For those who don’t know the site: Kitbash3D makes themed 3D environment kits for VFX, games, and visualisation. The new New Delhi Kit joins their growing library of ready-to-use digital worlds, compatible with most major DCC and realtime tools.

City without chaos

Kitbash3D has released New Delhi, a detailed collection of 3D assets designed to recreate the layered architecture and street textures of India’s capital. The kit includes 84 models and 127 PBR materials, intended for artists working in VFX, games, animation, and visualisation. The collection mixes colonial-era façades, contemporary concrete towers, and dense market alleys. Kitbash3D states that the assets are built for “realistic, lived-in environments” and are designed for both large-scale cityscapes and street-level storytelling.

Compatible across pipelines

The New Delhi Kit is supplied in standard formats, including FBX and USD, and integrates with major DCC tools such as Blender, Maya, and 3ds Max. It is also compatible with realtime engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity, and supports common renderers including Arnold, Cycles, and Redshift.

Kitbash3D lists the kit as ready for immediate production use, with pre-optimised geometry and consistent scaling for modular assembly. The files use standard PBR workflows and are organised for straightforward import and texturing.

Architectural detail and reuse

According to the official description, the New Delhi Kit focuses on flexibility and reusability. Building assets can be mixed to create anything from residential areas to commercial centres. Street props, market stalls, and signage extend the set for scene dressing or background population.

The kit is part of Kitbash3D’s ongoing series of geographically themed city kits, following earlier releases such as Tokyo, Paris, and New York. The New Delhi collection adds a South Asian context to the library, expanding possibilities for worldbuilding and localisation in cinematic and interactive productions.

Available now

The kit is available for purchase directly from Kitbash3D. The New Delhi Kit is included in Kitbash3D Unlimited, the company’s annual subscription giving full access to its 3D asset library via the Cargo desktop app. Unlimited costs USD 995 per year for individual freelancers and USD 3,995 per year for small studios with up to 50 employees. Assets can be used in active productions during the subscription, but new projects require an active licence. Perpetual rights are available separately for specific kits.

Artists are advised to test the assets in their own production setups before integrating them into active pipelines, particularly when mixing renderers or real-time and offline workflows. A quick inspection of the models suggests consistent texutre naming and clean geometry, but the actual level of optimisation can vary depending on import method and scene scale.

https://kitbash3d.com/products/new-delhi

The post Delhi in 3D: Kitbash3D goes urban first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

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.

Tomorrow (Thursday), the CityEngine User Meeting 2025 goes live at 5 p.m. Central European Time (8 a.m. Pacific / 11 a.m. Eastern). It’s a free online event for professionals and enthusiasts working with CityEngine and related tools. The session is hosted by the same organiser behind the IceArt events, known for bringing together a precise mix of artists, designers, and developers. Attendance is free but registration is required via GoToWebinar.

Devin Lavigne, Partner, Houseal Lavigne, X: @devlavigne
A Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners (FAICP), Lavigne is cofounder of Houseal Lavigne, known for its GIS-driven 3D planning projects. He integrates ArcGIS, CityEngine, SketchUp, Unreal Engine, and Omniverse to visualise urban data. He has led more than 200 plans worldwide and received the APA National Excellence Award, Esri’s Most Innovative Partner Award, and five Esri SAG Awards. Lavigne regularly presents at Esri UC and the Geodesign Summit, focusing on pragmatic, production-ready digital-twin workflows.

Dr. Leilei Duan, 3D Technical Consultant, Esri
Duan holds a PhD in Design, Construction, and Planning from the University of Florida and previously taught at the Spatial Sciences Institute at USC. At Esri, she advises clients on advanced 3D spatial solutions and emerging applications for CityEngine and ArcGIS Urban.

Romain Janil, Founder & CEO, romainjanil.com X: @RomainJanil
Janil is a designer specialising in 3D environment production across realtime, offline, and hybrid workflows — including simulation, games, and VFX. Known for procedural innovation and strong visual sensibility, he bridges the design and technical domains, making procedural design accessible to production artists.

Silvia Casas, Senior Product Manager, Esri
Casas manages ArcGIS Urban and CityEngine product development. With degrees in urban planning and architecture, she joined Esri in 2004 and has since led multiple 3D city and planning initiatives. She coordinates user requirements and development priorities for both ArcGIS Urban and CityEngine, translating feedback into stable production features. Expect insights from her on current roadmap directions and the practical challenges of balancing R&D and user stability.

Simon Haegler, Principal Software Developer, Esri
Haegler is a core developer at Esri R&D Zurich and one of the technical architects behind CityEngine. Trained in electrical engineering, he specialises in procedural 3D city modelling for media and AEC workflows. His work bridges the tool’s procedural engine with modern rendering and pipeline integration.
Haegler often presents detailed looks at CGA rule systems and interoperability between CityEngine and realtime tools.

For City Planners, TDs, and VFX Generalists Alike

CityEngine sits at the intersection of visual effects, realtime visualisation, and urban simulation. Whether used in city planning, game environments, or film previsualisation, its rule-based modelling workflow continues to attract a technically minded audience. The organisers describe the event as “fun”, a welcome rarity for a tool better known for geometry than parties. Expect a few seasoned users to show tips, scripts, and workflows not usually found in documentation.

Why It Matters

For production artists already relying on procedural assets, this event is a chance to catch up directly with the tool’s developers and early adopters. With contributors from both academia and production, it bridges the gap between R&D and daily use.

The post Procedural Thursday: CityEngine Users Meet Online Tomorrow first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

KitBash3D has added a Washington, D.C. Kit to its Unlimited subscription offering, allowing creators to access high-fidelity models of U.S. capital landmarks and civic architecture for film, games, VR, and visualisation.

