Enscape is great but I cant use it for pro renders.

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  • Unfortunately, our clients are VERY picky.

    The 3d renderings are used to validate each detail...

    And we can't do otherwise with a certain type of client.

    No worries in the first phases of the project. Enscape allows you to present images and panoramas very quickly. Which is a big plus.

    Unfortunately, going back to another renderer to make the final render realistic is very time consuming and impossible for our company.

    It is easier to start directly on the most adapted software. Even if it means presenting less images, less quickly.


    It would just be amazing to be able to switch from Enscape to Vray seamlessly without having to redefine all the materials, lights etc...

    The best of both worlds.

    Again, Enscape is an incredible program.

    It's a shame that such a good program is tarnished by such annoying details.

  • It would just be amazing to be able to switch from Enscape to Vray seamlessly without having to redefine all the materials, lights etc...

    Yes, it is super frustrating to have to choose an engine and stick with that. With Enscape and Chaos under the same roof, the ability to at least read each other's materials and assets would be something that should be tackled sooner than later imho.

  • Yes, it is super frustrating to have to choose an engine and stick with that. With Enscape and Chaos under the same roof, the ability to at least read each other's materials and assets would be something that should be tackled sooner than later imho.

    Chaos are working now in the integration and they have started with cosmos, so we sill enjoy Cosmos assets soon

  • For this purpose it has been a total game changer for my workflow. I keep Enscape open during initial modeling the plan and it's helped me create designs alongside typical AutoCAD drafting designs, etc.


    But I also use it for final renders and our clients love it. Particularly during design meetings when they can fly through the model in realtime with rendered quality and not bare SketchUp. Our clients have no use for photo-realistic, time consuming renders. They also wouldn't notice half the things I see "wrong" in the final renders that the general Archviz community would. Though, I also would not not show them a view with a full length wall mirror. That's been troublesome for one job in particular, so I completely understand the frustration when it happens.

    :thumbup:

  • I would swap out your rectangle light for ies spotlights.

    Thank you I did include some spotlights and it helped. In general I have stayed away from them because they haven't seemed right to me for commercial work, especially if you can see a light pattern and I imagined they would be time-consuming. But they did help in the elevator lobby I'm working on with general light.

    That is definitely something I wish they would acknowledge and put on the roadmap publicly. Would expect that to be taken care of when they add more robust ray tracing.

    I don't think architects and residential designers are going to complain about the problem of seeing light reflections in adjacent walls that much because they have so much sun available to them, at least through a nearby window and don't need to depend so much on other light sources. But below are examples of the sun I had available to me in the last two projects I've been working on to practice Enscape skills. The WarnerMedia project wasn't that bad because surfaces were not that reflective, (although I did have to cut out some pieces of textures and replace them with non-reflective versions in some areas), but the elevator lobby was a big problem. Rectangle lights are wonderful; they can light up a big space right away.

  • NoMasCorona, Are you using them with IES maps? They help a ton. I only do commercial archviz work, and accuracy is important. However, there are some liberties that can be taken. I generally use the Rectangular light for cove lighting or off-camera accent lighting. Liners like you have shown can be accomplished with a soft IES map and 3-5 spot lights copied across.

  • As someone who uses both Enscape and VRay on various projects, I do find myself wanting V-Ray's quality with Enscape's ease and fluid way of working as well. I bet we will see pathtracing in Enscape at some point. Especially with all the competition out there now. It's not uncommon for me to switch a project over from Enscape to VRay to get the quality of lighting and reflections or switch from V-Ray to Enscape to get the job done quickly and efficiently for a client that cares less about those things. It would be amazing if the 2 engines spoke to other or you could tell VRay to pull Enscape's material settings?

  • As someone who uses both Enscape and VRay on various projects, I do find myself wanting V-Ray's quality with Enscape's ease and fluid way of working as well. I bet we will see pathtracing in Enscape at some point. Especially with all the competition out there now. It's not uncommon for me to switch a project over from Enscape to VRay to get the quality of lighting and reflections or switch from V-Ray to Enscape to get the job done quickly and efficiently for a client that cares less about those things. It would be amazing if the 2 engines spoke to other or you could tell VRay to pull Enscape's material settings?

    I was testing TwinMotion again all day Friday for the Ray Tracing abilities. Reflections are really awesome....but my 1080ti is not up to the task. I also REALLY missed working with all of the materials, components, lights, etc natively inside of SketchUp vs in the software application. Particularly problematic with large commercial spaces with a ton of component light fixtures. NOT a fun task to place lighting in TwinMotion.


    NoMasCorona, Are you using them with IES maps? They help a ton. I only do commercial archviz work, and accuracy is important. However, there are some liberties that can be taken. I generally use the Rectangular light for cove lighting or off-camera accent lighting. Liners like you have shown can be accomplished with a soft IES map and 3-5 spot lights copied across.

