DIMENSION PLUS - Blog #twinmotion

Zaha Hadid Architects turns to Twinmotion for early design studies

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 17:33:00 +0530

Blog Credit : Twinmotion

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is one of the most well-known and creative architectural firms in the world. The business was founded by the late famous architect Zaha Hadid, who was known as the “Queen of the Curve” for her iconic futuristic structures made of materials such as steel, concrete, and glass with remarkable curves and geometric patterns.
ZHA has long used Unreal Engine to create VR visualizations as part of its design process. It has also begun to use Twinmotion , a rapid real-time application, to iterate on ideas and disseminate them to stakeholders.

Fast real-time workflows for architectural designers

ZHA works on projects of different sizes and locations all over the world. In line with its eponymous founder’s boundary-pushing mentality, the business has a reputation for creative, experimental design.
When you have an idea that is entirely out of the box, the problem is expressing it in a way that others can grasp. It’s simpler for people to understand the creative vision behind an idea if you can successfully convey it early on.
ZHA investigates new technologies on a regular basis in order to improve its design process and improve communication. It was one of the first companies to invest in computers, and it has a long history of R&D to find new ways to operate. These now include everything from digital manufacturing to artificial intelligence.

Twinmotion, a real-time archviz tool, was developed as a result of the firm’s exploratory attitude. ZHA has gained a quick and easy means to exhibit ideas both inside the company and to clients since implementing the programme, but getting its architectural designers to adopt the new tool was never a foregone conclusion.

Because designers are more comfortable with conventional tools like pen and paper than CG software, simplicity of use is 樂威壯 critical if they are to embrace new ways of working enthusiastically.
Designer Marko Margeta adds, “With new tools like Twinmotion, real-time becomes accessible and widespread.” “The ease of the interface, the fun with which you can express your scenes, and not having to worry about all the technical aspects that real-time generally entails, such as light maps, PBR processes, or other technical concerns, are all advantages of utilising Twinmotion for designers.”

Because of these benefits, the tool has rapidly become a firm favourite at the company, allowing designers to spend more time on the final touches that elevate a product from excellent to outstanding. “The designer can work on the design for seven hours a day, and then have just one hour to show and explain his idea to management—and then to the client.”
Twinmotion Cloud, a Twinmotion product that is presently in Early Access, has made those client presentations a lot easier. Twinmotion Cloud allows anyone to access a Twinmotion project from any location using a web browser on any Windows or macOS desktop, without having to download or instal anything, and without requiring high-end hardware—ideal for sharing work for review with clients in remote locations or during the current work-from-home climate. The functionality is being gradually rolled out and is presently only available to business licensees.

“In the past, we’d have to bring a PC to the client’s presentation simply to be able to execute the project in real time,” Margeta explains. “And that’s where Twinmotion Cloud comes in handy, because we no longer have to care about the PC.”
Now, the team can simply submit their product to the cloud for rendering, then stream it back to the local PC to view. “This allows us to be less concerned about hardware limitations,” Margeta continues. “Everything is taking place on the internet. The project manager may access the model, examine it, and provide quick feedback to you from any location.”

Take it further with Unreal Engine

Quixel has partnered with Epic Games to provide an universe of lifelike 3D scanned materials, textures, and objects accessible to Twinmotion and Unreal Engine users for free.
Designers may use this technique to increase the photorealism of Twinmotion scenes significantly. In the most recent Twinmotion version, Quixel Megascans 3D assets and surface categories have been integrated directly into the Twinmotion library, providing quick access to new high-quality assets and materials. Because assets are stored in the cloud and downloaded locally as needed, the programme has no additional file size overhead.

“We’ve always wanted to use Quixel models, and they’ve lately introduced buildings and facades that allow us to create great urban environments,” Margeta adds. “It’s as simple as dragging and dropping using the Quixel integration right into Twinmotion. The immersiveness and realism of the project are greatly enhanced by these high-quality models.”
ZHA has also enthusiastically adopted the Twinmotion Importer for Unreal Engine, which is still in Beta. Teams may now start a project in Twinmotion and finish it in Unreal Engine, thanks to this much-requested feature. Anyone can simply work with Twinmotion to build the basic idea and then send the project over to Unreal Engine to expand it.
“Early design studies always work great with Twinmotion,” Margeta explains, “but once a project reaches a certain level of complexity, where it may require more customized, streamlined data flow or more sophisticated presentation methods, we switch from Twinmotion to Unreal with the Twinmotion Importer.”

