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TWINMOTION AS AN ARCHVIZ TOOL
Real time & Path Tracer Rendering
3Ds Max & Corona still remains the industry’s standard for architectural visualization. You may need to present things that come to your mind really fast, though. In my opinion, GPU performance is rapidly developing to kick out traditional workflow soon. This will ease preparation and take less CPU based rendering time. Unreal Engine and Twinmotion, its younger brother, are gradually becoming major visualization tools for architects and designers. Initially purposed as a game engine, these tools mainly focus on real-time rendering while still endowed with powerful rendering features such as Lumen, Path Tracer, or baked light to produce more physically accurate lighting.
Twinmotion: Pros & Con
+ (-) Its interface is pretty easy to use, mostly based on drag & drop. This gives us a bunch of disadvantages, though (see below).
+ Makes import easy, has Bridges for most modeling programs including CAD, and allows you to export scenes back to Unreal Engine by using Bridge
+ Contains built-in Megascans and Sketchfab libraries
+ Has a decent stock material library
+ Allows vegetation scattering, cool and easy to use, plus custom mesh scattering (available since 2023.2 update)
+ Allows you to enable/ disable weather effects, which look great here. Surfaces and vegetation respond to time of the day/ height fog/ rain/ snow/ wind strength adjustments ready to use.
+ Uses game-like WASD navigation (inherited from Unreal) pretty easy to use compared to traditional 3D software
- Has limited abilities for control over shading groups
- Lacks any modeling tools
- Only offers a few animation features, simple camera movements, a translator set, and custom vehicle/ character paths, lacking a Graph Editor. It also supports animated .fbx import (since Twinmotion 2023.2 release) and allows a ready-made solution for opening doors, gates, or barriers. All in all, in most architectural visualization cases, you could do with these features.
- Gives limited options to control materials, e.g. quite primitive SSS settings. Made as a simple solution sufficient for architecture and product shots, it lacks any traditional node editor, though, to set up PBR material.
- Finally, it contains a limited set of particles such as fog or smoke, with only those built in available, not allowing you to change any settings
+ Makes import easy, has Bridges for most modeling programs including CAD, and allows you to export scenes back to Unreal Engine by using Bridge
+ Contains built-in Megascans and Sketchfab libraries
+ Has a decent stock material library
+ Allows vegetation scattering, cool and easy to use, plus custom mesh scattering (available since 2023.2 update)
+ Allows you to enable/ disable weather effects, which look great here. Surfaces and vegetation respond to time of the day/ height fog/ rain/ snow/ wind strength adjustments ready to use.
+ Uses game-like WASD navigation (inherited from Unreal) pretty easy to use compared to traditional 3D software
- Has limited abilities for control over shading groups
- Lacks any modeling tools
- Only offers a few animation features, simple camera movements, a translator set, and custom vehicle/ character paths, lacking a Graph Editor. It also supports animated .fbx import (since Twinmotion 2023.2 release) and allows a ready-made solution for opening doors, gates, or barriers. All in all, in most architectural visualization cases, you could do with these features.
- Gives limited options to control materials, e.g. quite primitive SSS settings. Made as a simple solution sufficient for architecture and product shots, it lacks any traditional node editor, though, to set up PBR material.
- Finally, it contains a limited set of particles such as fog or smoke, with only those built in available, not allowing you to change any settings
Editions & Pricing
Twinmotion comprises these three editions:
· Community Edition for anyone seeking to create non-commercial projects, or try out the latest Twinmotion features (free)
· Education Edition meant for students, teachers, and researchers (free, for non-commercial use), and
· Commercial Edition for professionals looking to create stunning visualizations for commercial projects ($749, perpetual license, tied to one Epic Games account)
· Community Edition for anyone seeking to create non-commercial projects, or try out the latest Twinmotion features (free)
· Education Edition meant for students, teachers, and researchers (free, for non-commercial use), and
· Commercial Edition for professionals looking to create stunning visualizations for commercial projects ($749, perpetual license, tied to one Epic Games account)
Characters added from built-in library
Vegetation scatter in Twinmotion
Vegetation Scatter & Weather Effects
Vegetation scatter in Twinmotion is also easy and fun to use. Drag and drop any vegetation assets you need, select a surface to scatter on, or use a paint tool. It also allows you to adjust growth density and even a plant's age. All vegetation assets from the stock library respond to wind, so you can also adjust its strength.
Simple faders allow you to reach weather effects, choosing between sunny, overcast, or heavy rain. Most plants and trees included can change their seasonal states too, ranging from summer colors to red autumn foliage, even turning to winter branches covered with snow. Definitely, it provides the “Let it snow” button.
Simple faders allow you to reach weather effects, choosing between sunny, overcast, or heavy rain. Most plants and trees included can change their seasonal states too, ranging from summer colors to red autumn foliage, even turning to winter branches covered with snow. Definitely, it provides the “Let it snow” button.
One-click weather effects
One-click weather effects (snow)
Rendering
Stemming from your expectations or project requirements, you can choose between Real-time and Path tracer rendering modes. Lumen global lighting option (available since 2023.2 release) produces more realistic lighting and reflections in real time. Although it requires significantly more calculating resources, Path Tracer renders images or videos looking much more realistic and physically accurate in terms of ray tracing and reflections. Rendering high quality videos, when you need high samples per pixel rates, can take hours, even if you use a powerful GPU. When you reject to use sufficient samples, images will look noisy or oddly distorted by built-in denoiser (enabled/ disabled, as you choose).
Assets and materials from stock Twinmotion Library
Assets and materials from stock Twinmotion Library
Conclusion
Game development technologies allow designers and architects to look at their routine tasks from a new perspective. I definitely suggest trying Twinmotion as an architectural or product visualization tool.
© 2024 Nick Samarin • 3D Artist • Designer • Please do not use any media without crediting. Thank you!