Twinmotion 2020: The Real Time Rendering Revolution

EPIC GAMES released Twinmotion 2020 in March of this year as part of their goal to democratise the world of real-time rendering in the AEC market. It has been developed to be one of the the simplest real-time rendering packages available on the market to produce high-quality visualisations. This is no mean feat considering it has several major competitors offering visualisation for 3D Models, rendering and animation.

In this article we aim to breakdown what we consider to be the main features of Twinmotion 2020 and evaluate whether Twinmotion is the package you should add to your rendering arsenal.

What Is Twinmotion 2020?

Twinmotion 2020 is a real-time immersive 3D architectural visualisation tool to produce high quality CGI, animations, and standard or 360° VR videos without the usual long render times. Twinmotion uses a simple and intuitive interface combined with the sheer power of Unreal Engine. Uniquely, the software is truly cross platform and available for both Mac OSX and Windows users which gives it a key advantage over other applications.

Twinmotion 2020 has focused on its visual quality by being built on top of Unreal Engine as the worlds most recognised game engine. This new version has gained impressive crossovers from Epic such as it integrations with Quixel, AXYZ, and Xfrog which will explored later on in this article.

User Interface

One of the main advantages of Twinmotion is the simplicity of the user interface which make it easy to navigate and learn for new users. The icon driven interface make Twinmotion simple to move through and access tools you need to complete your visualisation project. As shown below, the simple format makes it clear how to navigate the interface and use the tools within the package at a simple click.

Speed

One of the main selling points of Twinmotion 2020 is that it runs extremely fast and smoothly, as long as your graphics card is up to the job. On our computer, a large fully modelled project of Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright with trees, plants and lighting and shadow settings turned on runs at staggering 60-70 FPS which is a more than manageable rate (check out the project in question here).

This allows the user to still fly over, pan and orbit a fully modelled project in real time without any lagging experience or loading issues.

Lighting

Twinmotion has now made significant improvements to its lighting. The addition of a physically-based atmospheric sun and sky models to improve its visual of natural lighting. Epic Game have added small tweaks such as changing the level of visual detail in shaded areas and over exposure in overly lit areas to improve its image quality.

The addition of lens flares and area lighting provides further image quality improvements which are usually found in more expensive or more difficult to learn rendering packages such as Unreal Engine.

Model Textures

Twinmotion has now included crossovers from EPIC such as Quixel which allows users to import over 10,000 photo scanned materials into Twinmotion directly. These photo scanned materials have really improved the image quality of Twinmotion's scenes to allow them to look extremely realistic. Video textures are now able to placed onto objects such as TV’s to make them ‘play’ in the scene adding further depth.

The 2020 version has now replaced its old 3D animated characters with photo scanned assets from AXYZ design. This allows up to 62 detailed animated, posable people which greatly enhances the realism of the scene for animated paths and images.These changes make the real time aspect more realistic and allows Twinmotion to be able to compete with the top rendering softwares 

Vegetation

The vegetation aspects have had a huge overhaul in the 2020 version, being upgraded with new trees from Xfrog collections. Similar to material textures, the brushes for grass and other vegetation now are upgraded as part of the Megascans library. Epic have also improved the mapping and image detail in the vegetation to make images look way more realistic.

New tools have been added as part of the vegetation upgrade in the 2020 release. Vegetation scattering adds vegetation quickly by painting the selected elements onto the layer with a single click. Once placed, the vegetation can be modified through density and growth. This allows you to build entire natural looking forests and grassy fields in mere seconds.The new growth tool now lets user simulate the age of vegetation to see how the trees would age over time and change in geometry. Instead of changing the size of the tree, the tool takes the tree through its life cycle by changing its branches, trunk and more which is revolutionary.

Image and Animation Quality

With the development of Twinmotion 2020. Epic wanted to focus on the image quality of the package to make it look more realistic which they have definitely achieved. The changes to the lighting as outlined previously along with small tweaks to shadows and volumetric lights have really improved the scenes without sacrificing the speed performance. The massive overhaul with their libraries and vegetation have further allowed scenes to look more photocell without being hidden behind paywalls which is all too common in this market. Epics acquisition of Quixel and Megascans to combine it as part of Twinmotion has really made it stand out to me in this new release.

Twinmotion’s main advantage is that the working scene looks very similar to its final output unlike other packages which look drastically different resulting in extra long rendering times. It keeps its main attraction of speed by being able to export final images and animations in minutes which is what a real time visualisation should be all about.

Price

The one aspect of Twinmotion you will certainly love is its price.

Licences of Twinmotion of 2020 are available now with a special 55% discount at ￡175 from www.Real-Time-Rendering.com along with free upgrades to December 2021. This is staggering low compared to licences of other softwares such as Lumion at ￡2665 per licence.

Our Conclusion

Twinmotion’s simple interface makes it easy to learn over a couple of days for even those new to rendering softwares. The extremely low price point compared to other softwares makes Twinmotion worth picking up for anyone within the architecture, urban, interior or landscape design industry. The increasing uptake of Twinmotion is making it an essential asset considering the potential connection with Unreal Engine and direct links to other modelling softwares.

Twinmotion 2020 is currently priced at ￡175 at the continuing launch discount from RRP of ￡390 until September. Get your licence through Real Time Rendering with expert advice and free materials and sample tutorials within Twinmotion. There is also an option to purchase with a 12 part video training video series with 50% off. For more information, quotes or advice, please email us at: [email protected]

Please click here for a full list of pricing and to purchase your Twinmotion 2020 licence.

Pros: 

• Twinmotion runs on both Mac and Windows with strong performances which are able to be scaled based on your computers capabilities. 
• It’s easy to use interface allows users to learn the software at a high pace.
• Has direct-links with popular 3D modelling softwares such as SketchUp & Rhino.
• Has an interactive environment with seasonal/weather effects such as rain and rain.
• High quality visuals for a low price point.
• Much lower price point than any of its competitors in the industry.
• Free Megascans included through Epic acquisitions for Twinmotion users.

Cons:

• Needs more stability testing which will most likely rolled out as part of the free upgrade as part of licence purchase.
• More direct-links for other software such as Vectorworks which are currently being created.

Written by George Wain and Jonathan Reeves at Jonathan Reeves Architecture.