When a group of architectural illustrators set out to test Chaos Vantage, they planned a few small real-time experiments. Instead, they built Unbox, a fully animated short film where an architectural cube folds open like a mechanical puzzle. From “a few little minis,” it grew bigger – there are worse outcomes for a stress test.

DP: What was the initial spark for testing Chaos Vantage and why risk it on a narrative short instead of a comfy archviz sizzle?

Peter Stulz: Honestly, at first we intended to do a few little minis in Vantage… and then the second test spinned out of control and grew bigger each day. But no regrets, we embraced the prospect to develop a narrative architectural piece ourselves.

You see, we are architects and not an animation studio. So this was a massive learning journey for us: sequencing shots in an attractive manner, telling a story, how to reveal information and how to retain it… Vantage was fantastic, because it allowed us to be quite experimental here, make mistakes and learn while working on it.

DP: Give us the pipeline in one breath: DCC(s), renderers, interchange (Alembic/FBX/USD), and the editorial path from storyboard/animatic to picture lock.

Peter Stulz: Natively we use 3ds Max in our studio, still the main tool for architecture. Our studio mostly renders in Corona Render, but I feel very home in Vray. For asset creation I use Blender which then sent to Max via FBX. The animation was rendered in Vray CPU – 5 months was tight enough and I know Vray as an engine that delivers without funky surprises.

For the creative part, I drew initial sketches and the storyboard in Procreate. We were lucky to have my friend and cinematographer Olaf Aue (LinkedIn) on board, who was kind enough to share some of his Know-How. The storyboard was straight away sequenced in Resolve with some stand-in SFX and music, just to get a feeling for timing. The stills were then replaced with Vantage Previz shots; the iteration frequency could be kept fastpaced due to Vantage, that was a tremendous relief. Finally for that project we also familiarized ourselves just enough with character creator and Iclone to pull off a somewhat decent protagonist – which then is mostly kept out of focus anyhow :).

Depth of field and lighting are crucial in linear storytelling formats. Vantage allows for having these available during the early layout phase, enabling us to evaluate the flow and precise timing of edits early on, resulting in fewer iterations and more streamlined communication, features that Olaf, as a cinematographer, found lacking in the animation feature films he previously worked on.

DP: Hardware reality check: what exactly were the two workstations (CPU/GPU/VRAM/RAM/storage), and how did that cap scene size, proxies, and iteration speed?

Peter Stulz: There are two parts to this, the GPU and CPU specs: For working with Vantage, I had a 4060TI with 16GB. It was mainly the ground displacement in Vantage that was the key factor for VRAM necessity. Otherwise Vantage is smart when scaling to smaller GPUs. You don’t need massive GPUs to get started with Vantage.

For the final CPU rendering – we have several AMD 9950x in our studio with 64GB Ram, totally unspectacular workstations. In fact rendering moved between machines, whatever was available, the bottleneck was that we had just two render licenses available. Another thing, that I really appreciate about Vray CPU – it stays pretty consistent even if you throw in an older architecture.

DP: How did you keep the master scene nimble?

Peter Stulz: 3ds Max can become a real chore, when scenes get too heavy. I wholeheartedly hate unresponsive scenes – anything that breaks the creative flow has to be solved. Technically, there are several approaches: obviously using Proxies for heavy assets is a must; staying parametric if possible also keeps my scenes small; my modifier stacks can get quite impressive and I avoid baking them.

I xref wherever it makes sense, especially if parts of your scene are used in different settings. If I find the time, I localise heavy textures and reduce them – tedious but worth the effort later. Ideally the Master Scene only contains the camera, the lights and a few key assets. All the heavy load is loaded from external files. These scenes mostly are only a few MB in itself – helping with autobackups.

DP: Camera language before pixels: how did boards/animatic evolve once you could “walk the set” in Vantage?

Peter Stulz: It was important to develop a storyboard outside of 3D first to avoid thinking as a 3d designer. The environment was conceived like a sandbox, so we could freely explore the set with different lenses and angles. The superfast iterations we could do with Vantage really helped to test alternatives. That felt very powerful. Obviously some storyboard shots were then adapted or omitted. Vantage was great to secure we are on the right path.

DP: Lighting in Vantage: What translated 1:1 to finals, and where did parity crack?

Peter Stulz: At first it is scarily impressive how close Vantage can feel to the final look. We did a few final shots directly in Vantage and realised afterwards we could have done more in Vantage to prove the point. The extra turntable animation is done 100% in Vantage, but we really had to go deep in the settings to get rid of some flickering.

