With Enscape 2.6, we are able to offer greater reflection fidelity and more accurate indirect lighting, to provide an even more realistic & immersive experience. We have been able to achieve this by overhauling and enhancing our calculation algorithm, resulting in improved indirect lighting and ray traced reflections.

Enscape has been using ray tracing techniques for years; we realized early on the importance of using lighting and reflection calculations to deliver the most authentic images possible. Ray tracing techniques emulate the real world effect of light interacting with the objects in our view. In Enscape, an algorithm simulates light rays, tracing them from the imaginary eye, or camera, to the light source. As this is fundamentally similar to how light behaves in real life, it can achieve amazingly realistic results.

How exactly will you benefit from these optimization? It’s the fine details that will make all the difference. You will now see reflection fidelity, even when the geometry is off-screen, as in the image above. The woman, chair, plant, and painting are all behind the camera, but shown in the reflection in exact detail.

Texture maps and cutout materials are also now accurately displayed.  Where previously perhaps only geometry would have been visible, now textures you apply will appear in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. In the image above, the cutout texture of the plant is now displayed accurately. Any shadows cast by objects are also visible.

Another benefit for you is that light sources are now accurately displayed in reflections. Domestic indoor scenes often have both artificial light sources and mirrors or reflective surfaces placed around the room. As shown in the image above, light sources show in the reflection, adding to the realism of the scene. In real life, we would expect to see these details; now we can have them in Enscape as well.

Beyond reflections, indirect lighting in general has also been optimized. The improved indirect lighting lends a more natural, true to life atmosphere, especially to interior scenes. With 2.6, interior scenes with artificial lights benefit greatly with less indirect light leaking and more pronounced indirect shadows. Like reflections, lights and shadows are details that tend to draw the eye when they are off.

Now that we’ve covered what has changed, you might be wondering how it will benefit you directly. With Enscape 2.6, you will be able to create your projects knowing that when you click the Start Enscape button, your reflections and indirect lighting will be displayed correctly.

Accurate lighting and reflections can make all the difference in an image. Of course the most obvious reason why reflections in rendered images are important is the element of photorealism. Many materials like water or highly reflective surfaces like marble or glass act like mirrors in real life. We expect to see accurate reflections in them, so if these are missing from a rendering containing these materials, something feels off; with Enscape 2.6, your reflections will be eye-catching because of their stunning accuracy.

More and more architects use reflections not only to achieve photorealism, but to give their spaces a greater sense of depth. Reflections are also important because of the atmosphere they can create. There is only so much you can show on a still rendering, and even if the space is beautifully arranged, you might not be able to capture every detail in one image.

Reflections allow you to add a sense of depth to any image, like when a reflective floor indicates high ceilings that would otherwise not be visible. If you are only able to show the corner of a room in your rendering, a mirror helps create a sense of depth, where the image could feel flat.

Have you already created a beautiful rendering using Enscape 2.6? Post it in the Showcase section of our Forum ! Our vibrant community is there to give you encouragement, tips and tricks.

If you never tested Enscape before:

If you are already familiar with Enscape:

The Enscape Material Editor is now available to ArchiCAD users! You now have access to the full spectrum of material parameters, allowing you to enhance the realism of your image and streamline your workflow at the same time. Apply bump and roughness maps or customize your grass, all while keeping an overview of your used materials. For an indepth overview of the Editor’s individual settings, read through our dedicated Knowledgebase article. For even more ideas on how to use the Enscape Material Editor, check out this blog post  by Dan Stein about the editor in Rhino.

1. ADD NEW DIMENSIONS TO YOUR MATERIALS
2. BUMP MAPS
3. ROUGHNESS MAPS
4. CONCLUSION

For this tutorial, I created a modern kitchen with lots of colors and materials. Do the appliances, decorative items, chairs and plants look familiar? They are all from our Asset Library; check out the over 300 new models here . The project already looks great in Enscape, but the new Enscape Material Editor lets you take your materials to a new level of realism. Let’s take a look at how it works.

