Boosting Archviz and Design Workflows With Redshift for Vectorworks Architectural visualization experts Fuchs & Vogel share how Maxon’s new AEC plugin helps accelerate their workflow while enhancing visual quality.

Earlier this year, Maxon introduced its real-time architectural preview and render solution Redshift for Architects. Engineered for architects and interior designers, this new AEC tool brings Maxon’s cinematic rendering technology, Redshift, directly into professional architectural design workflows. Thanks to its GPU-accelerated rendering capabilities, it enables users to seamlessly move from real-time design previews to high-end, photorealistic renders.

To ensure that Redshift for Vectorworks ideally supports real-world archviz and interior design work, the plugin was developed in close collaboration with Munich-based animation studio Fuchs & Vogel, who specialize in photorealistic architectural visualization, animation, and VR. Additionally, they created the visuals for the product’s launch campaign.

We caught up with Fuchs & Vogel to learn how their feedback shaped the product, how Redshift for Vectorworks accelerates their workflow, and how it allows them to improve the visual quality of their projects. 

Christian Fuchs: One of the main things we focused on during the beta and development process was identifying the tasks that tend to become unnecessarily time-consuming in day-to-day architectural visualization work, especially when the goal is to create convincing images directly from the design environment.

A pain point we raised early on was the creation of believable grass and landscaped areas around buildings. In a traditional archviz workflow, setting up convincing grass is often much more complex than it seems. You need suitable models, appropriate materials, and a natural-looking scattering and distribution setup. That usually requires a fair amount of specialist knowledge to get right. Redshift for Vectorworks addresses this through a preset-based workflow. You can choose from different grass or lawn templates and scatter them onto green areas with very little setup effort. It is no longer necessary to build the whole system manually or worry about models, materials, and distribution parameters from scratch.

Another important topic was the handling of highly structured surfaces such as stone walls, brick facades, and similar architectural materials. In classical 3D rendering workflows, creating convincing depth and surfaces often means working with displacement, which can be technically demanding and time-consuming to set up. In Redshift for Vectorworks, you can simply use parallax mapping to create a convincing displacement-like effect in a much more efficient way.

This is where triplanar mapping came in handy. It removes a lot of manual UV-related work and makes materials much easier to apply. Additionally, this triplanar workflow is more intuitive than what we were used to from older setups. Instead of working with rather abstract tiling values, you can define the size in real-world terms. For architectural visualization, that is a big improvement, because it makes the process faster, easier to control, and much more natural for users who think in real dimensions rather than in shader-internal values.

In general, the pain points we flagged were practical workflow issues. We are happy to see that several of these points can now be seen reflected in the current product, especially in the areas of preset-driven environment creation, easier material application, and more intuitive control over material scale and mapping.

Fuchs: Normally, when we receive a Vectorworks project from a client, our visualization workflow starts with exporting the model to Cinema 4D almost immediately. From that point on, we essentially build our own visualization scene around the imported architecture in Cinema 4D. We use materials, 3D models, and other assets from a library that we have built up over many years of professional visualization work. Having a library like that is a huge efficiency advantage, but it is also something you only have after doing this for a long time.

Redshift for Vectorworks allows you to work directly on the source model inside of Vectorworks rather than on an exported copy. If the architecture changes, you can make those adjustments before the point where an export would traditionally have happened. That way, you don’t have to try to keep a separate visualization scene synchronized with a project that is still evolving.

At the same time, Redshift for Vectorworks provides you with a modern, physically based rendering environment right inside of Vectorworks, including global illumination and a much more sophisticated lighting workflow. So, instead of first transferring the model into another application just to begin judging light, materials, and atmosphere, you can start developing the final look immediately.

The material workflow is a great example. There is a curated Redshift material library, which we actually helped create for Maxon, covering a wide range of architectural materials. You can filter the library by category, find an appropriate material, and simply drag and drop it onto an object. Because you immediately see the result in the Redshift preview, trying different materials becomes extremely direct. You no longer need to assign something based on an abstract viewport representation and wait until later in the visualization pipeline to see what it really looks like.

The same applies to assets. Maxon's asset library gives you access to a large collection of ready-to-use 3D objects for many of the elements typically used to populate an architectural scene. Instead of building, buying, converting, and organizing every individual asset yourself, you can browse the library and place objects directly into your project.

That makes the entire process surprisingly playful. It almost feels a little like building a scene in a game: you stay in your architectural project, choose materials, add vegetation and objects, adjust the lighting, and immediately see how the image develops. Underneath that very accessible workflow, however, you are still working with Redshift and a physically based rendering system.

For us, the biggest change is therefore not simply that Redshift is available in another application. It is that the visualization process can begin much earlier and directly within the architectural design process. The traditional gap between designing the building and creating a convincing final representation of it is essentially closed. You are no longer leaving the design environment to start a separate visualization process. Instead, the design and visualization can develop together inside the same Vectorworks project.

Fuchs: The single biggest workflow win for us is how much earlier we can start making meaningful visual decisions with the client.

In our traditional workflow, when we receive a Vectorworks project, it typically takes at least one or two working days before we can show the client the first useful clay renderings. We first have to export the project to Cinema 4D, clean up and reorganize the scene, and often rebuild or replace elements that do not transfer perfectly. Only after that can we begin setting up cameras, realistic sunlight, and the first renderings that are actually useful as a basis for discussion.