You have to understand, Vantage works like this: It downscales automatically to achieve close-to realtime speed and then gradually refines the look. But that logic causes limitations: For example GI depth in tricky setups might cause visible flickering. If you want to get rid of unwanted artefacts like these, you have to go deeper into the settings; and then you get these Vray 2010 vibes again :). Apart from that the denoiser might create some artefacts, textures are getting blurry, VDBs were not possible etc.

DP: Materials & lookdev: which shader features were non-negotiable, and what did you simplify for real-time parity?

Peter Stulz: Since we decided to use Vray CPU for finals, we just accepted that some stuff for Previz looked different – we knew it would be ok in the finals. But to answer the question we used Vantage for a another client project and it became clear again: If you want to produce in Vantage you can not set stuff up in Vray and hope for the best. In that case we had a semitranslucent ocean setting and that looked quite diffferent in Vantage and had to be especially adapted.

DP: The moving house: How was it rigged , and what broke first under real-time playback?

Peter Stulz: The architectural cube is in fact one scene with 2000 frames of animation. No cheap tricks – nothing appears magically out of thin air – it’s all in there. Only the initial cube with the rough surface is a different prop because it had a tricky blending shader which was animated ( animating materials in 3ds Max is a disaster …).

The rig for the unfolding was very basic and was built out of a lot of nested helpers. That was the most simple way to avoid the “locked axis” problem. What is this? Well, rigging a rubics cube is in fact not so straightforward as it seems: after a few twists the individual parts start to move quite unexpectedly – try it yourself, it’s actually pretty hard. The nested helpers solved this, now it was a matter of adjusting the right timing; how fast is the right speed for a massive 12m cube? You want to correspond a certain weight without boring the viewer. At the end we sprinkled some subtle secondary movements on top.

DP: Performance metrics: What were typical FPS for look-dev in Vantage and per-shot render times? Both for Vantage previews and V-Ray finals?

Peter Stulz: We could render out playblasts in Vantage (+/- 200 frames) over a toilet break in 1.5k resolution at 1:2.39. For finals in Vray I attempt to stay around 10 minutes / frame. If you want to use Vantage for final quality in FullHD, you crank up the settings to 1 minute / frame. If there was any noise left, the Resolve temporal denoiser is the last polish.

DP: The famous 95%: where did Vantage land “close enough” to V-Ray and what are the missing 5%?

Peter Stulz: Every “resolution” in Vantage is more coarse. I am not only talking textures, but sampling, atmospherics, global illumination. Obviously the denoiser also tends to smear everything. Everything is just lower definition than in Vray / Corona. That’s why oldschool rendering is still very valid to achieve that crispy level of detail.

DP: Editorial rhythm: how often did you re-cut while “shooting in engine,” and what told you a shot was edit-locked before triggering finals?

Peter Stulz: In our case that answer is quite simple: the presentation date was coming up, so we had a very strict timeframe when shots had to be done. Only thing we updated in the last days, we extended a few shots by 30 frames, because they felt rushed in the beta cut. That little change improved the rythm quite substantially.

DP: Pitfalls & fixes: three things that wasted time before you found the trick and what was the trick?

Peter Stulz: Vantage is built in a way that it actually could be used as a standalone loading in VrayScenes. Since I had my friend Olaf Aue as a cinematographer on board we tried to use it in that way. Theoretically that works, but with a lot of drawbacks and very limited editing and getting the changes from Vantage back into 3dsMax is hard.

We omitted that concept and resorted to live link only with 3ds Max. But actually that standalone option is not so bad – Chaos could really focus there more.

DP: If you rebuilt “Unboxed” today at 100% Vantage, what would the delivery plan look like? QC, shot classes that stay real-time, and the shortlist that still goes offline?

Peter Stulz: I know, that there are more shots that could be realised in Vantage directly. But if you plan this, it is smart to set up the whole project more focused on Vantage directly. Switching to Vray, if needed, is easy, the other way can be frustrating.

DP: What did “Unboxed” change in how you scope, price, and pitch real-time narrative work to clients?

Peter Stulz: We can offer fast animation works more easily which don’t need very high quality or are visually suitable for Vantage (clay shots).

DP: Wishlist to Chaos: What are the top parity/features that would let you ship more shots straight out of Vantage next time?