If the stove was distractingly reflective, the marble countertop is not reflective enough. This popular material for a counter is extremely shiny, and if we were able to see reflections in it, the scene would already look more realistic. Here we simply reduce the roughness value to 0%.

Just like that the marble looks much more true-to-life. It is now as highly reflective as it is in real life, and we are able to make out the reflections of the objects standing on the counter.

In our kitchen, I’ve played around with this setting to test out colors for the stucco walls. The color updates automatically, so I can see what paint color would look best without having to change the applied texture each time. In the end I stuck with classic white.

Now that we have covered the basic functions of the Editor, I’ll cover how to most effectively use the new features for ArchiCAD users, starting with bump maps. Previously not supported in the native ArchiCAD Surface Editor, bump maps are usually the deciding factor in creating a realistic rendering. If you’ve ever looked at a stunning rendering and wondered how to achieve that photorealistic look, the answer is oftentimes simply: add a bump map.

The effect is immediate: now we can clearly see the definition between the individual tiles. After lowering the roughness value and increasing the metallic value slightly, the tiles look much better than before. This is a small change that makes the backsplash now eye-catching for all the right reasons.

If your textures didn’t include a bump map, that’s absolutely no problem. If you have an albedo texture applied, you always have the option to use your texture as a bump map. Simply click the Use Albedo link in the Bump section and Enscape will take care of the rest.

When there is a bump map applied, you have the ability to control the amount of bump added. What does this mean, and what effect can it have? Bump maps are used to create the illusion of raised details on a surface: for example, the height difference between the tile and the grout in the previous example. Bump maps are grayscale, and the black and white areas tell Enscape two things: up or down. The black areas of a bump map simulate depths and the white areas raised areas.

Without any bump applied, it already looks pretty nice, but we can do better. I didn’t have a dedicated bump map for this texture, so I used the albedo texture. Below you can see the result of increasing or decreasing the amount of bump; 3 is the default value for bump.

Here the effect becomes quite visible. At zero the floor is completely flat, like a photo. With a value of 10, the bump map is extreme and shows the grain patterns in detail. It’s a good idea to play around with the value to see what fits best into the scene. The default value of 3 already looks great, but it looked a bit too rough to be flooring to me, so I chose 1.75, for slight definition.

The second big improvement that the ArchiCAD Material Editor brings is roughness maps. These work in tandem with the roughness value we adjusted to make the marble shiny and the stainless steel more matte. Roughness maps control the sharpness of the reflections on an object. The roughness slider increases the reflectivity in a uniform manner; the whole surface will become more or less reflective. A roughness map defines roughness or reflectivity of certain areas of your texture. This map can be used to great effect to add character to the surface of an object: scratches, fingerprints, smudges, etc.

Speaking of smudges, there’s one clear place to show the effect of a roughness map, and that’s the kitchen sink. Right now it is very clean and shiny. But in a real kitchen, it’s probably the first surface to get dirty or splashed with water.

Here you can see the results. The first image shows a sink with dried water stains, while the second is a smudge roughness map, which indicates an effect between wear and tear and imprecise cleaning. Another tip for our Material Editor: when you apply a texture, bump or roughness map, you can adjust settings specific to that map by clicking the corresponding tab.

So here is our final image!

By using the ArchiCAD Material Editor to enhance small details in your project, you can take your rendering to the next level in terms of realism. Where before only textures were supported, you can now add bump and roughness maps to give your materials new dimensions.

Have you already created a beautiful rendering using the ArchiCAD Material Editor? Post it in the Showcase section of our Forum ! Our vibrant community is there to give you encouragement, tips and tricks.

If you never tested Enscape before:

If you are already familiar with Enscape:

With Enscape 2.6, we have added over 300 new models to our Asset Library. This greatly expands our existing categories, allowing you to enrich your images with a more diverse selection of people, tropical plants, home accessories, food, furniture and more. Additionally, Revit users now have expanded placement options: on a surface, on an active work plane or linked to an existing Revit family. For more detailed information on how to use the Asset Library, head over to our Knowledgebase.  

To give you an even better overview of everything our Asset Library has to offer, we’ve created standalone files for each of the categories, so you can examine the assets live before placing them in your project. Click on the pictures below to download an executable or web standalone of each category.

