Render Them Speechless

Our website has a new design! Tell us what you think.

As a Cloud rendering customer, you will be happy to learn that our website, specifically the My Renderings page, has a new design. Try out this new interface, give us feedback and earn rewards!

 

In order to get access to this new user interface, click on "Try new interface" button located on the right of the top navigation bar. 

You can always revert back to the old UI, if you'd like to continue with the old workflow by clicking on "Return to old interface"

We are excited about bringing this new interface to you and would love to hear your feedback. Let us know if you have suggestions for improvement or if something is not working in the new workflow. Also, let us know if you love it! You can do that by clicking on the feedback button and filling out the feedback form. 

 

Customers who give us more feedback and input will receive a reward after the 30-day trial period ends. So keep sending us your input. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Note that the functionality of uploading Autocad or Fusion files directly from Step 1 page will not be available from the new interface. We have found that very few people use this function. Remember that you can render in Cloud from products like Revit, Fusion, Autocad, Navisworks and 3DS Max.

Connected panoramas using Cloud rendering

Many of our rendering customers have asked us for a way of connecting various stereo panorama renderings, to get a connected, immersive VR experience. You can do this now using Autodesk Cloud Rendering and Autodesk Project Play.

See this example of connected stereo panoramas that we created - https://play.autodesk.com/pub/au2016pano View this on your mobile phone with VR glasses (like cardboard) for a complete VR experience.

Here are the steps for creating your own connected experience. 

1. Render stereo panoramas - First, render stereo panorama renderings that you would like to connect with each other using Cloud rendering. It is a good idea to create preview renderings first and test your lighting, materials and cameras. Then render the views in final quality at 1536 px resolution. Do not render larger than that since most cell phones may not be able to handle large resolution files. 

2. Download panorama - Once your panoramas are rendered, download panorama as a zip file. 

 

3. Prepare images - The only file you need for Play is image.png. This is a high resolution image with two rows - one is the right eye image and the other is the left eye image. You have to slice this image into 12 individual JPG images and label them 0.jpg to 11.jpg. You can do this with any image editing software that you prefer, like Photoshop. You can also use ImageMagick to this in an automated way.

ImageMagick instructions.

• Download and install ImageMagick depending on your operating system.
• Open up your command-line console.
• Navigate to the folder where you put your image.png
• Run the command: convert image.png -crop 1536x1536 %d.jpg (Note: if convert does not work, use magick image.png -crop 1536x1536 %d.jpg) 
• Once done, it should produce the 12 images that you need. 

  

4. Link panoramas - In order to link these panoramas together, use Autodesk Project Play. Here are detailed instructions for doing that.

Let us know how this works for you in your VR projects. 

 

50 million renderings!

We are announcing a big milestone today - we have reached 50 million renderings!

Autodesk Cloud rendering community has been growing immensely and we are constantly amazed by the work produced by all of you. Our mission is to make rendering easily accessible and usable by every architect, designer, engineer, builder and maker. This milestone brings us closer to that mission.

To celebrate this milestone, we want to share with you the Rendering customer show reel for 2016. Thanks to everyone who contributed towards this! We will be showcasing this reel at Autodesk University in Las Vegas next week. If you plan on being there, do connect with us. We will be at the VR booth in Building Design and Construction area of the Exhibit Hall.

 

Many of our users continue to share their images and panoramas on the Rendering Gallery. Take the time to check it out. If you haven't already, join the community and share your own work there too.

As always, we love hearing from you on our Rendering forum. Tell us what you love and what you would like to see added to the roadmap.

We love seeing your work - so get out there and keep rendering!

Download Stereo Panorama for GearVR

Since many Rendering customers have been asking for this, I'm happy to let all of you know that we have added Download Stereo Pano for GearVR as an option for stereo panorama renderings. If you want to view your stereo panoramas on GearVR, you no longer need to process the images using ImageMagick and run scripts. We have simplified the process. In order to use this,

• Render a stereo panorama.
• Go to My Renderings, click on the thumbnail and choose "Download Stereo Pano for GearVR"
• A zip file is downloaded to your computer containing the image file and .json file. You can rename the files, if needed. 
• Please note that  if you have rendered a large size stereo panorama, it will take a long time to process and download. 
• Copy these files to your Samsung phone's media folder. 

Remember that, if you want all the original files, you can "Download Stereo-Pano as Zip".

Have fun rendering and viewing your images on Samsung GearVR.

All Your Rendering Questions Answered

This week, Aradhana Vaidya from the A360 Rendering team answered all of your rendering questions in a webinar, but just because you missed the live Q&A session doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the answers.

Below are just some of the questions answered in the session:

• What is the render engine that’s used in the cloud and how does it work?
• What products does A360 Rendering support?
• How much time does it take to complete a rendering?
• How does A360 Rendering get the settings for lights, sun, quality, and more?

Piqued your interest? We recorded the entire session so you don’t have to miss a thing:

 

Have more questions about A360 Rendering? Join us on the forums to connect with A360 Rendering experts.

Webinar - A360 Rendering: Your questions answered

We are excited to announce a new style of webinar for A360 Rendering - a Q&A session to answer all of your burning questions.

Live on May 24, 2016 at 11:00 AM PDT. Register here.

