for commercial use, but it's still free but has some serious limitations as you can see in the graphic on the right. You can read about all the upgrades in depth here on the Trimble site.

Maxwell Plugin v3.0.1 for SketchUp

More great news for SketchUp users is that there has been an update to the plugin released that fixes some important bugs in conjunction with the newly released Maxwell 3. They say this update is a must-have. I've written about the new stuff in Maxwell 3 in a previous post, so check it out if you haven't yet. You can get the update in the customer portal or on the previously mentioned Beta site if you're a current v3 customer.

I have some awesome news that I'm finally able to share with you. I'm launching my first product! I'm so excited to put this out into the world because it's something that has helped me time and time again.

Helped with what? I'm so glad you asked. 

We all do renderings of our architectural projects and are using some amazing modeling and rendering tools. I'm eyeball-deep in FormZ/Bonzai3d and Maxwell Render. They are some seriously fun and powerful tools that make my projects look great without a ton of effort. I decided last year to start making my own custom presets to take my renderings to the next level. Like I said, they have really made my images look great, and now I'm making them available to you!

Don't just take my word for it. You've probably seen a couple of renderings I've put up on the web lately teasing this new product. It's finally here!

So check out the new Method store where you can see everything all in one place - tons of renderings, what's included, how it works, and how it can help make you a rendering rock star!

And for the first week, I'm running a special that takes $20 off, so get it at that price while you can. 

I hope you love it as much as I do. 

…and can I just say that the bonus tutorial videos are worth more than the price alone. There's so much great stuff packed into them, you're going to learn a ton. You might consider buying the presets just to get the tutorials!

Learn more about the Maxwell Grass Preset Pro Pack

This video was produced by the folks over at AutoDesSys, the makers of bonzai3d.

If you're a SketchUp user interested in solid modeling, NURBS, specialized tools for architectural modeling and more, you should check out bonzai3d. This is a great update and of particular interest out of the 80 new tools are:

The new interactive sun control palette (7:15 in the video)

Billboards & underlays (10:00)

Unfold tools - great for laser cutting to build analog models (15:50)

3d Print preparation analysis tools (19:15) 

Interactive section tools (23:00) 

Contour Doctor tool for fixing 2d contours used to create 3d terrain models (24:00) 

Component tools - replace components (26:00)

NURBS tools (28:00)

You can download a PDF of the full list of new features, and you can download a 30 day trial of bonzai3d 3.0 here.