3D Max Archives - Digital Urban

Processing, Lumion, CityEngine, 3D Max and a touch of Jazz

Andy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:06:14 +0000

One of the questions in modelling a ‘living city’ is how to combine aspects of agent based modelling for crowds, traffic simulation and 3D cities without a work flow that takes weeks and a high end graphics house.

Processing Output in Lumion

Using the intriguing P5 to Max script it is possible to control 3D Max via Processing and a local server connection, this opens up a raft of possibilities for visualisation and urban scenes based on real data.
As a quick example we used the default processing P5 scene and created the clip below, it also allowed us to test the various configurations for lighting and weather in Lumion:

We will be exploring the possibilities of Processing and 3D Max further over the coming weeks…

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Lumion 3 – ESRI CityEngine and Autodesk 3D Max

Andy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:35:39 +0000

Lumion is one of the best rapid visualisation systems out there for architectural style rendering. Its ease of use and ability to create scenes complete with advanced sky and lighting effects make it perfect for urban visualisation. With the release of version 3 we thought we would take the free version for a test run.

Lumion 3 fbx Import

The scene below was created using a mix of CityEngine by ESRI and Autodesk’s 3D Studio Max, exported via .fbx. The movie took 8hrs to render at 1080p, 30 frames per second and depth of focus / advanced sky effects:
Lumion 3.0 has notably changed its watermarking on any output – the Lumion Free Not for Commercial Use is not easy to mistake, this is a change to the previous version that had a small banner in the top left hand corner. We can see the reasons why – the previous version could simply be cropped to take out the water mark – but as its on screen the whole time, even in the editor, it does make the work flow painful on the eyes.
With the addition of new video textures, updated sky effects, global illumination and new models Lumion is well worth a look…

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Rapid Augmented Reality using CityEngine, 3D Max and Lumion

Andy — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:50:20 +0000

AR-Media is one of the quickest ways to get started in Augmented Reality. The system is free for non commercial use and offers plugins for 3D Max, SketchUp and others with players running on iOS/Android and desktop devices via a webcam. The plugin used to be £100 + but the move to enhanced functionality and free for non commercial use makes it the first place to explore AR.

AR Virtual Projector on iOS

The plugin not only allows us of 3D models and animations but also movies and audio – the clip below demonstrates two example models we have built using AR Media, visualised using the AR Media player on iOS with models uploaded via DropBox:
Mixing AR Tags with 3D Max, CityEngine and Lumion opens up a lot of possibilites for rapid visualisation – head over to AR Media to download the various plugins required.

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