Whats the most Cost Effective Animation Renderer????

Sekta · 23 Feb 2009, 10:15

Hi All,

The day has finally come which I was dreading. One of my clients asked me today for a a full rendered AVI of his project. I have done simple SKP fly throughs but he wants the real deal. I really do want to learn how to do it but my dilemma is I only have about 3-4 weeks to get up to speed with it and produce or do I just out source this one????

I have looked at Irender NXT and a myriad of others but I really dont want to fork out the money till I hear some real experiences from you guys. I guess I am looking for a renderer which is simple, easy to use cost effective and give a whole lot of bang for the buck. that can have me producing some convincing 3d rendered animations of my SKP model.

Be great to hear from some of you about your experiences and recommendations

Stan

Frederik · 23 Feb 2009, 12:23

For obvious reasons, I suggest that you try Kerkythea 2008 Echo ...
But I'm sure others will recomment their favorite render application...

Making an animation in KT is quite simple...

You can check out the A quick clay animation... I posted a while back...

Please check out the Walkthrough Animation Step-by-Step tutorial available from our repository...
Although it was written for KT2007 the basics remain identical for KT2008 Echo...

Gaieus · 23 Feb 2009, 12:36

As for cost effectiveness, Kerkythea is unbeatable...

remus · 23 Feb 2009, 13:37

Id probably go with kerkythea or possibly podium, not sure how easy animation would be in podium though.

Whatever you go for make sure its a fast render engine otherwise you'll spend forever waiting for it to render.

Other general tips: only render as big as you need, no bigger. Large image sizes push up the render time exponentially.

Do a few experiments to find the minimum frame rate you can use, rendering as few frames as possible is a good way to speed up the rendering process.

Try not to use too many complicated materials, if youve got a displaced SSS material it will slow things down considerably, at least in the render engines i've used before. This might not be the case in KT.

Frederik · 23 Feb 2009, 14:26

@remus said:

This might not be the case in KT.

I'd say it's the same for ALL render applications... KT included...

Materials, lightning, render output size, render method etc. are ALL very important parameters when it comes to render an animation...!!

@gaieus said:

As for cost effectiveness, Kerkythea is unbeatable...

Yeah... You're definitely right about that...

thomthom · 23 Feb 2009, 14:36

Cost or purchase is one thing, cost of learning and cost of time spent setting it up is another.

Frederik · 23 Feb 2009, 14:56

@thomthom said:

...cost of learning and cost of time spent setting it up is another.

Agree with you on that...
But setting things up in KT (materials, lightning and render method) is fairly easy and doesn't take that long... (max. 5-10 minutes, depending on the scene)

Gaieus · 23 Feb 2009, 22:03

@remus said:

if youve got a displaced SSS material it will slow things down considerably, at least in the render engines i've used before. This might not be the case in KT.

@frederik said:

I'd say it's the same for ALL render applications... KT included...

If only KT did displacement...

Sekta · 23 Feb 2009, 22:39

Hey, thanks guys for the responses. You know I didn't realise you could do rendered animation in KT, I should have mentioned in my first post I use KT echo for some simple occasional renders, I will definitely check out the step by steps Fredrick. Thanks.

Stan

dtrarch · 24 Feb 2009, 16:03

Hi Sekta

SU to Kt is a very good option for path animation of the camera.
No object animation (maybe with Sketchy Physics) but fast and easy.
For object, moving people etc expect about one hour per second to produce.
You can import the KT files to an inexpensive Video editor and get some pretty good results.
I checked out Windows (XP) editor, Adobe Premier Elements, Virtual Dub (free) and a couple of others but selected Magix Movie Edit Pro 14 as it was super fast and easy to use (under $50 to buy) and very full featured.
(trial version is available)
The attached test render resolution has been reduced to fit here but
the higher rez version had smooth transitions and was very sharp.

Hope this is of some help

dtrMovie 2009-02-19.wmv

Ecuadorian · 26 Feb 2009, 10:50

Real-world experience is what you asked for, real-world experience is what you get:

301 Moved Permanently

(www.sketchucation.com)

For this particular test, Kerkythea was 9x faster than Podium. Podium took 55 minutes, and Kerky took 6 minutes.

How easy was it to setup in each renderer?

First, I created the four cameras in SketchUp.

Podium:
To be able to do the Podium test, I had to use an unofficial plug-in, called "SaphuA Plug-ins", and configure it before start. Then I had to run an additional external program called "PodiumAnimate" by the same author of the "SaphuA Plug-ins". To make things worse, the Podium output is not immediately usable in any video editor, as it is not a numbered sequence. You have to use a massive file renamer for that. And Podium's lack of internal exposure correction means for interior animations using only the sun, you'll have to do the corrections in post-processing, producing ugly posterization. And it crashed after rendering 175 frames, which means you'll have to sleep next to your PC with an eye open if you want to go this route.

Kerkythea:
Add "TG_" to any glass material before export, press the Kerkythea button in SketchUp (export took some three seconds), and in Kerky create a new Walkthrough animation using the SU cameras and hit render. Everything will be ready for the video editor after finishing.

