I haven’t seen Stingray but I’ll have a look.
That looks promising. Is it photo real realtime? That’s what clients are going to want. For the in house design process you don’t need photo real but for presentations they’re going to want it.
Stingray is probably like unreal but just…worse and more expensive. It’s the same worflow as with unreal from my understanding.
But Unreal can do photoreal (or very close to imo) Just have to fake some elements like reflections for example. Don’t expect stingray to look more photoreal than unreal. Not going to happen i’m convinced!
The problem with Unreal that I can see is the lack of assets and the firkin lightmapping. If there was a good user base then there would be assets available like materials and furniture etc.
BIM is the future for Architects so the fact that there is a direct pipeline with Stingray is good.
That is exactly what caught my attention with stingray, a smooth transaction between max/maya and Stingray. Looking forward to see how it will develop.
I made the mistake of learning Modo instead of 3ds Max, it has cost me a bunch of work. So, staying with things like Revit, Max, Autodesk can help the bottom line.
Never had experience with MODO, but I don’t think it in anyway different than max or maya or even blender.
Have you tried using max, maybe the transaction wont be that painful?
Also here is another random thought.
What I’m noticing here is a pattern and talking to you RI3DVIZ I’m more and more concern.
I’ve been doing design for a long time and I remember when Photoshop was a novelty and no one really knew what goes into designing and building a website, although right now
even a grandma using it making posters for her grandson’s birthday, so with such websites as fiverr etc. the price on graphic/web design dropped, trust me I know. I had to go work for printing company, because I
couldn’t be a freelancer anymore.
So as you were saying the ArchViz population dropped with more and more people outsourcing their project overseas, due to more and more people being interested in this sort of stuff. (Easy moeny I guess I don’t know).
Now lets take Game engines. Few years from now, no one even knew how to make a game, it was something only big companies were doing. Now, there are millions tutorials and Indie dev. companies grow like a mushrooms after the rain and “steam green” light is over floating with 5 min. games.
And I know you might say, yes there are quality content and there are **** on every corner.
But again Only Big companies survive and a quality content makers cry in the corner.
So, what’s the next??
P.S. Never meant for this post to become so depressing 
I have tried Max, I got the 30 day demo a couple of times. I can’t afford the software or the subscription model and I refuse to get a cracked copy, in the early days of the web I had some cracked software but I think it’s wrong so I won’t do it now. I use Blender and Cycles now and I think the renders are better than Vray but I also know a lot of clients want 3ds Max and Vray so you have to convince them to go another route.
I don’t know what’s next? I do know that standing out from the crowd like Labtop will get you noticed, they’re very busy. Anyone can do a nice Vray render now so it’s more an artistic thing verses a software thing I think. Offer something others don’t. I think the quote is something like “you don’t have to be the best you have to be the only.”
Great quote, I’ll make sure to remember that.
Regarding the Max. The only reason I stick with it is that I got drunk one day and payed for a year. It is a great deal of money I know, but honestly I never regret it and never asked for a refund 
My last thoughts for today. Everyone’s experience is going to be different in the field, some are not going to make it on their own and have to work for a company some will do great and some will be in the middle.
If you’re truly passionate about Archviz, live for it, don’t mind long hours then go for it, maybe you’ll make good money maybe not but if the driving force is the art then it’s all good.
By the way you’ll need lightmaps in stingray too ! It’s called BEAST and it’s basically the same thing as lightmass in unreal. Apparently the link between maya/stringray isn’t a big deal. (read it on cgarchitect’s forums)
And as far as I know, not many people are doing realtime arch-viz so it might be a good time to jump in.
realtime walkthrough / movies / virtual reality walkthrough / 360 panorama’s…there’s a lot you can do with unreal.
Ahhhh! I hate lightmaps!
I think it is a good time to jump in that’s why I’m here. But…I don’t know if you can get people to pay for it unless you’re doing higher end projects. Doing a house for example is going to be hard to get enough $$ to make it worth it.
I used to RAGE about lightmaps when I started with unreal…Now it’s not a problem at all since I learned how lightmaps work, how to tweak the settings and mostly…auto unwrap plugins for max. wow! Seriously I can unwrap a bunch of objects in 1 click. 99% of the time a simple flatten mapping + high res in unreal is good enough.<
You see that car in my project? over 100 objects, auto unwrapped and flattened in 1 click in max, 512 res lightmap on all parts (overkill as f*ck). No time to lose. No artifacts. It’s a W.I.P i’m testing light intensity and it’s obviously too low right now lol.
