Revit Cloud Rendering improvements

We are happy to announce the significant improvements made to the Autodesk Revit Cloud Rendering, which have been released on Dec 9th, 2018. 

The new version of our cloud rendering engine improves on quality and fixes old issues. As many old projects might have been tuned to look right with the old version of the engine, you will notice that new rendering will look different.

As the new version is more strictly photoreal and relies on correct inputs (especially materials settings), some adjustment to old projects might be necessary to get the best results.

We suggest using the new Revit material types (especially for mirrors, metals, and glazing) and to follow the guidelines reported below whenever possible.

 

Feature Improvement

1. Quality improvements with new rendering engine

• There are significant improvements in quality in some scenes, both standard and final. A newly added denoising algorithm can often produce noise-free renderings in cases where the previous algorithm would show noise even in "final" quality.

Standard Quality Before	Standard Quality After

 

2. Materials Appearance Consistency with Revit in-product

• The cloud renderer used to have a different implementation of legacy materials (which originate from Mental Ray) than the in-product Revit renderer. This is now fixed, and both in-product and cloud are based on the same shader codebase. Any remaining mismatches are likely to be due to data translation issues, not shader differences; please report them as bugs.

Before	After	In Product

 

• If the new physically based Revit materials are used instead (Revit 2019 or later)， local and cloud rendering should always match.
• Documentation about the new physically based materials is available here:
  • Full documentation
  • Introductory document

 

3. Lights enhancement

• The previous rendering engine had a corner darkening issue. In new renderings, this problem is fixed.

Before	After

 

• The previous rendering engine had problems with area lighting close to other surface, causing light splotches. This problem is gone now.

Before	After

• Note, several bugs have been fixed in the cloud renderer that have not yet been ported back to Revit. This will still lead to some differences and will be fixed in a later version of Revit. Until then, the cloud result should be treated as correct.

 

4. Water Wave Height

• Old water materials will have an incorrect Wave Height because their settings were unitless. Exaggerated water surface can be easily fixed editing the material. There is no specific rule on how much the Wave Height value should be lowered. Set it to what looks right for your scene.

Default wave height	Reduced wave height

 

5. Scenes with no lights

• Rendering a scene with no lights (closed room with no artificial lights) now renders a black image instead of flat colors.

Before	After

 

6. Panoramas

• Panoramas no longer support the solid color background option, but you can download a panorama image with Alpha channel and add the desired solid color background in an image editing application.

 

7. Emissive decals

• In the meantime, emissive images like monitors can be achieved using the new Revit physically based opaque material. This guarantees that they are physically accurate and much more realistic.

Before	After	With Opaque emissive material

8. IES web orientation

• We fixed an issue that was causing IES webs to be rotated in the wrong direction. Be aware that re-rendering old files you might get different lighting.

 

9. Missing textures behavior

• Missing textures will now be replaced by a black color instead of white. The Revit exporter, before uploading the processed scene for rendering, warns you about the textures that were not found. Make sure you check the list and understand that materials using those textures will not be able to use them.
• When rendering locally, the missing texture behavior might differ.

 

10. Performance

• The new service will show a significant increase in performance for rendering jobs with many frames (especially solar study, stereo panorama). These frames are now distributed to separate cloud nodes for rendering, instead of rendering sequentially on a single node.

 

11. New Post Processing tool

• A new image post-processing widget replaces Exposure Adjustment and adds several features.

Old UI	New UI

• A few preset curves are provided, providing a simple way to switch between looks: linear, neutral, mild and vivid. A custom curve can still be chosen, by manually setting the highlights, midtones and shadows parameters from the previous version of the widget.

Linear	Neutral	Mild	Vivid

 

• A new bloom effect is very useful to achieve additional realism, by simulating low-frequency light leaking between pixels, an effect common in real cameras and human eyes. The true brightness of over-exposed areas (e.g. windows, light sources and specular highlights) can be made more obvious using this effect.