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Season 1 : BIM Synergy

Elevation Presentation in Archicad

Urban Planning Visualisation with Twinmotion

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 17:33:00 +0530

Blog Credit : Twinmotion

Effective urban planning is about more than redesigning cities and towns. At its core, it’s about local democracy —the idea that the people who use a space—and whose taxes go towards its development—should have a stake in it.
Public participation is widely regarded as critical for ethical—and successful—urban planning. When residents are given an insight into the development process, the community takes better care of the area, demonstrates greater goodwill towards the project, and enjoys a higher level of user satisfaction once it’s completed. Because of this, the way proposed infrastructure works are communicated is incredibly important.
Previously, local authorities might have relied solely on pencil-drawn sketches or miniature models to explain their plans. Now, interactive 3D tools enable them to provide compelling animations to go alongside static renders. These real-time visualizations provide a much more accurate sense of how the development will change the area.

Fast and effective urban planning visualisation

Nestled among the pine forests of south-west France lies Sophia Antipolis, the French Riviera's answer to California's Silicon Valley. It might seem like an unlikely spot for global technology giants and high-tech startups—but since its opening in 1969, Sophia Antipolis has attracted big names in technology, including Amadeus, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft.
The whole place is laid out as a park, with a notable absence of straight roads and an abundance of trees. In fact, two thirds of Sophia Antipolis is maintained as green areas. There’s also a firm sense of belonging—people based here identify strongly with the place, even calling themselves “Sophiepolitans”.

Given the residents' pride in the area, it’s understandable that when the region’s administrative authority wanted to undertake major infrastructure works, they needed an effective way to communicate the plans to the public.
The works proposed by the Sophia Antipolis Agglomeration Community (CASA) were for a new bus and tram route infrastructure. Designed to take the pressure off Sophia Antipolis’ transport network as the technology park grows, the bus/tram route includes 17 new stations, along with cycle lanes. The entire project has to deliver on a promise of sustainable development.
To help the public understand its proposed plans, CASA commissioned Egis, a major international group involved in the construction, engineering, and mobility services sectors, to deliver a range of communication materials, as well as infrastructure studies. These would showcase a major section of the bus and tram route, and include a mix of video and still images.
The Egis team opted to use fast archviz tool Twinmotion to create these assets. While Twinmotion is perhaps best known for its efficacy in creating smaller residential visualizations, it’s increasingly proving its scalability on larger urban development projects like this.

Bringing different datasets together easily.

Egis’ first task was to digitally replicate the areas of Sophia Antipolis that would be affected by the development. It created a model of the works’ contextual environment based on data from OpenStreetMap—a global collaborative mapping project—combined with data from a topographic survey that was carried out on site to improve the accuracy of the digital model.
The building models lining the bus-tram route were also created using open data and textured with façades from InfraWorks, Autodesk’s civil infrastructure design tool. The team created the models for the proposed new roads and infrastructure facilities from scratch using BIM infrastructure software Mensura Genius. Models from these and other third-party tools were exported to Twinmotion as IFC, SKP, and FBX files. “Data transfer to Twinmotion was pretty easy,” says William Weltzer, Project Engineer at Egis.

Twinmotion has been used by Weltzer for almost a year. The program is a perfect fit for urban planning tasks for him. “It’s a fantastic communication tool—it makes it a lot easier for customers and the general public to comprehend the project than old-school tools,” he adds. “You can show anything in three dimensions, with moving cars and plants, as well as realistic lighting and shadows. You can even visualize what the project will look like once it is completed from the perspective of a pedestrian.”
With all of the data in Twinmotion, Egis was able to use the tool’s robust feature set to bring the visualization to life. It was realistically populated with genuine features such as people and traffic to simulate how traveling along the bus-tram line would feel. “Twinmotion was tremendously helpful in producing the dynamic vehicle trajectories seen in the video,” Weltzer adds. “Moreover, creating the gorgeous and lively greenery with the paintbrush was simple.”

Because Twinmotion has been designed with ease of use in mind, it enables teams to create visualizations quickly—ideal for meeting tight deadlines. “Twinmotion enabled us to produce photorealistic renderings without spending too much time in production,” says Weltzer. “It’s very user-friendly and has features that are useful and relevant for our projects. “In my opinion, it has the tools best suited for what we do.”
Egis is one of a number of firms that has recognized it can capitalize on Twinmotion’s fast workflows to deliver big projects like these. Beyond the architects and designers using the tool for residential projects, there’s a growing pool of urban planners and government agencies using Twinmotion to visualize large swathes of urban areas—even entire cities.
With new updates being made to Twinmotion all the time, project engineers like Weltzer can look forward to even more improvements to their urban planning visualization workflows. “I can’t wait to discover the new features and optimizations you’re working on to make our renderings even better!” he concludes.

DIMENSION PLUS - Blog #twinmotion

Zaha Hadid Architects turns to Twinmotion for early design studies

Fast real-time workflows for architectural designers

Take it further with Unreal Engine

Create box window outside casing

Season 1 : BIM Synergy

Elevation Presentation in Archicad

Urban Planning Visualisation with Twinmotion

Fast and effective urban planning visualisation

Bringing different datasets together easily.

Multiply option in Archicad

Classification & Properties in Archicad

BIM Management with Solibri Home Panel