In this new release, we have expanded existing collections, like our kitchen accessories, to offer you more options. You’ll be able to turn give any kitchen into a homey atmosphere with new plates, glasses, kitchen appliances and food items.

Also new are a variety of bathroom-related assets, like this classic free-standing bathtub. Did you know you can use the Asset Tags to quickly find related assets? Give it a try!

In this category we offer objects to give the streets around you an authentic feel. Road barriers and pylons are especially useful for city scenes, where the roads are usually a work-in-progress.

Our Furniture category has a huge selection of seating, tables and shelving elements to brighten up any room of the house. From basics like desk chairs and outdoor furniture, to couches and stools with lots of personality, you’ll find a little bit of everything.

Add some flair to a living room with an elegant side table, or personalize your lobby with modular seating elements.

Nothing adds life to a scene like people. As an architect, you want to convey the idea that your building will be a hotspot, filled with life and activity. Still renderings convey the architectural beauty of a design, but adding people to the image will tell the story of how the building will be populated.

Our collection of people assets contains adults, adolescents and children in a variety of poses and outfits. There’s an asset for every scene!

Be sure to keep an eye on how you arrange your assets; especially in the case of people, you want to be sure that they tell a coherent story.

No street is complete without little details like fire hydrants, trash cans and billboards. These elements may blend into the background of our day-to-day, but, especially in urban scenes, they can be the deciding factor of whether or not your rendering feels authentic.

Adding elements like benches to your sidewalk, or a crosswalk to your street can make all the difference.

Landscaping and vegetation are an integral part of any scene, but especially exterior shots. Whether residential or commercial, no exterior shot is complete without landscaping, be it a manicured hedge or a wild patch of ivy.

Vegetation is also a great way to quickly fill up the space behind windows for interior shots. Empty windows can be distracting, as they allow the eye to travel away from the focus of the image. By placing trees or hedges in the visible scene outside of the room, you create a grounded image, while keeping the viewer’s attention in a defined space.

The Vehicles category has been expanded through several new car assets. These additional mid-sized car models allow you to create accurate street scenes, fill the parking lot of a shopping center, and more.

A great effect to make your vehicles look less static in still renderings is to apply motion blur during post-production. Export the rendering with the Object ID option ticked in your Enscape settings to make applying the filter even easier.

Every rendering you produce can be enriched by adding Enscape assets. Whether you are planning a bustling shopping center or a modern residential kitchen, our selection of assets lets you quickly bring your rendering to life.

Are you looking for models that are not yet part of our Asset Library? Head over to our Forum  and log your specific request. In the Asset Library thread you can post your recommendations and discuss ideas with other Enscape users. Every request is recorded – yours might be next on our list!

You may have seen my recent post about artificial light sources in SketchUp , in which I covered different techniques to realistically light your model. But there is another way of creating light in your projects: emissive materials. These self-illuminated materials emit light, but differently than artificial light sources, and can be used to create effects that you can’t achieve with artificial lights.

Making your material emissive turns it into a glowing light source, which you can assign to any shape and even add a texture to. This means you can be incredibly creative with emissive materials. They are often used on objects where some part should appear to glow, such as a television or computer screen, the brake lights of a car, or an exit sign. But you can also use them to create light in areas of your model where it might be impractical to use artificial lights: to create the effect of recessed ceiling lighting, for example.

It can be difficult to differentiate when to use emissive materials versus artificial lights; both have their benefits and drawbacks. Understanding when to use which type of light can take your project to the next level in terms of realism. In this post you’ll learn all about emissive materials, how to apply and adjust them using Enscape’s Material Editor in SketchUp, and their many different uses. This post show examples from SketchUp, but you can of course work with emissive materials in Revit, Rhino and ArchiCAD as well!

Emissive materials are self-illuminated materials, that is, materials that emit light across their surface. When an emissive material is used in a scene, it is rendered as a visible light source, and depending on the intensity you set, its glow can actually light up the surrounding area. The great advantage of emissive materials is that you can use them to create complex forms that glow; you can get really creative! Check out the picture below; I just created some shapes in SketchUp, and made the generic white material assigned to them emissive.