 

• Color correction and color preservation can now be turned on and off explicitly. Keeping them off is recommended and often looks better unless a specific look is desired.
• We have also improved the look of the automatic (“Advanced”) exposure.

 

12. Viewer changes for multi-frames renderings

• When view the in-progress rendering of multi-frames rendering like Solar Study and Turntable rendering, the viewer supports to show progressive rendering for each frame.

Old UI	New UI

 

13. Download menu for solar study

• New option to enable download of Solar study as video.

Old UI	New UI

 

Limitations and Best Practices

 

14. Overlapping geometry

• If you see circular artifacts on surfaces, it’s probably because there is overlapping geometry. Make sure your walls, ceilings, floors, glazing is not duplicated or intersecting. When overlapping geometry occurs, the renderer can’t consistently pick the material of one or the other surface.

 

15. Coincident lights geometry

• Placing a light shape coincident to a light fixture geometry can cause artifacts or missing light emission or visibility. Make sure you separate the light a bit to avoid this issue.
• Other issues could arise if the light is put behind a translucent, frosted, or semi-transparent material, as the renderer will have a hard time resolving paths to the light. Place the light in front and use a lightly emissive material for the shade behind it.

 

16. Point lights visible in reflections

• If you use point lights throughout your scene to add a certain amount of ambient light, those lights will appear in reflections on mirrors and glass surfaces.
• We suggest removing those lights and add real lights, as the renderer is strictly photoreal. After rendering you can adjust the exposure to bring up the mid-tones and brighten up the scene.

Before	After

 

17. Panorama and Stereo Panorama rendering

• The progressive rendering preview will not show all frames always. It will show the frames that are in progress or completed. If the advanced exposure has been set, the progressive preview will have different exposure with final one.

Progressive Preview

One side of the cube rendering is still in progress, while the other two are complete.

 

Progressive Preview (Advanced exposure)	Final (Advanced exposure)
Each side of the cube rendering has a slightly different exposure.	In the final rendering, the exposure is unified.

 

 

Comments

[Jennifer]

@Roberto
Thank you for getting back to me. I am running Revit 2018, is there another workaround?

[Chris]

The rendering wait time is faster now but the quality is still poor. I wish you would solve this problem soon too.

[Roberto]

@Jennifer. With Revit 2018 you can try using solid glass. The Glazing material makes some odd assumptions and it becomes impossible to get the right transmission color. With solid glass the new renderer can actually use the old material in a physically accurate way. Transmission color will have to be adjusted but then it will be consistent.
https://myshare.autodesk.com/:i:/g/personal/roberto_ziche_autodesk_com/Ea-dgGpea2dAsIiHXm_iS2gBSLGx-UslHSHR68Fgm5TyGg?e=WSmcn7

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Lina,

The I tried the panorama and stereo panorama can be opened and viewed on Iphone. Could you share your link to support.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com to let me check it?

[Sally]

Hi @Martin,

We just fixed a problem that panorama cannot be viewed on public gallery. Please try it again, Any problem you could contact with support.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com

[Sally]

Hi @Chris,

About the poor quality issue, could you share your Autodesk Id and the camera name to let me check it? You could contact me with suppor.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com

[Phil Sh]

sending a render to the autodesk cloud rendering service causes Revit 2019 & Revit 2018 to crash every time

[Sally Dong]

Could you check if your installed NBS plug-in in Revit? If yes, please uninstall it and try again.

[Sally Dong]

@Phil,
Could you check if your installed NBS plug-in in Revit? If yes, please uninstall it and try again.

[Darko Cvetkovic]

Hello autodesk, I was so excited when you inform us about this new upgrade, but I mast tell you that old rendering was much better, I have review posts from other users here, and yes I agree rendering time is now much more faster, it is fast, but image quality and colors are now much darker...I mean, I am using your cloud as architect student for last 2 years, and I always use your HDRI for my renderings, and now new HDRI makes my renderings more darker, colors are different, glass it is not glass anymore...I mean old rendering was much better...and I do not know what to do now? Can you please help me, so I can get logic how this new render works so I can correct things? Hope somebody will answer me. Thank you in advance!