    I was relying on IES splotlights for a while but found the rectangle light is "good enough," and can greatly reduce the number of light sources in a model, which Enscape sets a limit on rendering- tends to be an issue in my models at some point. The downside being able to see their reflections...I gave up on trying to be perfectly accurate to the light fixture's actual IES file from the manufacturer some time ago. Generic files work fine to get most rendering software to output the desired result- which can be trial and error.


    Thank you I did include some spotlights and it helped. In general I have stayed away from them because they haven't seemed right to me for commercial work, especially if you can see a light pattern and I imagined they would be time-consuming. But they did help in the elevator lobby I'm working on with general light.

    I don't think architects and residential designers are going to complain about the problem of seeing light reflections in adjacent walls that much because they have so much sun available to them, at least through a nearby window and don't need to depend so much on other light sources. But below are examples of the sun I had available to me in the last two projects I've been working on to practice Enscape skills. The WarnerMedia project wasn't that bad because surfaces were not that reflective, (although I did have to cut out some pieces of textures and replace them with non-reflective versions in some areas), but the elevator lobby was a big problem. Rectangle lights are wonderful; they can light up a big space right away.

    Yeah, those interior renders are incredibly dark and require artificial light to overcompensate for the light bounce that ray tracing would provide. I see a ton of "basic" bedroom/kitchen renders on the archviz subreddit all the time that have a ton of perfect natural light available and/or faked behind the camera fill lighting. I like to be more true to the lighting plan in my models and get frustrated like you when placing artificial lights. Besides, commercial spaces are usually loaded with artificial lighting anyway. One diagonal linear light would definitely not cut it here in this space, which is why you were adding more rectangle fill lights. Try some IES in them? What did those renders look like that you mention earlier?

  • I was testing TwinMotion again all day Friday for the Ray Tracing abilities. Reflections are really awesome....but my 1080ti is not up to the task. I also REALLY missed working with all of the materials, components, lights, etc natively inside of SketchUp vs in the software application. Particularly problematic with large commercial spaces with a ton of component light fixtures. NOT a fun task to place lighting in TwinMotion.


    I was relying on IES splotlights for a while but found the rectangle light is "good enough," and can greatly reduce the number of light sources in a model, which Enscape sets a limit on rendering- tends to be an issue in my models at some point. The downside being able to see their reflections...I gave up on trying to be perfectly accurate to the light fixture's actual IES file from the manufacturer some time ago. Generic files work fine to get most rendering software to output the desired result- which can be trial and error.


    Yeah, those interior renders are incredibly dark and require artificial light to overcompensate for the light bounce that ray tracing would provide. I see a ton of "basic" bedroom/kitchen renders on the archviz subreddit all the time that have a ton of perfect natural light available and/or faked behind the camera fill lighting. I like to be more true to the lighting plan in my models and get frustrated like you when placing artificial lights. Besides, commercial spaces are usually loaded with artificial lighting anyway. One diagonal linear light would definitely not cut it here in this space, which is why you were adding more rectangle fill lights. Try some IES in them? What did those renders look like that you mention earlier?

    I agree 100% on this. If I can't place lights in SketchUp, what's this all for? This is why I have been sticking with Enscape and VRay as they both allow me to work this way. In the past have used Podium, Thea, Twinmotion, Lumion and D5 but Enscape and VRay for SketchUp reign supreme for many reasons listed above and the top one being that I get to stay inside of SketchUp to place proxies and lighting. Switching from SketchUp brain to the WASD gamer crap drives me crazy as well. Now if we can get Enscape to match 2pt cameras from SketchUp, I would be using it more and more (hint hint!)

  • I should mention that one of the things I do like about Enscape is the 'fakeness' to the lighting on interiors when I need to get something out quickly for a client's reaction. In V-Ray, you have to noodle quite a bit with an interior to get a view to even look decent enough as a draft. Enscape, because of its lighting calc 'shortcuts', can pretty much deliver something I can send to someone without much setup of IES, spots, fill lights etc.


    So, I think the moral of the story is that each tool has its strengths and weaknesses no matter which angle you look at it. Sometimes, I can trade realism for speed and sometimes you have a client that wants Alex Roman every time you render something.

  • I agree 100% on this. If I can't place lights in SketchUp, what's this all for? This is why I have been sticking with Enscape and VRay as they both allow me to work this way. In the past have used Podium, Thea, Twinmotion, Lumion and D5 but Enscape and VRay for SketchUp reign supreme for many reasons listed above and the top one being that I get to stay inside of SketchUp to place proxies and lighting. Switching from SketchUp brain to the WASD gamer crap drives me crazy as well. Now if we can get Enscape to match 2pt cameras from SketchUp, I would be using it more and more (hint hint!)

    This is the benefit of Enscape running within SketchUp as opposed as a stand-alone app. But it also might be holding Enscape back a bit.