Emissive materials belong to the global illumination calculation. Global illumination (GI) is an important element in the rendering of realistic scenes.  When light hits a surface, it does not simply end there, but bounces. With GI, these bounces result in an indirect light, which illuminates areas of your project that may not have artificial light or direct access to sunlight, like a long hallway or the corners of a room. Emissive materials are part of this GI calculation, meaning they emit indirect light. You won’t be able to use them to simulate a spotlight, but you can recreate the glow of a television screen, for example.

Let’s take a look at how you make a material emissive in SketchUp; with Enscape’s Material Editor, it just takes two clicks! First, open the Material Editor by clicking on the button in the Enscape ribbon, or by selecting Enscape Materials in the Enscape dropdown menu. Then use the native SketchUp pickup tool to select the material you would like to make emissive. This will allow you to adjust various settings relating to the material; to make it emissive, just check the box next to Self Illumination.

As you can see, the material surface emits a very bright light, which casts softer shadows. Emissive materials have one bounce less than artificial lights, which results in the light not being able to bounce around many corners. To change the brightness of the material, adjust the Luminance slider.

What makes emissive materials so versatile is that you can illuminate both colors and textures. To apply a color to your emissive material, simply select a color from the drop down menu in the Enscape Materials Editor.

Now check out what it looks like if you apply texture. For this example I have applied a wood floor as my texture, to emphasize the effect. It’s up to you whether to match the color of the light emitted to the color of the material itself. The generic white light that is emitted will still be slightly tinted to the color of the texture. If you would like the effect to be more intense, you can adjust the color of the light emitted, as I have done below.

Emissive materials do have certain drawbacks. Occasionally, if the geometry you applied an emissive material to is not visible on screen, the light emitted by the surface may not contribute to the actual light level in the scene. For example, if you apply an emissive material to some geometry and then turn the camera so that it is no longer in view, the light being emitted by the surface might not show. If this occurs, try changing your camera perspective until part of the geometry is visible again, and the light will return.

One great way to use them to boost your scene’s realism is to apply them to digital screens. Have you ever looked at a rendered scene of a living room with a television, or an office full of computer monitors and felt there was something a little off? That’s because in real life, we are surrounded by glowing screens. Applying a low level emissive material can give your scene the authenticity it needs. Check out the living room below. It already looks pretty great, but the television and tablet appear a bit flat.

Select the texture on the screen using the pickup tool. You will see it in the albedo section of the Enscape Materials Editor. Just enable Self Illumination, and the screen will glow. Play around with the brightness; you probably won’t need it to be so bright that it contributes to the overall light level of the room – just bright enough to give off a visible glow. Depending on the situation, you can adjust the color of the light emitted to match. Above I did this with the television, but left the tablet with the default white light. Get creative!

Another way to apply emissive materials to enhance the authenticity of your scene is to apply them to small glowing elements we see every day. One of my favorite new ways to use emissive materials is to enhance car models. The car below is meant to be idling in the main drive, but none of its lights are illuminated, detracting from the realness of the scene. Illuminate a few materials, and it looks like it could drive away before your eyes.

Emissive materials are also perfect when you want to create a lighting effect similar to an LED light, or for lighting up areas that are tricky to get to with artificial lights. Take for example recessed ceiling lighting, or LED lights that are installed along the tops of cabinets. These types of lights are seen both in residential houses and in office buildings or stores.

Achieving this effect with artificial lights can be time consuming, and might not give you the result you are looking for. Instead, try using emissive materials. It’s usually quick and easy, because the geometry already exists. Just apply an emissive material to the right spot, and it will give the effect of an LED light rail installed in a recessed space.

So what is it important to consider when weighing emissive materials against artificial lights? Oftentimes it is not entirely clear which type of light might be the best for your situation. Take a look at the table below for a quick overview.

Size and Shape: Emissive materials can be applied to any size or shape of geometry. There is basically no limit to your creativity! Artificial lights, on the other hand, have pre-defined shapes and sizes.

