About.com Rating
Visit Their Website
One of the most difficult and time consuming skills to master in the 3D modeling world is the proper application of light and shadow to make your scenes photo-realistic. For years, it's been one of the major sticking points for many design firms: it simply takes too much time to effectively set up scenes and properly light them to make 3D rendering presentations cost effective. Building the model itself can be justified, particularly with the inherent capabilities of programs like Revit, Inventor and Civil 3D which are designed to work in a 3D environment for BIM and interference checking.
The costs associated with a high-end rendering presentation though are hard to pass along to the client so most AEC firms shy away from them, taking that extra step only when the client specifically requests it. While I understand the concerns, I've never agreed with their answer. I feel that photo-realistic renderings are one of the most powerful design tools on the market and they should be incorporated into nearly every design you do. Humans are visual creatures after all, we make decisions on nearly all aspects of our life and environment based on visual cues and providing clients and the public at large, with detailed visual representations of our design is the most efficient way to answer their questions and quell their concerns. Story boards, walk-throughs and animations.
What Does It Do?
To that end, Autodesk has put together their Showcase presentation software that quickly allows even a novice user to open any 3D modeled object, manipulate its materials, apply light and shadow, build fully rendered scenes and put them together to make full blown presentations in just minutes.
Showcase has intuitive selection and display tools that will be very familiar to anyone who has worked with any other Autodesk CAD package. With Showcase you can select any component part on your model, then with a simple right-click of the mouse have the program find all other components on the model that use the same material type, colors, etc. You can then use very simple tools to change color, reflectivity, texture and other presentation features of the selected objects. The changes you make are displayed in real time on your screen so you can see exactly how they will impact your final scene. You can also modify light and shadow in your scene with simple click-and-drag tools right on the screen itself. If you want to change the direction of the ambient light, just drag the shadow of you model to a different direction. Light intensity and highlight focus points are likewise modified through very simple point-click and slid bar interfaces with real time screen updates. The program even has a library of environments and background scenes that can be changed on the fly to help you show off your design in the most effective manner. You can even create your own background libraries for incorporation into future scenes.
What About Animation Presentations?
Showcase also has easy to use animation tools; most notably it has predefined presentation paths that you can choose, such as “orbit” or “zoom in” that are controlled through a very simple dialog where you can adjust animation speeds, fade in/out options, frame rates, and directions. Once you’re happy with your settings, the program can export the animation sequence as a series of stills for a storyboard, a slide show, or as a fully developed movie in most of the major video formats (.AVI, .MOV, .MP4, etc.) as well as directly publishing to YouTube or Flash formats for web presentation. The animations process very quickly, depending on the speed of your system of course, but I was able to render a 1:15 minute 1280x720 MP4 video on my Window 7 64 bit laptop with only 8 Gb of RAM in under five minutes. That’s pretty impressive. It’s even more impressive when you consider that the entire process of developing the animation controls themselves took under 15 minutes.
What Does It Cost?
Showcase sells for $1,045.00 per seat as a stand-alone package but it is also included in Autodesk’s Building Design Suite Premium bundle package for a much better price with a lot more tools. I don’t have information on the annual subscription cost for the stand-alone version since it’s part of my BDS package but I always recommend keeping your design software on subscription in order to maintain the latest updates and tools without having to go through large learning curves and the cost of purchasing an entire new version every few years.
Summary:
This is a great program that is both inexpensive, and incredibly simple to use. Anyone with basic computer skills (certainly anyone with a CAD background!) can take a 3D model and put together a professional looking presentation in no time at all. The program even comes with a series of “how-to” videos that will help you get started.
Visit Their Website