[Darko Cvetkovic]

Hello again, I forgot to mention that I am using Revit 2017, and main problem is that whole HDRI makes whole scene darker, I mean I get it that you changes some stuff, but please can you let me know what I need to changes so my renderings are like they was before, also it would be of great use if there is some post for settings for main materials in revit for this new rendering, like for example for glass, wooden floor, concrete etc? This would be of great help for all architect that are using your product. Thank you autodesk for replaying to this.

[Roberto]

@Darko. The rendering engine change is significant, we know, but necessary. We went from one trying to keep compatibility with 10+ year old technology, to a brand new path tracer like other modern engines. Making the new renderer work with the old and unrealistic pieces coming in from Revit old workflows required some compromises.
For what I understand, your lighting issue should be fixable by adjusting the exposure of the renderings on the gallery.
Try submitting with Advanced or Native exposure (if you adjusted it for local rendering) and see which one gets better results. Then further adjust them in the gallery.
We are working on the glass noise. For other glass issues, like color darkening or hue shifting, change from Glazing to solid glass. It's the only way to get a physically correct material into the renderer.

[Mquizak]

i am using Revit 2017. When i rendered by using render Cloud, I could change and adjust exposuse with old version. And then, we get new update, that call "Post-processing". Now, i can't change exposuse with new engine. I really dont know why? Please help!

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Mquizak,

The post-processing is the new version of adjust exposure widget. All the parameters of expousre are included in the new UI. Please have a try and any problem please let me know.

[Mquizak]

Hi.
Thank for replying, Sally.

As normally, when i change a parameter, i can rerender, and create a new picture. But, all new views, which are rendered by new engine, when i change a parameter, i cant press "apply" button.

However, everything is fine with old views, which are rendered by old engine.

[Jiri D.]

I'm disappointed in rendering as a panorama now.
Now I was not no jobs in the forthcoming completion. Even after three days of assignment. The task can not be downloaded. And the break means canceling the entire rendering and the job disappears. But most importantly, the task has been deducted from credits.
When will once again be the job always render a store?

[Sally]

Hi @Jiri,

Could you share your autodesk ID to support.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com? So that we can check your renderings and compensate your lost credits. About the download problem, is the rendering completed?

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Mquizak,

Could you let me know what's the browser you used and where your rendering request come from? Revit or others software?

[Mquizak]

Hi Sally,

Iam using Google Chrome,and render from Revit model

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Mquizak,

Thanks for your reply. I tried on my revit project and it can work good. so could you provide more information about the problem? Why can't you apply the settings? Is the apply button is always disabled for your or nothing happened after you click apply button? We have a known issue that sometimes, it need to click on the Apply button twice to apply the settings to create a new rendering.

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Mquizak,

Could you check the version of your Chrome browser? And what's your OS ?

[Mquizak]

Hi, Sally, I have just updated my Browser, and maybe it's fine now.
However, It still remain a bug, and I must click 2-3 times apply button.
Thank for your supports.

As a revit user, we aslo need a guide for explaining what change with new render engine.
Example: I model a Black car, and render with new Engine, I get a Gray car. Sometimes, i get similar issues with glasses.

By the way, thank you a lot. my problem is solved

[Sally Dong]

@Mquizak,

Most of the changes are listed in this announcement. About the render quality issue, could you share a Revit test file to support.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com to let me check it? Thanks in advanced!

[chris williams]

Great new update. Except that you issued it before you got the bugs out. Please learn to TEST, TEST, TEST, because it is causing us users a fair bit of time and adjustment with our current projects.

Is there a way to get the links to view on a phone?

[Sally Dong]

Hi @Chris,

You are right.
Currently on web portal, panorama and stereo panorama can be shared via link in a phone. The share via link button is beside the share button on the right top of the panorama viewer.If you cannot find it, please send email to support.autodesk360.rendering@autodesk.com so that I can show an image to you.