Twinmotion 2021.1 offers powerful new possibilities to create, develop and present visualizations as a fully connected member of the Epic ecosystem, cementing its place as an essential component of the entire archviz process from concept to advanced photorealistic experience. Additionally, with this release, Unreal Engine continues its efforts to improve existing features and workflows in response to customer feedback.
New key features
Bridge to Unreal Engine
With a new plugin for Unreal Engine that enables users to import Twinmotion projects into the Unreal Editor, visualizations can be taken to the next level. This extended pipeline allows an architect to 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.
Once in Unreal Engine, it is possible to add advanced functionality, for example using the Variant Manager to present bespoke and customized design options.
Presenter Cloud Early Access
Share projects with any stakeholder anywhere in the world, with Early Access to the new Twinmotion Presenter Cloud service. With just a basic Windows or macOS desktop computer and a web browser, users can view and interact with a Presenter file running on a high-end GPU in the cloud—making the service ideal for sharing work for review with clients in remote locations, or with colleagues during the current work-from-home climate.
Note: This feature is being rolled out progressively, and is currently exclusively available to full commercial licensees; it is anticipated to be made available to all users in the future.
Megascans in Twinmotion library
Quixel Megascans 3D Assets and Surface categories were integrated into the Twinmotion asset library for easy browsing and access directly within Twinmotion projects. 3D Assets include thousands of high-quality objects that can be used to populate a scene in categories like buildings, food, industrial, and nature, while the Surfaces offer a vast collection of high-fidelity materials covering everything from bark to bricks, and from marble to metal. Assets are stored on the cloud until downloaded for use, reducing local storage requirements.
Other new features
Datasmith Direct Link
Adding support for Datasmith Direct Link functionality, which is being developed to support connections between multiple sources and multiple destinations simultaneously, improves user experience. 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; in future releases, the user will be able to aggregate files from different sources, such as Revit and Rhino, while maintaining Direct Link functionality with each.
New trees, humans, and workout furniture assets
140 new assets have been added to the Twinmotion asset library, including 20 new Japanese and American trees, 60 furniture assets for populating gyms and street workout areas, and 60 new ready-posed humans, extending options for easily contextualizing and adding life to each project.
Lighting enhancements
A number of small internal changes have been made to the default and minimum/maximum intensity of various lighting features, including Sun, Moon, Artificial lights, Particles, Vehicle neons, Street lights, and Emissive materials. The Auto-exposure and Bloom settings have also been adjusted to create a smoother transition between day and night.
Nonrealistic rendering styles
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 the design, such as lighting or form, or to represent a more technical hand-drawn style. The new menu is available both in full-screen mode and in Presenter.
Phasing in Presenter
It’s now possible to include phasing in Presenter files, enabling architects to remotely present different stages of a project’s construction schedule sequentially. Phasing can be played from any camera position.
Tint on vegetation
Twinmotion added the ability to change the overall tint of both the trunk and the leaves of vegetation, making it easier to maintain visual consistency with other elements of the scene.
UI/UX improvements
A number of UI/UX enhancements have been added to help new users get up to speed even faster, including a new Header Panel that integrates navigation help, and a button for direct export of the current project to Presenter Cloud.
Performance enhancements
Twinmotion has changed the underlying data structure for geometry, improving overall performance and stability.
To see all the new features and enhancements, check the release notes.
