News
New pipeline links Twinmotion 2021.1 to Epic Games Unreal Engine winmotion, the easy-to-use arch viz tool that Epic Games acquired in 2019, finally has its long-awaited plug-in for Unreal Engine. It means Twinmotion projects can now be imported into the Unreal Editor. With this extended pipeline, an architect can communicate preliminary concept ideas—such as visually indicating the type of materials, lighting, context, and other project elements—in Twinmotion, and then pass the project on to a visualisation specialist for further refinement in Unreal Engine. Twinmotion 2021.1 also features Early Access to a new Presenter Cloud service that lets users publish a presentation to the cloud, and then share a URL with a collaborator or stakeholder. The service uses pixel streaming technology so all the graphics processing is done on a high-end GPU in the cloud and the collaborator can work interactively with the presentation on any desktop/laptop browser. The Presenter Cloud service is still in beta and being rolled out progressively. At the moment it is a free and exclusive service for those with a full commercial licence of Twinmotion. Phasing has also been added to Presenter files for this release, enabling users to remotely present different stages of a project’s construction schedule sequentially.
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Following the acquisition by Epic Games of Quixel Megascans in 2019, the new version comes with thousands of high-quality materials and assets integrated right into the Twinmotion library. Megascans 3D assets include high-quality objects in categories like buildings, food, industrial, and nature, while the surfaces offer a vast collection of high-fidelity materials covering everything from bark and bricks to marble and metal. There are an additional 140 new scene assets for the Twinmotion asset library, including 20 new Japanese and American trees, 60 furniture assets for populating
gyms and street workout areas, and 60 new ready-posed humans. Epic Games is also introducing a new Datasmith Direct Link for Revit, a first step in replacing the product’s Direct Link plugins with ‘more powerful, flexible versions’ that will support synchronisation with multiple files simultaneously, as well as making multiple improvements to lighting intensities, auto-exposure, and Bloom. There are also new non-realistic rendering styles—hidden line, hidden line shaded, wood model, metal model, and white model (clay render). ■ unrealengine.com/twinmotion
AEC Magazine’s thoughts on the new release Twinmotion led the way in easy-to-use arch viz tools and the new point release does not disappoint. But it goes way beyond a functionality boost. Users have been crying out for the ability to import Twinmotion scenes into Unreal Engine for some time. The new workflow means AEC firms can now more confidently start to develop viz assets in Twinmotion at the early stage of design and
then use them as the foundation on which to build high fidelity, cinematic quality interactive experiences in Unreal Engine. These could include accurate lighting and material scenarios, higherquality visualisation outputs, animations, and other advanced behaviours. This is by no means a finished project – for example, the importer does not bring across all Twinmotion assets
www.AECmag.com
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and it’s not yet possible to bring Unreal Engine assets into Twinmotion – but it’s certainly an important first step and gives Epic Games a big advantage over the competition. The Presenter Cloud service is another notable advancement for Twinmotion 2021.1 as it means anyone can now view Twinmotion content in full interactive 3D regardless of which device they are using.
Like most real-time viz tools, Twinmotion needs a high-end GPU to get the most out of the software, so putting this in the cloud makes huge sense. And, in true Epic Games fashion, the service will be free, at least for the time being. Twinmotion and Unreal development show some joined up thinking and 2021 is when the conversion really starts to deliver end-to-end arch viz workflows.
May / June 2021
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24/05/2021 08:41