How difficult was it to learn to render an animation in Kerky? I first opened KT on Wednesday 11th's morning, and by lunch I was already rendering my first animation. A few days after that I was already using it in commercial work.

For converting to JPG sequences to video I recommend VideoMach (about $50) and for more fancy editing Windows Movie Maker. VideoMach has some useful effects that Movie Maker lacks, as Motion Blur and white balance correction. Remember to buy the DivX pro codec (about $20) to use with VideoMach. If you need any more advice regarding Walk-through animations feel free to ask, as I've been doing it for years. (Well, my videos are not top-quality, but at least not that fugly)

dtrarch · 26 Feb 2009, 19:36

Hi Ecuadorian

Yes KT wins.
Also I have ATL Studio and not up to speed at all.
I did check out VideoMach (shareware for $25 US)
MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 14 is a bunch more full featured and has all the exports/codecs to boot.
Up to 14 tracks as well (vid or sound)

Thx for your input too.

dtr

Sekta · 28 Feb 2009, 02:40

Hi Ecuadorian,

Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated Luckily I have been using KT for a while now so the next step to rendered aninmations should not be a huge one

Stan

solo · 28 Feb 2009, 03:03

I'm going out on a limb here, firstly I have never used KT to an extent that Iv'e rendered anything worth posting. I have recently dabbled with NXT (the trial version) I do not know the price of this app but will say it works as expected, the animation render is faultless and fast. I was very impressed at how easy it was, on my first attempt it worked just as I hoped it would.
and a feature I just love is the ability to render lines.

Here is a .gif (so image quality sucks due to conversion), took 6 minutes to make using a quad core using almost the lowest settings possible.

Ecuadorian · 28 Feb 2009, 03:29

The beauty of the 3D rendering world is that it's full of options. No company has yet built a monopoly over it (Well, Autodesk kinda tries to do that...).

I used Art*lantis 4.5 for Walkthrough animations for years when I worked for Furoiani Building Co. (Actually, it was the local distributor of ArchiCAD and Artlantis who found me that job), and I have to say that it was the fastest renderer I've ever used. I haven't used the new version, but Coen Nanick highly recommends it, so it's worth considering. Artlantis Studio 2 (the version that does animations) + a collection of objects and shaders currently goes for $4,795. The naked version (without libraries) goes for $1,385. Yes, I remember Artlantis, ArchiCAD and the extras were big business for the local distributor... ala Gillette.

Yet another option, if you want extremely quick, no-hassle, animations from SketchUp, is LightUp, which goes for around $150.

kwistenbiebel · 28 Feb 2009, 04:46

@ecuadorian said:

Artlantis Studio 2 (the version that does animations) + a collection of objects and shaders currently goes for $4,795.

Bargain!
Wuahaahaaaa.

For a render engine that is sub standard on photorealism that is a lot of Dinero.

Frederik · 28 Feb 2009, 15:08

@solo said:

...firstly I have never used KT to an extent that Iv'e rendered anything worth posting.

I have to admit that I'm slightly puzzled why a person with your talent haven't been able to get along with KT...
Many users have adapted KT very quickly... Are you sure you've given it a fair trial...?!?

Al Hart · 28 Feb 2009, 18:50

@solo said:

Here is a .gif (so image quality sucks due to conversion), took 6 minutes to make using a quad core using almost the lowest settings possible.

Nice GIF. I have never seen this technique before (We work out of our bath tub and never see the real world)

What is the trick for turning an animation into a GIF?

How crazy can you get (size, length, etc.)?

solo · 28 Feb 2009, 18:57

AL

I use Corel animation studio to convert the .avi to .gif and I can optimise it so that it will be small enough to embed, it's an instant conversion, no waiting for a rerender.

I can size it to pretty much any size, aspect ratio, I can also recentre and overlap videos too.

Ecuadorian · 28 Feb 2009, 19:33

Sekta, in a similar thread I mentioned 3dsMAX as an option if you want to have animated cars, people, etc. This is an animation I made in MAX a year ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLour3iMuc
Youtube degraded it a lot in the conversion .

But of course preparing a presentation with moving objects is exhausting and time-consuming, so most of my MAX walk-throughs were almost completely static. Here are a couple of examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6w5PxjKEpQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbhQTy0pZ4k

BTW, I faked the caustics (light reflecting from water) you see in the first MAX video using projector lights. Kerky has projector lights, too, so it shouldn't be hard to emulate this effect.

I feel a bit bad for having bashed Art-lantis in a previous post, so to set the record straight here are a couple of videos I made years ago with version 4.5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR3zw-G3PvM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uut3l2dJPns

Of course my videos are not photorealistic at all... But if I keep trying hard, I hope to some day be at least 10% as good as Neoshed or Master Kwistenbiebel.

I'll soon start posting some Kerky walk-throughs... As soon as I find a nice model to render, or a client asks for one. Until then, here's my first attemp, rendered just hours after opening Kerky for the first time. SketchUp model by Pibuz, modified by Master Solo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiS3l6otTQw