84 PB

TwinMoTion & SiMlab coMpoSer

VerdictAll in all, this is an excellent new release and we’d highly recommend either upgrading or trying it out for the first time

Price €1,650Website twinmotion.abvent.comOS Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10RAM 8GB minimumGPU Nvidia GTX 770 / AMD Radeon R9 280X

minimumHDD space 5GB minimum

Essential info

SummaryFeaturesPerformanceDesignValue for money

Twinmotion 2016

Twinmotion has excelled itself once again. Right from the inception of this software a few years ago we’ve been impressed by not only its commitment to innovation but also its clear desire to provide features that actually make a difference in the lives of artists on live projects. The adoption of real-time software like this can often seem daunting for traditional artists but Twinmotion makes that process as pain free as is humanly possible.

Let’s take a quick look at a typical visualisation project to see how incredibly useful this piece of software is to all artists. Firstly, you’ll have made your 3D model in another piece of software and Twinmotion enables that import via many of the major file types that you’ll be working with, such as FBX, DWG and C4D.

Secondly, you want to get some light and create an environment. Simple sliders enable you to customise the lighting, the sky and even particles such as rain and snow – the incredible thing is that you can see all of these before your eyes in real time. In terms of the surround, you can populate your scene with vast amounts of vegetation, suitable for gardens or forests alike. All of these are even animated!

Thirdly, you can make use of Twinmotion’s massive materials library to dress your model. These are incredibly handy but we have to say that this is still an area where there is room for much improvement. What Twinmotion is achieving in

terms of realism at real-time speeds is truly incredible and we can’t wait to see the boundaries of more photorealistic materials be pushed in the coming years.

All of that was possible with previous versions, though, so let’s look at a couple of new features that users can look forward to in the new release.

Firstly, there’s BIMmotion, which extends your models to clients who don’t own a licence of Twinmotion. It’s essentially a viewer and we can really see this being adopted by many agencies for pre-vis purposes. Twinmotion enables you to get something set up at breakneck speeds and BIMmotion gives your client access to it.

Secondly, and this feature is amazing, there is ‘True landscape’ that lets you create topology from Google Earth. It’s real 3D topology and even takes the texture. This really is incredible and we’re looking forward to finding other uses for it in the coming months.Paul Hatton

We get stuck into the latest release of the real-time visualisation and 3D immersion software

ToP Setting up a forest scene is particularly easy with Twinmotion’s preset terrains and preset vegetation. Simple drag, drop and paint solutions are easy to work with

BoTToM Lighting and shadows are instantly applied to your scene with real-time feedback as you adjust the lighting and customise the materials

084_3DA_Review TWNMOTION.indd 84 12/01/2016 14:35