A Keyshot replacement

[Pedro_Bidarra]

Background: Rendering in Fusion hasn't gotten much (or any) love in the last years, as such, if you want to produce really good quality renders and animations you're either stuck with using Keyshot (which costs much more than Fusion), or you export to use in apps like Blender, 3D Max or C4D. However, exporting is a pain whenever you need to update the design. The advantage of Keyshot is is really being able to 'link' the model between the 2 apps.

So, I've decided to create a system that automates the exporting and importing task between Fusion and Blender in such a way that brings practically all the important appearance settings already set in Fusion to Blender and updates the geometry on demand, preserving also key aspects of the hierarchy.

I coded a Fusion exporting add-on and a Blender importing add-on, I made this system modular enough that other apps can be added in the future on either the importing and exporting side. Considering how much Keyshot costs, I think this can be a viable commercial product, and because of that I have no intention of sharing the code or some key insights.
My intention with this post is to kind of measure what is the community's interest and feedback.

I've made a demonstration video:

Note: I'm an Industrial/Furniture/Interior Designer and I've struggled with these visualization pitfalls in my work for years. I have very strong opinions about streamlining 3D work, specifically minimizing redundant 3D modeling that I've expressed here, for anyone interested: https://medium.com/p/78df9c034c69

Note 2: I have no affiliation with Oriflame.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Pedro_Bidarra wrote:

... I think this can be a viable commercial product...

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Absolutely!

[Pedro_Bidarra]

Thanks! Coming from you means a lot.

[TrippyLighting]

@Pedro_Bidarra How is this coming along?

[Pedro_Bidarra]

@TrippyLighting I haven't released it. I've been using it for my own projects and it's great, really solves the whole rendering in Fusion thing. And because Blender handles meshes better, say plants and stuff that might be used just to spice up renders, it's a good workflow.

[saccade]

Very interested. Any plans to commercialize / distribute this?

[Pedro_Bidarra]

@saccade, currently no plans, as you can see from this topic I don't think there's much interest.

I think it's very niche product and/or difficult to explain the advantages.

I also had a look at Keyshot's financial reports and did some math and I was surprised that they really don't sell that many licenses, so that cemented on me the idea the demand is very niche.

[inspace9018]

@saccade since Pedro's isn't being released: I make one that's out, free and open source. Fusion → Blender over a local connection, sync again after a design change and your Blender materials, lights and modifiers stay attached. Not KeyShot's library, but Cycles with a synced model covers most product shots. @Pedro_Bidarra I'd like to hear what yours did that mine doesn't. https://github.com/inspace9018/fusion-to-blender-bridge

[Pedro_Bidarra]

Just a quick look at your page, one key difference, I import Fusion's appearances (including the textures).
Which actually is the hardest part to do, you have to interact more with both APIs and do some conversions, even for colors, if you want to display them correctly and equally on both programs.

[saccade]

Having a way to import the Fusion appearances into Blender (even if it's a separate app or utility) is a big deal for me. I have large library of appearances (mostly architectural finishes) in Fusion I've built up over the years; re-creating those in Blender would be some work.

[Pedro_Bidarra]

Yeah, I totally get that, and not having to duplicate work that was already done was one of the reasons to make these plugins. But I should also say that the materials you can get in Blender are much better, you can do a lot more with materials, and you can also use something like Blenderkit that has an extensive library of realistic materials.
In my workflow, depending on how much time I can spend I might just use the Fusion appearance as is in Blender, I might tweak it a bit, or just replace the material, usually by a Blenderkit one.

[saccade]

Yeah - the appearances I've gathered in Fusion aren't generic - they're specific tiles, countertop materials, wood grains, paints, etc. that have all been measured and scaled so they appear accurately in renderings. It's been built up over a few years. Finding a way to export all that to other rendering tools would be useful.