It’s called steamroller (scriptspot) and it’s amazing!
The way I see it is with Unreal we could offer videos for cheaper than what clients would expect to pay for a v-ray movie. And if it’s better suited for high end architecture I say, good thing! No one wants to visualize mcDonald’s heh!!! Let’s target the best of the best!
Another thing that some freelancer tend to forget is that I think it’s a good idea to ‘‘market’’ yourself as a company/studio rather than just a freelancer individual. Having a pro website, a company name and giving the impression that you are a team of specialists is important imo. You have to look trustable. The studio I’m starting with a friend is a 2-man company but we make it looks like we are more. Clients doesn’t have to know if you are 1 or 8, if you deliver that’s what matters. Look at the guys behind UE4 arch. I’m pretty sure they’re a small team of 2-3 (might be wrong tho) but they have a pro website, with good content and they appear trustable. Not sure it would work if they were only on freelance sites.
Oh jeeze! I see I would have to get max and Steamroller then because I can’t do the manual lightmapping thing in Blender.
Very good points about the web presence.
Hi , I took a quick look at it.
The only thing that really attracted me to stingray is only the workflow, as what i have heard so far about the beast lighting system is not as good as lightmass.
But after playing around with it for a while, i think the ‘pros’ in the workflow does not really outweigh the many amazing things in unreal. Sure you can update your assets real time, but exporting and importing assets using TS_tools scripts isn’t really that difficult either.
I think real time archviz is good to invest time to learn. With oculus rift the application could go further than archviz. Also think about microsoft hololens. All this will require new skills that might no longer be sufficient if we just know 3ds max and vray 
It’s worth giving a try.
Good morning my friends. It’s always prudent to think from every aspect when changing career paths at any stage of life especially if it concerns learning from scratch. I personally think that doing what you love is the best way to move forward (it’s equally important not to be confused by meager intuitions of loving something). These are all sociological and philosophical choices we all have to make sooner or later. After making a choice comes the technical part – implementation, economical restrictions, time required, knowledge base/learning resources available and so on and these all impact the future in chosen technology and field.
I myself was an avid user of 3ds max and Vray from past 6 years. Took several courses to improve my workflow and knowledge, luckily I had the resources and time. Even then it took me several years to master my craft. I think 3D industry is critically hostile towards new talent/artists. First comes the high price of software, then comes unjustifiable expectations from clients (who don’t gives a s*** about your career goal/how typical is to render a photorealistic render). They just want it with thousand changes per day and that too in least possible price and despite of all of these odds we are always a replaceable asset (freelancer).
Little about my background – From past 1 year I was doing outsource work for New York based Arch-Viz marketing company (can’t name it NDA and all). It was like a full time job rather than freelancing. I learned lot during that time, we grew into a network of several artists specializing in their own fields all coming together at Basecamp. All was good, awesome money, quality work, no social lifeJ. Then suddenly comes an event that completely changed the whole scenario. There was some mishap at the managerial level in the company and we all had to stop work for more than a month. Then I realized – the work I did during the last year or so (about 40+ renders exteriors and interiors) is not going in my portfolio (I am being dumb).
Then self-awareness and security kicks in – I can’t depend on a single client in freelancing work, need to adapt myself with changing technologies and to expand my professional network with similar thinking artists (true meaning of the globalization). You cannot think of only local market it’s universally unacceptable now a days. During this time I was introduced to the Unreal Engine by one of my friends. It was life changing experience. There are still so many things that are negative in favor of Unreal Engine like – Steep learning curve, unavailability of tutorials specifically tailor made for photorealistic Arch-Viz, require more than basic technical knowledge to begin with and lastly it will test your patient to its limit.
Also I think 3ds max and Vray “was” a killing combination for still imagery in Arch-Viz for freelancers (as animation requires football size render farm so this option is out for now). Today there are many contenders for Vray’s crown, Octane and Corona are the top ones and Unreal Engine seems to be out of competition as of now, but I firmly believe it’s a misnomer. Real time Arch-Viz with Virtual Reality is a thing you cannot afford to overlook. I am saying “was” because there are so many self-proclaimed Vray artists present in the market, it has lost its reputation and money (a very good example is provided by @RI3DVIZ of $40 job).
To any layman (like me) lightmaps at first seems to be a pain to understand and learn but after some experience and experiments I can safely say this workflow is not hard to get used to and rewards are exceptional – Real time Arch-Viz is definitely going to give Vray to run for its money.