Peter Stulz: I would like easier quality settings if you intend to use Vantage as final renderer. We had to do a lot of tweaking for specific scenes or even change the 3d scene to avoid artefacts. Additionally Vantage ships with specific assets like a water surface or animated plants. These are great, but in LiveLink they are hard to be used, because there is not way to insert them in your Root Scene.

DP: For Vantage newcomers: What is your “first-day” checklist?

Peter Stulz: Familiarize yourself with the basic UI and do some stress tests to find the limits. Additionally I would look for a study project that comes close to a client environment. There is no point in having all the bells and whistles, if in a real production case you are missing the crucial components.

DP: One more hypothetic: with one extra week or one extra GPU, which single area would you invest in—and why?

Peter Stulz: Funny alternatives. As described above a half-decent GPU is good for previz which was the main usage in “Unbox”. Having a week extra is always great – so I would opt for that!

DP: Where exactly did you keep the “cube layer” for the whole piece: did we start life on the Blender Default Cube, and how much of that origin survived?

Peter Stulz: It sure was great that we could hire the mighty default cube as a support role. It didn’t even mind too much to be shipped into another 3d-suite – what a humble character and it really outshined itself in our short. 3d-artists should show more appreciation to have it per default all free!

DP: The cube’s side text: What does it say, and why?

Peter Stulz: The cube text gives instructions how to mix the perfect Daiquiri as it is served on Kepler 5 but it is quite explicit so I can’t go into depths here. But if you look for easter eggs, we have hidden various personal items in the architecture. Talking about audio my friend Olaf had a lot of fun browsing through his SFX library and pull out quite unusual sounds for the cubes inner mechanics.

The post The Cube Moved: Go for the Chaos (Ad) Vantage first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Twinmotion 2025.2 introduces Nanite, Unreal Engine’s virtualised geometry system. Nanite uses a new mesh format and rendering technology to stream only the visible parts of geometry on demand, allowing pixel-scale detail and very high object counts. Imported geometry meshes can be converted to Nanite at the time of import or afterwards via the Properties panel. A new Convert all to Nanite option has been added to the Scene graph’s contextual menu, enabling batch conversion of all geometries under a selected parent object. A dedicated Nanite triangles viewport mode displays Nanite mesh detail directly in the viewport. This can be enabled through the View mode icon.

In practice, this allows Twinmotion users to import high-resolution models from CAD, scan data, or sculpting applications without a pre-optimisation pass. According to Epic, the system is capable of handling datasets with hundreds of millions or even billions of polygons while retaining real-time responsiveness. This opens doors for users in architecture or automotive, where models often contain overwhelming detail at the component level, from bolts in a car chassis to screws in a façade system.

The implication is that asset fidelity is no longer artificially constrained at the import stage. However, Nanite’s real-world performance is always hardware dependent. While Epic emphasises “real-time performance,” users should expect performance scaling based on GPU capability, VRAM, and I/O throughput. Twinmotion’s positioning of Nanite as “removing the need to optimise” should be read literally only in terms of workflow steps, not in terms of performance costs. Heavy assets still consume resources.

Parallax Windows

Twinmotion 2025.2 includes a new Parallax Windows library. This library provides 32 assets, including office, residential, and gym interiors, alongside 10 retail interiors developed with wParallax.

These parallax windows can be dropped into scenes to simulate interior spaces without modelling and furnishing every room. Properties include night cycle simulation with randomised lighting, glass overlay simulation for added realism, and controls for mirroring and dual-sided occlusion.

3D Grass Material

The update adds a new 3D Grass Material with several enhancements. An Accent meshes section introduces small vegetation elements that break up uniform grass distribution and create a more natural appearance. A new Presets section contains 15 curated setups combining grass types, accent meshes, and parameter settings. Colour blending has been reworked, and a Dryness parameter allows application of a dry, sun-scorched effect across grass surfaces.

Installer Size Reduction and On-demand Content

The Twinmotion installer has been reduced in size by moving content to cloud storage. This change simplifies network deployment and makes distribution lighter. A new content-on-demand system allows users to download legacy content as needed. A Download icon in the Library categories lets users fetch entire categories. Content packs can also be downloaded from the Library packs tab of the Home panel. Epic now distinguishes between a Standard Library Pack, containing the full drag-and-drop asset collection, and a lighter Starter Library Pack for demos or quick installs.