Light: Diffuse light is potentially very noisy, especially if the emissive surface is small and bright. In these situations, it’s a better idea to use an area or point light, as artificial lights are virtually noise free.

Shadows: The light emitted by self-illuminated materials casts fuzzier, very blurry shadows. If you are looking for sharp, clean differentiations between light and dark, you might try a spot light instead.

Bounce light: The light given off by emissive materials has one bounce less than artificial lights. This results in the light not being able to bounce around many corners. Artificial lights bounce one time more and are therefore generally brighter.

Customization: You can apply a color to your artificial lights if you want to create a certain atmosphere or effect. However, emissive materials allow you to illuminate not only a color, but also an applied texture, leaving no limit on your creativity.

Performance: Placing many artificial light sources in your project can impact your performance, even if you have a top of the line graphics card. Using emissive materials to replace artificial light sources can improve your performance if you find your project lagging.

Visibility: It can be the case that the light from emissive materials seems to turn off when the source is not directly visible to the camera. You might find that if the light source is behind the camera, the emitted light will disappear as well. The light cast by artificial lights is always visible.

Light Level Adjustments: You can adjust the individual brightness of you artificial lights, but if you want them to be collectively brighter, or turn them all off, you can do this using the Light Brightness slider in the Advanced tab of the Enscape Settings menu. This setting does not affect emissive materials: if you want to dim or turn them off, you’ll need to adjust each material’s settings individually.

Source: Emissive materials emit light and show where the light is being emitted from; their light source is visible. With artificial lights, you will only see the light emitted, but not the source of that light in the form of a point or shape.

Emissive materials have numerous benefits, and can transform your project in terms of realism. They are easy to apply, and even easier to customize. Using emissive materials to make your screens glow and to achieve the effect of LED lighting is an easy way to add interesting elements to your project that draw the eye and spark the imagination. In terms of client presentations, it’s not simply about showing the project: it’s about creating and presenting a surrounding they could actually see themselves in. And with emissive materials, creating this world doesn’t have to take forever.

Finding the right combination and balance of emissive materials and artificial lights can be the difference between peaking your client’s interest, and making their dream project a reality. It’s important to know when to best use which type of light to achieve the effect you are going for. Take the time to carefully consider which light will serve you best, and you’ll end up blowing them away.

Not long ago, creating a virtual reality rendering of a building was a long, arduous process. Architecture firms had to enlist the help of programmers to create the environments with special software usually used by video game designers. The process would take weeks. By the time the renderings were finished, they would often be out-of-date because the design process had since moved on.

Enter Enscape. Founders Moritz Luck and Thomas Willberger wanted to find a way to take VR rendering for architects and make it faster. “We looked at the market and there was nothing there,” Luck says. So, they began developing their own software, rolling out a beta version in 2015.

Their product didn’t just make virtual reality faster, though. It made it instantaneous. Enscape is designed to work as an extension of common modeling programs Autodesk Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, and ArchiCAD. Users click one button and, in a few seconds, can see a three-dimensional virtual reality rendering of their designs. “You don’t have to learn a new program,” Luck says. “It’s easy. And it looks good.”

This helps designers communicate better with customers, who probably don’t have much experience looking at floorplans. Luck says it’s especially useful in helping customers envision large, open, multistory spaces like atriums and lobbies. “In 3D, you can grasp it.”

But more than communicating with clients, Enscape helps designers communicate better with one another. Even looking at the same exact blueprints, it’s not uncommon for designers to come away with different mental images. Enscape removes the ambiguity.

San Antonio, Texas–based design firm Overland Partners had worked with other VR before but found the process long and difficult. Then Overland’s Director of Technology Daniel Carpio and BIM Manager Steve Fong stumbled across Enscape. They were impressed but skeptical at first of the company’s claims of real-time renderings, so they downloaded a demo. “We could not believe what we were seeing,” Carpio says. “It was doing everything it said and more.”

The software has changed the way Overland works. “If you go into our office now, everybody has two monitors,” says Overland Principal Bob Shemwell. One will show a design in Revit, while the other will feature an Enscape rendering of that design. “It would be impossible to walk through the office and not see somebody working on Enscape.”

