What do you think the Chaos - Enscape merger will bring?

[andybot]

Huge announcement! (At least for people in the rendering world)

Enscape and Chaos "merge" --> https://enscape3d.com/press/enscape-and-chaos-merge/

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

My hope is that V-Ray quality comes to Enscape. My fear is that V-Ray pricing comes to Enscape, as well as the slow development cycles. I am also afraid that this likely puts V-Ray for Blender even further out of reach, but unfortunately that seems to be a white whale for a shrinking sliver of rendering enthusiasts. I hope my pessimism is unwarranted, but pretty much every significant merger and acquisition we've seen in the rendering field has meant profits over service.

[andybot]

Interesting that the email that Enscape sent out says nothing about the private equity money behind the 2 companies. Here's the email, which has some notable differences from the public press release:

We have some exciting news to share with you today!

Enscape and Chaos, two of the most well-known names in visualization, have merged into one company dedicated to developing the world's greatest end-to-end ecosystem for visualization and collaboration.

Chaos is widely known as a world leader in visualization and computer graphics, offering an ecosystem of 3D rendering, real-time visualization, and simulation software. Chaos' flagship rendering solution, V-Ray, is the go-to visualization tool across multiple industries, supporting everything from architecture, product designs, and world-class advertising campaigns to visual effects in film and television.

Together with Enscape's unparalleled real-time rendering and design workflow optimization software, we have the unique opportunity to provide an entire range of tools to help architects, designers, and artists from diverse industries to visualize their ideas in the best way possible — from concept to completion.

The newly-combined company will operate under the Chaos brand name. We will continue to develop and sell all products from both company portfolios, including leading products, Enscape, V-Ray, and Corona. Both companies will work together to continue the development of your favorite products but also provide you with new innovative solutions and services to help you better visualize your ideas and designs.

As an Enscape customer, nothing will change for you in the short term. You can still expect the same high level of development, support, and commitment from us. We will continue developing Enscape as the leading real-time rendering and design workflow optimization software according to our planned roadmap.

Thank you for your continued trust in our company and our product. It's going to be an exciting year, and we're grateful to have you with us.

We'll have more to share with you soon, so stay tuned!

[solo]

With D5 and Twinmotion evolving at a rapid pace Chaos will need to either innovate or die.
I have more than one tool, Enscape is fun and fast but it has many limits, I use Twinmotion about as much as I use Enscape these days, so I'm not too concerned unless they jack up the prices.

[andybot]

Thanks for the insight. How do you find the less integrated workflow of Twinmotion compared to Enscape & Sketchup? Time is money, and I can do everything so much faster with Enscape. I was using a Sketchup to Blender/V-Ray workflow for a long time before switching to Enscape, and the productivity I've achieved was not possible before.

[solo]

Enscape has by far a better integration than Twinmotion currently, however, Twinmotion has a better video editor, animation options, reflections, volumetric lighting, and most importantly integration with Unreal engine that is the future IMO.

[rv1974]

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

I have even higher hopes regarding Vantage now (absolutely hate idea to switch to UE)

[andybot]

@solo I guess we have somewhat different use cases. Doing regular arch-viz, I don't need object animation (fly-throughs & panos are really all I need) or volumetric lighting. I keep seeing reports from various folks that UE is the future - but in what way for arch-viz specifically? So much of this depends on the CAD platform underneath, that the jumping back and forth during design is going to be a constant negative factor. Do you see any better integration in the future or is UE going to continue to be a separate platform?

[andybot]

Lol, I was like - "what's Vantage?" I see that it's a renaming of Chaos' Lavina realtime effort. Again - how does its integration with Sketchup look? Having gone back and forth over many years between different better or worse integrations with SU, I am not likely to ever choose a "linked" but not integrated rendering solution for primary rendering again.

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

I have even higher hopes regarding Vantage now (absolutely hate idea to switch to UE)

[solo]

I am only talking about my needs, I still do some archviz but most of my work is set design, game shows, and TV shows, so I need storyboards, and animations are key parts of what I need, so yes, our needs are different.

I do not think UE and SU will ever be integrated but do think Twinmotion to Unreal will get better in the future.

[majid]

So many rendering engines have been introduced in recent years, and who knows what does future have for us? Finally, two worlds met.., to me, this is just the beginning.

[rv1974]

Lol, I was like - "what's Vantage?" I see that it's a renaming of Chaos' Lavina realtime effort. Again - how does its integration with Sketchup look? Having gone back and forth over many years between different better or worse integrations with SU, I am not likely to ever choose a "linked" but not integrated rendering solution for primary rendering again.

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

I have even higher hopes regarding Vantage now (absolutely hate idea to switch to UE)

I link skp's into Max and Max has Live link to Vantage

[Box]

I think we will be using flying unicorns to get about and uber shares may suffer somewhat.

[andybot]

I link skp's into Max and Max has Live link to Vantage

Thanks. Is there an integration of Vantage into the V-Ray for Sketchup plugin? Or does that have its own real-time engine that's different from Vantage?

[andybot]

I think we will be using flying unicorns to get about

Sounds like the approximate timeframe of when we'll all be satisfied with our rendering software!

[solo]

There is always TYwinmotion, new release looks amazing

Video

[majid]

That was ammmazing Solo!

[loco]

The latest release from Twinmotion only fixes some bugs, its basically the same as the previous release (2022). I was excited too and thought they may have added new features in this latest release (2022.1), as new releases normally do, but they didn't. I still like it though and its my preferred renderer. Enscape I used a little before Twinmotion but wasn't happy with the final results. Be interesting to see where Chaos take Enscape, hopefully not into chaos