Fog Cards

Twinmotion 2025.2 introduces Fog Cards into the VFX category. These are lightweight particle cards designed to add fog layers to a scene. Seventeen Fog Card assets are included. They can be scaled, tinted, and given emissive colours. A set of wind-reactive properties enables fog cards to move with global wind or at custom speed and direction. Fog cards can be combined with existing fog features, such as the global Ambience > Env > Fog or smaller fog banks in Library > Objects > VFX > Fog.

Camera Synchronisation

Twinmotion 2025.2 adds Camera Synchronisation with DCC applications. Through Direct Link or Datasmith imports, both active viewport cameras and saved DCC camera views can be aligned with the Twinmotion viewport camera. A new Camera Sync icon appears in the viewport when a Direct Link or Datasmith connection is active. This opens a user interface with options to enable or disable sync, and to select which DCC view to synchronise.

Static Motion Blur

A new Static Motion Blur system is included. Two tools, Linear Blur and Circular Blur, are available in the Tools > Static motion blur section of the Library.

When a static mesh is made a child of one of these tools in the Scene graph, the chosen blur effect is applied. This allows simulation of motion in still renders, such as wheel rotation on a static vehicle or directional blur on crowds.

Virtual Camera (VCam)

Twinmotion 2025.2 connects with the Unreal VCam app on Android and iOS. This allows a handheld device to control a live camera in Twinmotion scenes. The system supports placement of live cameras and real-time control of focal length, focus, exposure, and navigation settings. Streaming quality can be configured in the Preferences panel.

Exploder

The update introduces Exploder as a new type of Animator tool. Exploders create exploded view animations by separating the parts of an object in space and optionally reassembling them. Exploder Animators include a Shape parameter (sphere, cylinder, or plane) to define movement direction. Per-object settings for Timing and Origin allow staggered offsets and pivot controls. Exploders affect only their direct children in the Scene graph. The Library includes Exploder tool presets, such as Gentle Push, Deconstruct, Inflate, Ring Peel, Pressurize, Plan Split, and Stack Reassemble. These presets can be customised and saved as new versions.

Static and Real-time Animations in Images and Panoramas

Twinmotion 2025.2 introduces a global Static / Real time animation toggle for images and panoramas. This allows creators to pause animations at a specific frame when rendering stills or panoramas, rather than being restricted to real-time playback.

Sony Spatial Reality Display Support

Configuration triggers are now supported on the Sony Spatial Reality Display (SRD). This enables switching between configuration states directly on the SRD device.

Custom LUT Support

Twinmotion 2025.2 adds support for custom LUTs (lookup tables) in .cube format. LUTs can be imported into the new LUT category under the FX tab of the Ambience panel.

Users can apply LUTs from libraries or create them externally in image editing software such as Photoshop.

Advanced Post-process Effects

The FX tab filter system has been redesigned. Filters are now grouped under an Effects category with new settings for sketch-style visuals. Options include hatching, Kuwahara filtering, and pen-style outlines. Parameters are fully exposed, allowing customisation and saving of filter presets.

Conclusion

Twinmotion 2025.2 is a major release, expanding across geometry handling, materials, animation, post-processing, and interoperability. With features such as Nanite integration, Parallax Windows, Fog Cards, Exploder Animators, VCam support, custom LUTs, and mesh tessellation, this update covers both headline capabilities and smaller workflow refinements. Studios should review these features against their production needs before integrating them into pipelines.

The post Nanite marches in: Twinmotion 2025.2 update first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jürgen Firsching.

People are drinking beer again. On certain days, the first rays of sunshine tempt us to enjoy a beer under a blue sky. Fittingly, the pilsner brand Warsteiner is celebrating its 260th birthday with an advertising campaign designed by nhb. This is not the first film that nhb and the Kolle Rebbe agency have produced for the Warsteiner brewery, but the Warsteiner anniversary advert is the first time that the studio has also created the bottles in 3D.

You may have already seen the advert during the commercial break: The Warsteiner bottles dance their own choreography, beer bubbles, crown caps fly and at the end the beer bottles form into the number 260.