The renderings really come alive, however, when connected with a virtual reality headset . Not long ago, Shemwell and Ben Rosas, Overland designer, were in a hotel lounge in Florida, gearing up for a presentation on a botanical garden Overland is designing. Rosas was tweaking the renderings as Shemwell wore a headset, offering him feedback. Then a line began to form. “The next thing you know we have the hotel desk clerk and a line of random people we didn’t know that we are walking through the model,” Shemwell says. “It’s technology, but, ultimately, it’s about people.”

Enscape’s ease of use and quality renderings are quickly making the software an industry standard. The program is now used by many of the world’s top architecture firms and the company is growing so fast they’ve had to find new office space. Luck says they hired an architect to design the new space, an old-school guy who was skeptical about the whole 3D thing. Then, as plans were being finalized, the architect realized there was a huge column smack in the middle of the room. “In 3D, it would have been clear from the start,” Luck laughs.

These are five things you can do using Enscape.

1. Using geolocation, the program allows users to adjust the time of day  and year to see how sunlight comes through windows. It’s even possible to factor in shadows from other buildings. It’s not as precise as other methods but provides a quick and easy-to-understand reference. “That’s something you can very easily see in VR that’s very hard to tell in a floorplan in 2D,” Luck says.
2. Enscape releases new versions of its software every three months, often with new features voted on by users on the company’s online forum. Based on this feedback, Luck says the company hopes to roll out virtual reality renderings for smartphones, tablets, and internet browsers. Enscape also plans to allow users to alter design elements from within the virtual reality environment.
3. Using Enscape, architects can spot problems in their plans that wouldn’t otherwise be evident. On a recent project, Overland designers and engineers switched to an Enscape VR session and noticed a duct was poking through a wall. The problem was not evident in Revit, but in VR the error was as plain as day.
4. Although the firm still uses physical models and sketches when presenting projects to customers or other stakeholders, Overland has started to incorporate virtual reality into its promotional materials. At one recent meeting with city leaders, the company used Enscape to create QR codes linked to 360 panoramas  of a nearby building so everyone could see how the soon-to-be-built structure would look from various vantage points. The firm plans to place QR codes on fencing surrounding the construction site, so passersby can see what’s coming and get excited.
5. Many users view Enscape renderings on a computer screen but, for a really immersive experience, virtual reality headsets are the way to go. “You have to curate the experience for the client so they don’t feel like they’re going to look foolish,” Shemwell says. When clients feel comfortable , the payoffs are great. Carpio says, “When they take the headset off, there is a sense of euphoria and joy. They finally have a clear understanding of the reality of their project.”

We’re coming to a place near you! Feel free to visit our booth and say hello to the Enscape team. We’re happy to meet you in person!

BIM is transforming the AEC industry and impacting architects, engineers, contractors, owners, operators and just about anyone connected in any way to the built environment that BIM is weaving into the industry. But nothing can be taken for granted – including BIM!
Is everything going to be as planned? Does BIM have a future? Can the government’s BIM Level 2 goals be realised, or is BIM going to be superseded? Does BIM provide us with demonstrable value? It is the need of the hour to answer these questions. Take an objective view into the past, present and future of BIM with Mike..

Politics impacts nearly everything and AEC industry is one of them. Many of the decisions that you deal with as a part of the AEC industry have a political background to them. Therefore, in order to understand why certain decisions have been taken, it is important for you to gain insights into the politics that led to them. Get an overview and foresight about the political background to Digital Construction with Simon.

Virtual Reality is an enormous advantage for presenting projects towards clients. Scott Grant from Soluis Group is an expert in creating inspiring VR environments. In his seminar he gives insights about the benefits and challenges of including VR in your project workflow. This will give you a lot of inspiration and best practices from first hand.
After attending his seminar we invite you to experience Virtual Reality yourself at the Enscape booth!

BIM is ruling the architecture world. Rebecca De Cicco is a consultant from Digital Node and has experienced many successes and failures with BIM adoption worldwide. She illustrates the different ways to successfully implement BIM and how to tackle obstacles that may appear. By attending her seminar you will be inspired and empowered to better support BIM implementation in your own organisation.