What’s in the Washington, D.C. Kit

The kit includes 3D models of key D.C. landmarks and civic assets: the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, memorials, plazas, museums, and related urban infrastructure. Geo-material detail is a focus: the team studied Aquia Creek sandstone, Colorado marble, and other historically significant materials to replicate textures and architectural character.

To support large scale uses, the creators developed multiple texture variants and custom solutions rather than relying on one or two material types across large surfaces. They also optimised assets to balance detail with usability for real-time or offline rendering workflows. Beyond historical structures, the kit offers modern office complexes and complementary urban elements to allow mix-and-match cityscapes. For users who need more than just the kit, there is also a “Washington, D.C. Expanded Bundle,” which includes additional substance materials, vehicles (police cruiser, large SUV, city bus), and related assets.

Unlimited or Standalone — Licensing Options

The Washington, D.C. Kit is now available via KitBash3D Unlimited, meaning subscribers can access it as part of their library subscription. For those who prefer ownership, it is also sold individually or in expanded bundles.

Challenges & Design Choices

In a “Behind the Kit” post, the KitBash3D team outlined some of their primary challenges. Scaling up architectural models without obvious tiling or visible repetition in textures posed significant difficulties. Some surfaces required bespoke textures, especially where the scale magnified flaws or pattern repeats.

The team also emphasised the tradeoff between optimisation and visual fidelity. They note that optimisation does not always mean using fewer resources; sometimes introducing new materials or more variants leads to better visual quality without harming performance. The project was reportedly one of the most ambitious for KitBash3D in terms of scale and architectural complexity.

Why This Matters for Creators

For VFX artists, environment designers, virtual production teams, and archviz specialists, the Washington, D.C. Kit offers a fast route to building cinematic capital city environments without modelling everything from scratch. The combination of recognised landmarks and supporting urban assets gives flexibility for storytelling across genres—political drama, sci-fi reimaginings, alternate history, or educational simulation.

Because the kit supports both historic and modern elements, users can blend eras or propose speculative scenarios. Meanwhile, the texture and geometry optimisations help maintain performance in real-time engines or render pipelines. That said, creators should test integration (scale, LODs, shaders) in their pipelines before committing to full shots.

Bottom Line

KitBash3D has extended its Unlimited catalogue with a Washington, D.C. kit — a detailed, modular, architecturally faithful set of civic assets, available either via subscription or standalone. The design balances historical fidelity, scale, and real-world usability. With the current state of Washington and its inhabitants, anything that makes it possible not to visit in person is a welcome addition to any toolkit.

The post Capitol Scenes Go Digital — KitBash3D Adds Washington, D.C. to Unlimited Library first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In the world of architectural visualization, the quest for seamless integration between design and rendering tools has taken a significant leap forward. Lumion has unveiled Lumion View, a real-time visualization plugin that embeds directly into SketchUp, allowing architects and designers to generate photorealistic 4K renders without ever leaving their modeling environment. This development promises to streamline workflows and enhance the creative process during the early stages of design.

A Fusion of Design and Visualization

Traditionally, transitioning from modeling to rendering involved exporting models from SketchUp into external applications, a process often fraught with compatibility issues and time-consuming adjustments. Lumion View eliminates these hurdles by integrating rendering capabilities directly within SketchUp. This integration enables designers to visualize their projects in real-time, facilitating immediate feedback and more informed design decisions. As Lumion describes it, Lumion View is a “lightweight and lightning-fast” companion designed to keep pace with the rapid iterations inherent in early-stage design.

Key Features of Lumion View

• Real-Time Visualization: Experience your SketchUp models with photorealistic clarity as you design, allowing for instantaneous exploration and refinement of ideas.
• 4K Rendering: Quickly produce high-resolution renders up to 4K, enabling detailed presentations and effective communication of design progress to clients and team members.
• Integrated Workflow: By embedding directly into SketchUp, Lumion View ensures a seamless workflow, reducing the need for model exports and imports, and keeping the focus on creativity.
• Effortless Diagrams and Conceptual Visualizations: Generate diagrams and conceptual visuals on-the-fly, perfect for massing studies and spatial layout explorations during the initial phases of design.
• Instant Feedback with Intuitive Tools: The plugin provides immediate visual feedback with user-friendly controls, allowing designers to focus on refining their concepts without technical distractions.

Early Access and Availability

Lumion View is currently available in early access and is free for all Lumion Pro subscribers. To access the plugin:

1. Download: Log into your Lumion Account to download Lumion View for SketchUp. Download Link
2. Team Collaboration: For each Lumion Pro seat, you can invite up to 10 team members to use Lumion View at no additional cost until October 31, 2025, fostering collaborative design exploration within teams.

For those not currently subscribed to Lumion Pro or using SketchUp, Lumion offers a waitlist to notify interested users when Lumion View becomes broadly available.

System Requirements and Compatibility

To ensure optimal performance, Lumion View requires:

• Operating System: Windows 10 or 11 with the latest updates.
• Hardware: A ray tracing-capable graphics card to support real-time rendering capabilities. System Requirements

Currently, Lumion View is available for SketchUp, with plans to support additional CAD software in the future. Designers using other platforms are encouraged to join the waitlist to receive updates on compatibility expansions.

Lumion View vs. Lumion Pro

While Lumion View brings real-time visualization into the SketchUp environment, it’s designed to complement, not replace, Lumion Pro. Lumion View excels in early-stage design exploration, offering speed and flexibility for conceptual development. In contrast, Lumion Pro provides advanced rendering capabilities, full creative control over context, realism, effects, and final output, making it ideal for detailed presentations and immersive animations. Together, they create a cohesive workflow from concept to final visualization. For more detailed information and to access Lumion View, visit the official Lumion website.

The post Lumion View: Real-Time Rendering Now Inside SketchUp first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.