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Twinmotion 2016

Editorial Type: Review     Date: 03-2016    Views: 9982      







Twinmotion provides ARCHICAD users with the ability to deliver high quality animation and visualisation in real time, says David Chadwick

As anyone with a PS4, Xbox One or souped-up gaming PC will attest, the videogame industry is now also the driving force behind some major innovations in software aimed at architects and designers, most notably when it comes to high quality, real-time animation and visualisation.

You don't even need the multi-processed, advanced graphic card-running PC beasts that you might use to run something like The Witcher 3 on full settings either, as the average workstation running the latest Windows OS is more than adequate to get the best out of Twinmotion, Abvent's current animation and visualisation application available as a plug-in for ARCHICAD. Abvent are the developers of Artlantis, which has been around for some time in the industry.

In fact, it's probably the current evolution of hardware that allows the software to do in real time what was previously only achievable after much offline processing in some remote render farm.

Twinmotion features
Any effect that you want to display in Twinmotion 2016 can be carried out while you are sitting in front of your client. If they make any suggestions regarding the design and the content, you can incorporate them immediately and demonstrate the results. If the client wants to see what their project would look like in winter or in the middle of the night, then a couple of clicks would be sufficient to show them.

The ability to do this is now vastly improved with the introduction of BIMmotion to Twinmotion 2016, a free, self-executable file - in both mono or stereoscopic modes - that includes both the project model and the Twinmotion engine. Clients and partners can view the model on their own computers and change perspectives, follow animations, move freely in 3D or follow a predefined path and access project alternatives. You can even include Project Phasing with your BIMmotion files, which then enables you to set up the project as it progresses, enabling you to look at it at various stages of its evolution.

Creating models
The game analogies are very apt, as models in Twinmotion are manipulated directly, as you would in a 3D game engine, choosing how you move and allowing you to walk, drive, fly or proceed step-by-step through the immersive 'walkthrough'. A chronological tab keeps track of all stages, and you can build the scene by taking any viewpoint in both perspective and orthographic views. The Object Manager provides advanced features to customise workspaces further.

Twinmotion can import many model types directly (FBX, DWG, DAE, SKP, C4D, LI3), and merge multiple Twinmotion projects or other formats in a single scene. Imported files can be updated at any time, while keeping your modifications and materials. Images and videos can likewise be imported in DDS, PNG, PSD, JPG and TGA formats, or as MP4, AVI, OGV, WMV, FLV, MOV, DIVX, MPG, and MPEG files.

The lie of the Land
All Twinmotion projects start with the laying out of the terrain, usually imported as a 3D mesh or from a point cloud, which are then automatically converted to a Twinmotion landscape. Alternatively you can opt for something from the Twinmotion terrain library, which can be edited, sculpted, painted (pushing and pulling the surface to create hills and hollows, and painting the result with different materials, such as rocks, sand) - and vegetated at will.

All library components have also been updated in Twinmotion 2016, with additions that include cyclists, cranes, boats, wind turbines and even fountains. There's nothing like a bit of atmosphere for adding verisimilitude, and Twinmotion also allows you to add clouds, fog, rain or snow, and wind - as well as its impact on vegetation. These choices are previewed in an adjacent window. Surfaces can also be 'flooded' to create ocean colours, reflections, and the size and type of waves. You can also play around with sun settings to reflect location and time of day or night, modifying brightness, shadows and lens deviations, which can be further refined with power settings.

Populating the Scene
There are more than 500 different objects, organised into categories, that can be inserted into models. Each of these has additional intelligence that enables them to react to the scene settings - materials adapt to the time of day or night - and also allows UV scales, opacity and halo effects, and illumination and brightness to be adjusted. Bump mapping adds further realism to materials.

Intelligent, animated vegetation can be added singly or as complete forests, using broad strokes of the brush tool. For variety, you can also adjust tree species, sizes and densities and animate them to react to the seasons and wind.

A selection of animated people can also be placed in scenes and propelled along Bezier-defined paths, with characters dressed in professional or casual gear as befits the scene. Cars and other transport can be placed to run along similarly defined roads, created using a few clicks, and the speed and density of traffic can be individually adjusted, even on different sections of a multi-lane highway. With the new addition of cyclists to the library, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before skateboarders are also added. Different light effects can be added to illuminate day or night-time scenes - spot, level or multi-directional - or users can import and use their own IES files.

Visual Effects
Twinmotion is as much about enhancing reality as it is about the creation of lifelike scenes in real time. And reality is not always enhanced purely by creating photographic copies - ask any artist. Twinmotion therefore allows users to get creative with set camera settings, choosing focal, vignette and other lens deviations or by choosing one of 29 types of colours to transform scenes - using the filters to produce 'white models', black and white’ or even Sketch effects.

The tools available with the camera editor allow users to choose the scene or frames that make up animations, or to display the project’s construction phases along specified time lines, and to fine-tune each of the clips to get the best results out of the scenic environment, visual effects, lens parameters, ratios and resolutions.

Exporting models
It’s quick and easy to export scenarios at high resolutions in either MP3 and WMV (H.264) formats or even as stereo 3D videos. Images are exported as PNG files.

Enhanced Performance
I mentioned earlier the advances that allow scenarios to be set up and modified in real time. To get more specific, the calculation time and display of images and videos is 2% faster, while real time views are 200% faster, with the new, lower display quality available in draft mode.

Users are not constrained to the keyboard and mouse either, as both Twinmotion and BIMmotion can be used with Xbox 360, Xbox One and PS4 controllers as well as Thrustmaster and Logitech joysticks.
www.abvent.com
www.graphisoft.com

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