Meeting Enscape! Enscape is a virtual reality and real-time rendering plugin for Revit, SketchUp and Rhino. With just one click, you can start Enscape and within seconds walk through your fully rendered project – no uploading to cloud or exporting to other programs required! All changes of the project are immediately available to evaluate in Enscape.

We will be there at our booth number 7 to answer all your questions about our real time rendering and VR solution. Experience how you can quickly explore different design options and present projects to clients. If the client wants to see something different in the design, Enscape will immediately show the changes you make to the project, even in VR. With the option to create standalone files, you can send an Enscape file to your clients or colleagues which allows you to quickly demonstrate the project. Compatible with Revit, SketchUp and Rhinoceros, Enscape is a unique solution to achieve results on time. Make an appointment now.

Whether you’re new to Enscape  or just in need of a guide on how to create a video then we’ve created both a video and short rundown of what you need to do. Creating videos  within Enscape is a great way to show off your projects, but also help you with the design process. It will help you learn how to create screen recorded fly-throughs for your clients, or for your colleagues. Get ready to make a video in Enscape.

1. 5 Easy Steps To Create A Video
2. Time Lapse Effect
3. Resolution
4. More Settings
5. Noise Reduction Quality

5 Simple Steps to Create a Video

Video creation in Enscape is easy. It’s a matter of knowing what you want to show, and where you want the video to begin and end. Here are 5 simple steps you can follow to make a video in Enscape:

1. Move to a position that you want your video to start from
2. Once you picked the position you can click on the Set Start Position button
3. Then move your position to where you’d like your video to end
4. Then click Set Stop Position
5. Now you can click the Preview Video button to see the video you just created

These are covered right in the beginning of our tutorial video. Once you are done making your video you can then export  it, but let’s go over some of the other settings.

Time Lapse Effect

In the video, you can learn how to do a time lapse effect by playing with the time of day while making your Enscape video. So you simply follow the steps above, but between when you Start and End the video, you move the time of day forward so you can have a nice time lapse as the clouds move, and the sun slowly goes down. Gives it a lovely effect, and can also show the way light and shadows  show in your design. To change the time of day just follow these three steps:

1. Get to the position that will show the sky properly
2. Press the Shift key and right click on your mouse
3. Now move the mouse to the right

This will get the clouds moving and the sunlight to slowly dim, giving the video a great visual. You can find this at about 0:47 in the video.

Resolution

With Enscape you will find that you have many options for resolutions for your video. We normally stick with 1080p as that makes it full HD, but you can choose another resolution or even customize it to better suit your needs. Find this at 1:48 in the video.

More Video Settings

In the Enscape settings  and still within the Capture tab you will find more settings that you can choose from. One of the first ones you will see is the Compression Quality slide bar (1:58). Changing this can improve the overall quality of the image, but it will slightly increase the video size–it won’t affect the rendering time though. You can change the Duration(2:12) of the video which is measured in length in seconds from start to end position. You can change the frames per second (FPS 2:27) a higher FPS might be useful if you’d like to add slow motion to the video you’re creating when using post editing software. Another one of the unique parts in the Interpolation (2:37). You have three choices:

1. Linear which will have an equal speed for the duration of the video
2. Smooth which will start slow, speed up a bit, and then slow down towards the end
3. Handy-cam which will give it a somewhat shaky more candid feel

Noise Reduction Quality

Enscape does everything in its power to ensure that every rendering and video you make has the best quality . but if you’re looking for a bit more of a push you can play with the Noise Reduction Quality slider. Take note that the higher the quality of noise reduction the longer it will take for your video to export. One of our team members ran a little test on his computer that has a GTX 1060 Graphics card to see how long it might take with some of the different levels and here are the results measured in minutes and seconds on how long it took to export the video:

1. With the Noise Reduction Quality completely off, it took 2:26
2. With it set to Medium it took 7:02
3. With it set to Ultra it took 21:57

This is something to keep in mind when exporting your videos. You now have a basic rundown of how to create a video in Enscape, have fun creating!