The A360 Rendering team’s Customer Success Engineer, Aradhana Vaidya, will present the webinar. This is a great opportunity to get your Rendering questions answered, as well as learn something new from other users' questions. We will prepare material leading up to the webinar to cover as many topics as possible. Send your questions prior to the webinar to: [email protected]

Don't worry if you don't have questions, you'll definitely come away learning something new!

The webinar is free so sign up now before spots fill up! The session goes live on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 11am PST and will last about one hour.

UPDATE - This webinar has now ended. We have recorded the session and posted the video here.

 

Further updates to stereo panorama renderings

We are excited to let you know that we have made further updates to stereo panorama renderings.

• Stereo panorama renderings can now be sent directly from Revit. In Revit 2013 UP1 and above, you will see it as an output type in the "Render in Cloud" settings window. Note that if you are using Revit 2012, you will not see it in the drop-down menu. But as always, you can render a still image and re-render as a stereo panorama from the My Renderings portal

 

• Stereo panorama downloaded links (zip file containing pano.html) can directly be opened in the browser, Firefox or Internet Explorer. Prior to this fix, the html file had to appended with ?url=image or ?mono=image . This will not have to be done anymore and the link will work directly. Please note that since Chrome browser does not let you open local files directly, if using Chrome, you have to launch with this flag --allow-file-access-from-files. Example: file:///C:/Users/xyz/Desktop/stereo/pano.html

New version of Stereo Panorama renderings

Are you someone who has been using stereo panorama renderings for client presentations and visualizing your interior spaces? If so, you'll be excited to know that we now have a new version for stereo panorama with enhancements. We listened to all the feedback provided by our customers and worked towards providing these features.

Here is what you will see with the new stereo panorama

• Oculus Rift support. You now have the ability to view your stereo panorama renderings using not only VR cardboard googles, but also devices like Oculus Rift. Instructions here.
• Render in different resolutions based on your device screen resolution.
• Free renderings available by selecting the low-resolution standard quality render, which is good for previewing. Pay using cloud credits for final high-resolution renders.
• A 360 degree preview for renderings available in the My Rendering gallery.
• Full-screen viewing of your renderings can be done in the browser.
  
• Download your renderings as a zip file which contains the left and right images, html file and instructions.
• Composite your own environment by downloading image file (png) which has an alpha channel.
• See progressive updated view of your rendering as it proceeds. 
• Ability to view renderings in offline mode.
• Render As -> Stereo panorama from a regular panorama rendering.

The process to create these renderings remains the same and we hope you see value in these enhancements. As always, let us know if you have questions or need more information. 

Steps to generate stereo panoramas are here. 

FAQs are here. 

Join us at Autodesk University 2015

Autodesk University 2015 - our annual user conference in Las Vegas, is just 2 months away. Excitement is building! Every year, Autodesk University is full of advanced trainings on Autodesk products, updates about important industry trends, and networking opportunities with industry peers.

This year, Rendering in A360 will be back at AU and better than ever. We’ll be a part of the A360 booth (#1413) showing off new features, a special virtual reality demo, hands-on labs, spectacular renderings from our gallery, and much more!

If you love using Rendering in A360 and everything it allows you to do, then join the thousands of Autodesk customers and register for AU now!

Here's why you should join in on the A360 Rendering fun at AU:

1. View Stunning 3D Panoramas through our Virtual Reality Panorama viewer

In the A360 booth, we’ll have a fun, hands-on virtual reality experience that lets you view and navigate through panorama renderings using our VR goggles. You'll be able to view some examples that we have rendered to become immediately immersed in a virtual world. We will also show you how you can create your own Architectural panorama renders and view them through VR goggles.

2. Learn About new Cloud rendering features in Fusion 360

See how you can create renderings of your Fusion 360 designs on the Cloud. We will demo the Asset browser, new materials in Fusion like Solid Wood and many more exciting features.

3. Interactive Rendering Demo

We’ll be showing off our Interactive Rendering feature, a real-time photorealistic-rendering environment that makes creating beautiful images and turntable animations super-easy. We’ll have videos and hands-on demo stations available for users to try out and render something beautiful of their own!

See you at AU in December 2015.

20 Million Renders!

Just eight months ago, we shared the news of our 10 Millionth Render with you. Today, less than a year later, we are announcing another big milestone—we’ve reached 20 Million Renderings! 

Our rendering community has been growing steadily, and we’re endlessly amazed by the rendering skills of users like you who have uploaded their work to our public Rendering Gallery. Our mission is to make rendering ubiquitous and effortless for every architect, designer, engineer, artist, maker and consumer, and this milestone proves that our mission is quickly becoming a reality.

The gallery continues to get increasingly impressive renderings, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know some of those Rendering Pros on the blog and seeing how they like to use A360 Cloud Rendering, their tips & tricks, and more.

Users like you have inspired us to make exciting enhancements, offering everything from turntable animations and solar studies to stereoscropic panorama renderings for viewing your designs in 3D.  

We want to continue to serve the needs of users like you—so please, tell us what you love, and what you’d like to see more of in our A360 Rendering Forum.

If you haven’t already, join the thousands of users who are inspiring others by uploading their work to our Rendering Gallery.

For more Tips & Tricks from some of those users, check out our Rendering Pro series on the blog.

Now, let’s keep the momentum going!