Hi!
I have not posted here before, but the firm I work for have been using Enscape for several years now and I would say that it has been the best change in our design process since transitioning from AutoCAD to Revit. So - to the development team - thank you! While we have Lumion 9, the integration of Enscape in our application workflow means we use Enscape much more frequently, and are beginning to utilize it for animations in addition to stills, panoramas, and standalone models.
Concurrently, we are also beginning to explore Google's new Earth Studio tool, which provides After-Effects level control for creating animations in Google Earth, and does a far better job of rendering Earth content during the animation process compared to the desktop application since it is not limited to 1gb of RAM and 2gb of disk cache as the Google Earth Pro desktop application was. Importantly to my question here, the content generated when creating an animation with Earth Studio is an image sequence, which is then assembled in After-Effects or similar. Also important to note is the fact that that this tool does still retain support for KML/KMZ files, which can include flight-path data and camera settings.
What I would like to do, and what I am soliciting ideas or improvements for, is the ability to somehow export my Enscape animation path and camera settings to KML format (or vice-versa from GES KML to Enscape animation path) so that - at the end of the day - I can generate the same animation in GES and Enscape, and superimpose the Enscape content on top of the GES content for each frame using After-Effects or a script/action in Photoshop.
This sounds like a tall order, but given the ability of each of these platforms to utilize detailed numbers for setting latitude, longitude, and altitude, as well as data for camera settings like pan, tilt, and focal length, (plus the ability of GES to generate 3D tracking points for After-Effects) I am hopeful that this workflow might be a possibility, either now or in the near future. If it is, it would be of huge benefit for us, as - in the business of designing airports - we would love to do more aerial animations without having to invest the significant amounts of man-hours that it takes to develop site context which can sometimes be spread out over hundreds of acres.
I would love to hear any suggestions from the developers or ideas from other users about how to go about making this workflow a reality.
Cheers,
Thomas