Real Time Rendering vs Lumen Method for Architecture Practices and Practicality

I am an architect with a small architecture practice, I am also a content creator under this username (@unitedstatesofdesign). I create free full course content for architects and designers. I mainly focus on representational drawings and Rhino Modelling, with some courses in theory and practice.

I modelled one of my projects in Rhino 8 and used all Twinmotion materials and assets.

These are some render studies between the difference of Lumen vs Path Tracer vs Real-Time Renders. The only post processing I did was a very slight color balance adjustment on Photoshop. Nothing else.

As an architect with a small practice and content creator, I prefer using Lumen and Real Time renderings. Path Tracer creates stunning results, but I do not have the time nor the hardware to create a substantial amount of tracing and bounces for multiple renderings. Especially with all of the other tasks involved to run a practice.

I think the reflective qualities produced by Lumen and Path tracer are beautiful. I definitely do prefer using Lumen Method for exterior DAYTIME renderings. and Real Time for night time renderings. Lumen method for NIGHT TIME renderings is a little chaotic and hit/miss, whereas Real-Time for Exterior NIGHT TIME renderings handles the emissive reflectivity much better.

I think it would be fantastic if Twinmotion can improve their reflective previews during real-time and lumen methods. My settings are one High or Maximum, but you really dont know how your reflections will turn out until you export your image.

I think other small and medium architecture practices that render in-house vs outsourcing, they will prefer using real-time and lumen. They just do not have the time to do path tracing, if so, they would have stuck to V-Ray, but there has been a MASSIVE shift in the Architecture industry to real-time rendering (Enscape, Lumion, D5). So the more Twinmotinon can push their real-time rendering methods and previews, the better. I am assuming a couple more years, Realtime and AI image processing will just be one cohesive system in all of these rendering software, but in general, Real-Time rendering is definitely what many architecture practices (At - least in the US) prefer using.

Hope this helps. I think Twinmotion is great and I really appreciate the community. I definitely want to help advance this software since it makes itself accessible to many designers and creators, which I appreciate.

1 Like