    TwinMotion now supports SpaceMouse, btw. WASD navigation is a non-starter for me.

  • One diagonal linear light would definitely not cut it here in this space, which is why you were adding more rectangle fill lights. Try some IES in them? What did those renders look like that you mention earlier?

    JTubb's renderings (Lakeside Spec Suite) look great and I guess just uses IES lights. I really have resisted them all along for the reasons I mentioned, the pattern and the time it takes. But I of course would like to make more use of them as an additional tool. Below are couple of the renders I mentioned earlier. I actually ended up liking some of the up close shots of the lobby. Regarding that elevator lobby, I also include a photo of the published project of this lobby as a reference; you can see the amount of light in the space, and what I was going for. I used only rectangles (and some transmissive light) in the WarnerMedia renderings (that's an unfinished model). Thanks very much.

  • Just realized I had the glass covering the green murals in my Elevator lobby set to a bright chartreuse sort of green; toning that down a bit.. In fact I may remove these pics altogether, ha ha. Things change so fast. My main problem is with the overall picture, something about that grey metal next to the green; in the overall picture it gets muddy. Plus the metal grated ceiling gets so dark beyond the glass doors (and the glass doors hardly even visible).

  • Just realized I had the glass covering the green murals in my Elevator lobby set to a bright chartreuse sort of green; toning that down a bit.. In fact I may remove these pics altogether, ha ha. Things change so fast. My main problem is with the overall picture, something about that grey metal next to the green; in the overall picture it gets muddy. Plus the metal grated ceiling gets so dark beyond the glass doors (and the glass doors hardly even visible).

    The renders could use a higher resolution output and higher res materials. As for the metal ceiling pattern- bump up the output resolution to help avoid moire. And/or tackle that in post-production. Tight patterns like that are susceptible to moire like and resolution needs to be very high in order to not have it "darken away" as the viewpoint diminishes.


    Just throw in an IES spot in the can light component in the ceiling and it'll brighten the area (without adding false reflections). Looks to me like the reference render has more can lights vs yours, and a few of your can lights are not cutting out through the ceiling correctly.


    I'd cool the image a bit (more blue) and add a subject to draw the eye to, like the reference. In yours, my eye is going to the back of the space which is lacking detail/assets and the background environment image which is low res/blurry. Is the balcony screening (x pattern) showing through the image or is that a watermark?

  • The renders could use a higher resolution output and higher res materials. As for the metal ceiling pattern- bump up the output resolution to help avoid moire. And/or tackle that in post-production. Tight patterns like that are susceptible to moire like and resolution needs to be very high in order to not have it "darken away" as the viewpoint diminishes.


    Just throw in an IES spot in the can light component in the ceiling and it'll brighten the area (without adding false reflections). Looks to me like the reference render has more can lights vs yours, and a few of your can lights are not cutting out through the ceiling correctly.


    I'd cool the image a bit (more blue) and add a subject to draw the eye to, like the reference. In yours, my eye is going to the back of the space which is lacking detail/assets and the background environment image which is low res/blurry. Is the balcony screening (x pattern) showing through the image or is that a watermark?

    Thanks. Yes that thing about a subject to draw the eye to drove me crazy while working on it. The furniture and detailing behind the glass doors was supposed to be greyed out by the glass and wasn't supposed to be that important and I didn't spend much time on it. But it shows like crazy; I often have this problem with stuff far in the distance in renderings. In a hand rendering it would be very vague back there. So I put chairs and table in at the end quickly without looking for really good models, and then it looked like the subject of the render even though they were nothing special, so I took them out. Thanks for noticing that detail.


    Guess I will have to try IES lights ||. But I like the sound of "it'll brighten the area."


    I tried to use higher rez materials but maybe it wasn't enough. Those files get so big. I think I downloaded a 4K image for the wood motif on the wall; but much higher versions were available.. or maybe needed a different wood. But by the time I realized that I was at the end of the project. Ha ha


    About the higher resolution output, I had it at Full HD 1920 x 1080. I thought I read people were having trouble with Ultra HD so I haven't used it, and in fact tried it after reading this and my program crashed,.. so? Thanks!

  • I don't think 4k materials are necessary. 2k is fine. I think a lot of the built-in materials in Enscape actually even 1k. I don't find that high res materials slow down Enscape, but they do make SketchUp chug if it's a large model.


    I can tell you outputted to 1080P HD, which is where the softness in the image comes from. You can output 4k without much penalty (aside form VRAM). Doesn't really take much longer. I recommend outputting high resolution and downsizing in post as needed (for email or whatever you need). Your program likely crashed due to running out of VRAM on the GPU though. If that's the case, 4k materials will be problematic for your system. Go with 1k/2k and output high res. Also, Enscape has a performance options you can enable (auto-resolution and auto-upsampling) which can be helpful.