The anniversary crown cork campaign makes drinking beer worthwhile again, because those who have the right cap on the bottle can win a Mercedes, city breaks or an iPhone, among other things. For the “Choreography” spot, nhb visualised the bottles, the fluid simulation including foam and air bubbles as well as the winning products. The collaboration between Warsteiner, nhb and the agency Kolle Rebbe from Hamburg began with a cinema spot in 2007, and from 2008 the studio covered the entire Warsteiner advertising programme with TV, cinema and radio spots. For previous adverts, the bottles were filmed with a phantom camera and a motion control rig. During filming, however, there are restrictions regarding the length of camera movements as well as the size and number of image elements, which nhb was able to overcome with a complete CG realisation. nhb had already shown Warsteiner how efficiently the VFX department can work for the 2012 European Football Championship campaign and recreated a football stadium, including the pitch and spectators, in 3D. As the proportion of 3D in commercials has generally increased and Warsteiner was very pleased with nhb’s previous 3D looks, the brewery trusted the studio to create a complete 3D visualisation for this film. Digital Production spoke to Head of 3D Wolfgang Emmrich about the beer project.

DP: What are the advantages of a complete 3D realisation compared to a real shoot with a phantom camera?

Wolfgang Emmrich: The most important advantage is that you can completely override physics. Working in 3D offers the greatest possible freedom, there is no limit or end to shooting. In 3D, you can depict extreme camera movements and lens changes that would not be possible in real life. You have full control over the image, movement and lighting and can always change or generate new versions.

DP: Which production method was ultimately more cost-effective?

Wolfgang Emmrich: It’s hard to say, especially the last two big jobs we did for Warsteiner can hardly be compared with each other. Each production method certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. With this storyboard, however, a complete CG realisation made more sense and certainly saved costs.

DP: What specifications did you receive from the client for the look of the advert?

Wolfgang Emmrich: The specifications for the look were the key visuals from the Warsteiner print campaign on the one hand, but also the real shot pack shot from the European Championship Warsteiner film, which we retouched extensively on the flame in summer 2012 and sent through the colour correction process. Basically, the look that we developed from last year’s project.

DP: What other specifications did you receive from Warsteiner?

Wolfgang Emmrich: The briefing stipulated that the bottles, the beer and the whole film should look as natural as possible and not at all computer-generated. The beer had to look refreshing, tangy and delicious. DP: What was your workflow for the project? Wolfgang Emmrich: First we visualised the storyboard with wireframes so that we could develop a feeling for the timing in the moving image. The 3D then worked with Softimage, Realflow and Maya. The compositing was done in Nuke and the finalisation, creation of the titles and mastering as well as the customer approval took place at Flame. We rendered with Arnold and V-Ray as well as the nhb render farm with two THZs.

DP: What challenges did you face?

Wolfgang Emmrich: The most important thing for the entire project was that the liquids and the bottles looked absolutely natural at all times. That was a particular challenge when relighting and grading in Nuke.

DP: How long did the process take overall?

Wolfgang Emmrich: Including all the coordination and development processes, we worked on the advert for around eight weeks in total. Our VFX department in Düsseldorf also took on important work in order to keep to the specified timing.

DP: Why did nhb Düsseldorf create the Mercedes? Does this branch specialise in car models?

Wolfgang Emmrich: No, we make car models at all three nhb locations. We have a high-performance network, which benefits us with such extensive jobs. Thanks to our server-based workflows, we can utilise our resources at any time, regardless of location. This means that if we need capacity in Hamburg, we can provide immediate support from Düsseldorf or Berlin. In this case, we gave all the work on the car model to Düsseldorf. It was so easy to organise perfectly. The Mercedes was delivered as a CAD model.

DP: What tools did you use to create the swirling beer jet?

Wolfgang Emmrich: Producing a beer jet like this using fluid simulation, including foam formation and air bubbles, is one of the most difficult tasks in the field of digital image creation. We use the Realflow and Maya fluid simulation software for this kind of thing, which we have also used for previous Warsteiner projects.

DP: How did you go about colour grading?

Wolfgang Emmrich: This job required lighting design rather than colour grading. The desired look had already been defined beforehand and was developed in 3D and Nuke according to the specifications from the print campaign and the 2012 packshot. This meant that no colour grading on Lustre or Baselight was necessary afterwards.

DP: What are your next projects at nhb?

Wolfgang Emmrich: We are currently very busy in all branches and many projects are in the pipeline, across all disciplines from beauty to food. Some of our work is also being submitted by agencies to important festivals, such as the ADC in Hamburg and the Cannes Lions. You can look forward to that. We always present the latest projects on our website http://www.nhb.de.

DP: How do you deal with the thirst for beer when you have to look at refreshing beer bottles as a project every day?

Wolfgang Emmrich: Now that you mention it… (chuckle … chuckle … chuckle…)

The post Visualising barley juice first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.