Epic Games launches Twinmotion 2021.1, now available for download
Epic Games has released Twinmotion 2021.1, introducing new features and connectivity to create, develop, and present real-time visualizations, from first concept to advanced photorealistic experiences. With the addition of the seamless Bridge to Unreal Engine, shareable Presenter Cloud, and thousands of high-quality assets through the new Quixel Megascans integration, Twinmotion 2021.1 opens up powerful new storytelling possibilities to all creators as a fully connected member of the Epic Games ecosystem.
Watch the Twinmotion 2021 Trailer:
“Twinmotion 2021.1 has the capacity to transform the ability of AEC professionals to solve complex problems in real time by visualizing them in 3D, and to easily communicate their proposals to colleagues and stakeholders who may not have an understanding of traditional 2D drawings,” said Ken Pimentel, AEC Industry Manager at Epic Games. “Twinmotion is a vital, yet easy to master, tool for those building the future, whether you’re creating a photoreal digital twin of a city for urban planners to understand a new development or if you’re part of a construction team planning on-site logistics. Twinmotion is also an integral part of the iterative architectural design process and it’s also a tool for students to bring their ideas to life.”
Twinmotion’s easy-to-use interface enables architects, designers, and students at all levels to create high-quality 3D images themselves, without having to outsource the work to visualization specialists. Users can easily import their existing building models from most BIM and CAD programs — including Archicad, Revit, SketchUp Pro, RIKCAD, and Rhino — into Twinmotion, and rapidly supercharge them using the software’s sophisticated capabilities, resulting in pixel-perfect visualizations that can be created and edited in minutes rather than days.
Twinmotion is a storytelling tool that massively enhances the ability to express the narrative of a design, and therefore to reach audiences of all kinds – from the public to planners, from potential clients to design review panels. Twinmotion’s photorealistic output acts as an easy bridge between the architecture community and their audiences, breaking down barriers and capturing the imagination of everyone involved.
Twinmotion empowers users to create impactful, highly realistic visuals in real time throughout the design process, which can be easily updated with input from clients, colleagues, and stakeholders. This creates game-changing opportunities for professionals in the AEC industry to accurately communicate their work at every stage, facilitating better conversations, a more transparent process, and genuine collaboration.
New features in Twinmotion 2021.1 include:
- Bridge to Unreal Engine: Acting a gateway to Unreal Engine, the Twinmotion Importer for Unreal Engine plugin enables users to bring Twinmotion projects into the Unreal Editor. With this extended pipeline, an architect can communicate preliminary concept ideas—such as visually indicating the type of materials, lighting, context, and other project elements—in Twinmotion, and then pass the project on to a visualization specialist for further refinement in Unreal Engine, including accurate lighting and material scenarios, higher-quality visualization outputs, animations, and other advanced behaviors.
- Presenter Cloud (Early Access): The new Twinmotion Presenter Cloud service enables users to upload presentations to the cloud where they can be played over interactive pixel streaming and shared with stakeholders by email invitation. Using a Windows or macOS desktop computer and a web browser, anyone can view and interact with Presenter files running on a high-end GPU in the cloud, making the service ideal for sharing and interacting with works in progress over the web.
*This feature is being rolled out progressively, and is currently exclusively available to full commercial licensees.
- Megascans in Twinmotion library: Quixel Megascans 3D Assets and Surface categories are now integrated into the asset library for easy browsing and direct access within Twinmotion projects. 3D Assets include thousands of high-quality objects for populating scenes in categories such as buildings, food, industrial, and nature, while Surfaces offer a vast collection of high-fidelity materials covering everything from bark to bricks, and from marble to metal. Assets are hosted in the cloud until downloaded for use, reducing local storage requirements.
- Datasmith Direct Link: Functionality for the popular Datasmith suite of plugins provides connections between multiple sources and destinations simultaneously. In this release, support has been added for Revit, enabling users to aggregate multiple Revit files representing different stages or aspects of the project—such as landscape plans, urban context, facades, and interiors—with Direct Link updates.
- New trees, humans, and fitness equipment: Twinmotion now includes 140 new additions to the Twinmotion asset library, including 20 new Japanese and American trees, 60 new assets for populating gyms and street workout areas, and 60 new ready-posed humans, extending options for easily contextualizing projects.
- Phasing in Twinmotion Presenter: It’s now possible to include phasing in Presenter files, enabling users to remotely present different stages of a project’s construction schedule sequentially. Phasing can be played from any camera position.
- Nonrealistic rendering styles: Users can now quickly and easily switch between different nonrealistic rendering styles—hidden line, hidden line shaded, wood model, metal model, white model (clay render), and default material—in order to focus on particular aspects of designs, such as lighting or form, or to represent a more technical hand-drawn style.
Additional upgrades and learning resources can be found on the Twinmotion news feed.
