RENDER COMPARISON
 UPDATED MAY 14, 2003
ART*LANTIS ADDED

 

 

REFERENCE RENDER

 

This is the WinOSi reference rendering of the Illum2.vmd test scene.
It shows full global illumination with an area light casting soft shadows with penumbra, caustics, specular reflection and refraction, diffuse indirect illumination with color bleeding, texture mapping and non-polygonal primitives with perfect anti-aliasing.
Rendering time was 4 days on 233MHz Pentium 2. 

For more renderings done with other programs:  http://www.winosi.onlinehome.de/Comp1.htm

 

 

ARCHICAD WITH AV-WORKS

 

This is the rendering made with ArchiCAD v7 and the new AV-Works plugin renderer.  A GDL spotlight modified to be invisible simulates caustics.  Time 28 seconds.  It took six or seven hours of fiddling with settings, materials, lighting, etc., to reach this point.  I'd like to try this again after using Art.lantis; still waiting for the v8 compatible version.

CLICK for the four other new AV-Works render engines.
   

 

 

 

ART*LANTIS

 

    
   

 

 

    
   
Abvent's stand-alone rendering program for Archicad.  Took a few hours to find my way around.  Finally had to go through the first tutorial.  The shaders are very easy to apply and adjust.  The lights were a bit harder to master; not always clear what effect the many sliders have.  It opened the .atl file created by Archicad v8 readily with the camera, lights and textures as set in Archicad.  Eventually I replaced textures with Art.lantis shaders.  Overall ease of use and speed is quite impressive ending with a very useable rendering.  Render time 9 seconds.		    
     

 

 

 

ARCHICAD

 

    
   

   
   
This is ArchiCAD v7 without the AV-Works plugin.  No reflection, refraction, no caustics, no global illumination, etc.  On the other hand rendering took only 14 seconds.		    
     

 

 

BRYCE

 

    
   

   
   
This is made with Bryce5 in 14 minutes, after 3 trial renders of 17 minutes and one of 56 minutes.  Set up was much quicker than in ArchiCAD mainly because the preset materials required no tweaking at all.  Four lights were added to fill in the shadows.   One of those was green and one red to simulate global illumination.		    
     

 

TRUESPACE

 

    
   

   
   
This is trueSpace5 using hybred radiosity.  Getting the area light to work was a real problem.    About fifteen minutes to render after doing the radiosity solution.  Color bleeding is not really evident, but the manual says to expect it.  Could be my lack of knowledge.  Added a small spot to simulate caustics.  This is just a beginning.  There is a way to use the Virtualight renderer with trueSpace that should bring it up near the reference rendering.  		   
     

 

 

CONCLUSION:  Since most of my work originates in ArchiCAD I favor AV-Works, especially for interiors and quick studies.   Now that the settings for a pretty good glass material have been puzzled out, renderings should be fairly straight forward.  

Until the new AV is released for v8 looks like it will have to be the Archicad rendering engine for quick studies.  It's always better to stay within the same application when possible.  On the other hand, if you will be investing considerable time to produce an important rendering it can be done faster and better in Art.lantis.

Bryce is my second choice, especially for exteriors.  It's just plain fun, but having to export the model and navigate to materials, set up lighting, etc. is a big "con".  TrueSpace probably has the most potential, but is not easy to use.