With Redshift for Vectorworks, that first phase can be much shorter. Because we can stay directly inside the source project, there is no need for exporting, no rebuilding of the scene, and no separate visualization file that has to be prepared first. In a typical project, we could create the first meaningful camera and lighting previews within roughly one or two hours of receiving the Vectorworks file instead of one or two days.

This does not just save production time. It allows us to have the first client discussion way faster than before. We can agree on cameras and lighting before spending time detailing areas that may never appear in the final image.

The same advantage continues throughout the project. Because the visualization remains connected to the Vectorworks model, architectural changes can be evaluated directly in the rendered view. If a facade changes, a wall moves, or the client wants to explore another material, we are still working on the source project, so there is no need to try to synchronize a separate visualization scene.

From a client perspective, this can make the approval process much more efficient. Instead of waiting a day or two for the visualization pipeline to be prepared before meaningful discussions can even begin, clients can start reviewing realistic perspectives and lighting concepts almost immediately.

It can also reduce unnecessary work on our side. If we establish the final camera angles early on, we know exactly which areas need detailed materials and assets and which ones do not. That means less time spent building parts of a visualization that may not even be visible in the end.

We wouldn't claim that every project will suddenly require fewer revisions, since that always depends on the project and the client; but, reducing the time to first meaningful visual feedback from one or two days to roughly one or two hours is a clear and measurable workflow improvement. It also allows design, visualization, and client feedback to happen much closer together, creating strong potential for faster approvals and more efficient iteration overall.

Fuchs: For most architectural visualization tasks, we can now stay inside Vectorworks much longer than we normally would, and in many cases, we can produce the final image there. The architectural model, cameras, materials, vegetation, lighting, and the overall look of the scene can all be developed directly in the Vectorworks project using Redshift.

That way, the visual quality is no longer limited to what you would traditionally associate with a CAD viewport or a simple real-time presentation tool. You have a physically based renderer with global illumination as well as realistic materials and lighting available directly in the design environment. For a typical architectural still, that already gives us most of what we need to create a convincing marketing-quality image.

We rely on Cinema 4D when the project goes beyond the architectural scene itself. For example, if we want to add more complex animation, animated cars or people, sophisticated water simulations, particle effects, or other procedural and simulated elements, Cinema 4D gives us a much broader toolset for that kind of work. So, we can develop the architecture, materials, lighting, and composition in Vectorworks first and only continue in Cinema 4D when the specific project calls for more complex animation, simulation, or specialized effects.

That changes how we think about visual quality. Previously, moving to Cinema 4D was a mandatory part of the process if the goal was a high-end final image. With Redshift for Vectorworks, that step is no longer necessary just to achieve convincing materials, lighting and physically based rendering. Cinema 4D becomes an additional level of creative and technical control rather than a prerequisite for quality.

The direct connection between the two applications is therefore particularly valuable. We can take a scene that has already been developed visually in Vectorworks and continue refining it in the wider Cinema 4D environment instead of treating the transfer as the beginning of a completely new visualization process.

For us, Vectorworks is now capable of covering the complete workflow for a large proportion of architectural stills.

Fuchs: The biggest change is that visualization becomes part of the design process itself. Once you can achieve high-quality images directly inside Vectorworks, the separation between the architectural model and the presentation model largely disappears. You can judge the building with realistic materials, physically based lighting, vegetation, furniture, and atmosphere while you are still designing it.

That changes the way you make decisions. Instead of thinking about a material, facade, or lighting concept in an abstract way and only seeing the convincing result later, you can evaluate it immediately in the context of the final image. That makes it much easier to experiment, compare options, and understand how design decisions affect the overall impression of the building.

It also changes collaboration with the client. Because the visualization still lives inside the Vectorworks project, the project can be handed back for further design changes without losing the visualization setup. The same is true much earlier in the process. Even before the project is fully developed, you can already show convincing previews with realistic light and atmosphere. That means discussions about camera angles, daylight, materials, or the overall mood of a space can happen while the design is still flexible.

For us, that is probably the most fundamental shift: there is no gap between the model with which you design and the image with which you communicate.

Fuchs: For us, the biggest difference when using Redshift is that the materials and lighting you see during the interactive workflow are already very close to what you would expect from the final production renderer.

With many real-time presentation tools, the image is primarily an approximation. It is very useful for communicating the design quickly, but there is often still a gap between what you see during the presentation and what the final high-quality render will look like.

With Redshift for Vectorworks, that gap becomes much smaller. You are already working with a physically based rendering system, so the way materials respond to light, the way indirect illumination behaves, and the overall character of the image are much closer to the final result from the beginning.

Fuchs: From our experience, Redshift for Vectorworks feels extremely immediate and responsive during design-phase iteration. In Cinema 4D, we also work with Redshift's interactive rendering, and Redshift Live has of course now become part of that workflow as well.

However, Redshift for Vectorworks feels different because the whole feature set is much more focused on this specific architectural use case. The workflow is deliberately streamlined, which makes the interaction feel incredibly direct. You can move the camera in the rendered view and the image reacts almost instantly, much more like navigating through a computer game than waiting for a traditional rendering preview to catch up. The same applies when adjusting lighting, materials, or composition. The feedback feels very immediate, so you can stay focused on the visual decision instead of thinking about the rendering process behind it. For us, that responsiveness has a real impact on the way we work, as it allows us to experiment and iterate a lot more.

Since this responsiveness is combined with Redshift's production-quality material and lighting system, the feedback is not only fast, but also meaningful. It allows you to make decisions based on an image that is already very close to the final result. The focused and streamlined implementation in Vectorworks makes the entire experience feel exceptionally smooth and direct for this particular type of work.