Looks like SW is incorporating Bunkspeed's Shot rendering offering in 2016.
Does this kill off PhotoView 360?
http://files.solidworks.com/pdf/SW2016_Visualize_DS_ENG.pdf
"SolidWorks Professional and Premium now come with SolidWorks Visualize"
Looks like SW is incorporating Bunkspeed's Shot rendering offering in 2016.
Does this kill off PhotoView 360?
http://files.solidworks.com/pdf/SW2016_Visualize_DS_ENG.pdf
"SolidWorks Professional and Premium now come with SolidWorks Visualize"
No, this does not kill off PhotoView 360. Just an additional rendering tool at your disposal.
Dassault purchased a company called RTT a few years ago. RTT owned Bunkspeed. So...... Dassault now owns Bunkspeed.
A few of us have been wondering how DS was going to market Bunkspeed to SolidWorks users. Now we know....
So instead of fixing the obvious shortcomings and bugs of PhotoView 360, Assault Systems introduces yet another render system, leaving users stranded with less than optimum solutions. I firmly believe that Assault Systems has lost the plot; trying to substitute quality software with easy, ready-purchased solutions that only satisfies users with few requirements
We have always had the option of using third-party solutions such as Bunkspeed, KeyShot, VRay, Maxwell, etc., but they all have their pros and cons and they all require A LOT more time to render complex models than PV360, because of 1) the machine time to export from SolidWorks to a native render format AND the time to re-allocate appearances, setting up scenes and lighting, etc. The only scenario this works well for is when you have super-simple assemblies with few parts. I have models with thousands of appearances that takes HOURS to export to Maxwell, won't export to KeyShot at all, but render happily in PhotoView 360. Very interested to see how they are handled in Shot, but I don't hold high expectations.
No, this does not kill off PhotoView 360. Just an additional rendering tool at your disposal.
Great! Thanks Anna. The "What's new in 2016" actually shows a few nice enhancements to PV360, namely the proof sheets.
Though I'm even more psyched to see Shot coming with SW2016. From what I've seen, it looks even more realistic, and quicker to set up scenes, materials and lighting, than PV360.
Nice one Dassault!
Photoview 360 uses the Modo rendering engine. Modo belonged to Luxology that recently merged with "The Foundry", a company with a large portfolio of software for the animation and visual effects industry.
Modo is gaining popularity and I wonder if that has something to do with Solidworks buying Bunkspeed. Maybe the license to use Modo's rendering engine became more expensive, so in the long term DS will be forced to drop Photoview
SolidWorks didn't really "buy" BunkSpeed per say. Dassault purchased a company named "RTT" a couple years ago. RTT had purchased BunkSpeed at some point before DS purchased them. DS just happened to get BunkSpeed in another business transaction.
PhotoView will be around for a couple more releases I think. Doesn't make sense for DS to pay to license PV though if they have in house tech they can use. BS is built on Iray (which is owned by NVIDIA) and DS is already using Iray in Catia Live Render so there is really nothing new coming with BunkSpeed in terms of technology that I can see. It's just another "point and shoot" render app with a UI built around someones engine.
I don't like the sound of this, I've spent a long time working out a work flow which works for me using Modo and Solidworks. I've now reached the stage where I'm only enabling Photoview to export LXO to Modo, to add lights and cameras, then render in Modo. I apply decals and materials in Solidworks so all my drawings look right, any changes are made in Solidworks and are easily exported into my lit Modo file and re rendered without any concerns.
I'll be pretty annoyed if this goes...
Its pretty clear that this is an addition to solidworks, more aimed at people IE sales team etc who want to knock up a render without having to get the designer do it.
Have to wonder though if PV360 will be gone in a couple years. Kind of like how Photoworks was phased out a couple years after they brought PV360 on.
From what I could see of Bunkspeed Shot/SolidWorks Visualize, it is quicker to use and produces more realistic results than Photoview 360. So not sure why they would keep PV360 in that case. Especially if they are paying to license it, as Rob mentioned above.
I'm with John. Finding it hard to really invest in any SolidWorks based rendering tool when they're chopping and changing them all the time. Seems like it might be better going with a purely standalone renderer - at least that way you can learn it well and know you'll be able to rely on it being there years down the track.
I guess only time will tell what happens to PV360. I have a similar workflow to yours John for a lot of images. Losing the excellent translation to modo capabilities that exist now will be painful.
I don't really know if Shot/Visualize will be easier to use or produce better results than any other rendering package? There are only a handful on render engines that exist and they basically all have the same capability. The rendering application gives the render engine the UI and exposes what capabilities the user has. Some UI's are better than others and different applications have different capabilities. In the end all the "point and shoot" render packages (Shot, KeyShot, Showcase, etc) can produce equal quality images. A lot of rendering greatness comes down to the user, how creative they are and how well they can drive their software of choice. So, I'm sure there will be pro's and con's to SW Visualize like there are with all the other render packages.
One area that concerns me is the GPU engine in Shot/Visualize. I don't know a lot about this and I'll have to use the software and run some tests to really know but if Shot/Visualize is going to require higher end graphics cards to run at decent performance levels than that is going to be a problem for me. I don't want to invest many thousands of dollars into graphics cards just for a rendering application. I'd prefer to invest that money into CPU power, RAM and SSD drives where it benefits all my applications, not just one. I know Shot/Visualize has a CPU mode as well but again I'm not sure what kind of performance it has vs GPU mode. Need to test it out I suppose and go from there.
Keeps it interesting though doesn't it
I don't know why you think that Shot would be faster to use than PV360? You have to apply materials twice (once in SW and again in Shot). Also, PV360 is a pretty snappy compared with the major competitors, so why would Shot be faster if you don't have an insane graphics card to help with the rendering?
I fear that we'll never see the major PV360 bugs fixed now (not that I held high hopes) :-(
No, this does not kill off PhotoView 360. Just an additional rendering tool at your disposal.
Dassault purchased a company called RTT a few years ago. RTT owned Bunkspeed. So...... Dassault now owns Bunkspeed.
A few of us have been wondering how DS was going to market Bunkspeed to SolidWorks users. Now we know....