Thea or maxwell?
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So far i've tried SU Podium and Kerkythea.
Podium is easy to use and you quickly make very nice renders and you run it inside SU.
Kerkythea has much more to offer but isn't easy to learn... i usually find myself spending hours just testing settings i don't yet understand
Have you seen Octane render?
Man... it blew me away, now i'm going for a new computer so i can fully use Octane.
You can export from SU to Octane... work in Octane with materials and lights and do test renders.. then go back to Su and continue modeling and again export back to Octane and all your previous lights n materials are still there.Check it out
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/Also see some amazing videos
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=octane+render&aq=0Cheers
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Something worth noting is that Maxwell is on sale right now for 40% off:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/news/world_cup_promo.php
There is a brand new Sketchup to Maxwell plugin that is just about to be released the looks to be truly spectacular.
You can't beat Maxwell quality and it has a truly enormous range of features -- If WOW! is your goal you can do much worse than Maxwell.
Also it is nowhere near as slow as people try to make it out to be -- whenever I see an honest speed test comparing apples-to-apples Maxwell compares very well.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
You can't beat Maxwell quality (...)
Yes, you can. Takes skill, but it's quite do-able.
@jason_maranto said:
(...) it has a truly enormous range of features -- If WOW! is your goal you can do much worse than Maxwell.
True. Still, there's quite a few renderers out there that offer just as many features - or more - and cost less than Maxwell. If I may be candid: Maxwell is a capable app, but it's overpriced.
Current promo's nice, though.
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Maxwell can animate lights also it can render animation - not from su but 3dsmax.
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@aidus said:
Maxwell can animate lights also it can render animation - not from su but 3dsmax.
Thea can also animate light - it's called relight...
And Thea is also able to render animations... -
Maxwell is now 50% off for the next week due to the above linked promotion.
I'll let Maxwell quality speak for itself.
Best,
Jason. -
As long as you have SU Pro.
When I was weighing up render programmes I couldn't test Max as I only have the free version of SU.
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Also worth mentioning: Thea does both biased and unbiased rendering, whereas Maxwell only does unbiased. And personally, I find Thea's material editor easier to use than Maxwell's.
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One more for Thea:
http://www.thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=3078 -
Thea also gets the win in licensing and cost per seat if you base it on a render engine studio with two nodes. Einstein doesn't understand Maxwell's licensing policy. It's also worth noting that Next Limit changed the licensing policy between version 1 and version 2. This change broke out the render nodes from the purchased package and caused an increase in price. After this you never know what kind of changes they will make and charge you for. Maxwell's render quality is amazing but in today's economy you have to balance quality with cost and time.
I would recommend Thea for a studio render and get Twilight for any lightweight models you have.
Cheers. -
a few years back I would have said to stay away from maxwell.
But the new Maxwell plugin to be released soon for Sketchup is a totally new thing and since the manual was already set online it promises to be one of the best plugins for SU to render.
Then there is a demo online showing realtime render preview with Maxwell.I am happy to have stayed on the Maxwell train. And since we use several different modelers we can always keep the renderings in Maxwell.
We always made use of the promo's and so we paid really very little for Maxwell. Our initial license years ago was about 500 euros for in total 8 licenses. We updated 1 license to version 2 and did so for about 350 euro. Then we updated a second license to version 2 during the most recent promo for 175 euro. Can't say pricing or license policy was a hassle. Actually Maxwell's license policy is very transparent and well documented on their site.
We have made a lot of our customers happy with the typical super high quality renderings. Even at the beginning years ago, although then it was much more difficult to keep the faith.
Francois -
And one thing that makes Maxwell stand out is the use of Studio, an added program you can use to built huge models. I can render combinations of SU models that would not even open in SU. Once you get into photorealism its important to add detail to your models. Then quickly you will find that rendering within SU is not an option. We render SU models with cars and organic shapes found on the web that look better than real. Try to import those in SU and your lost.
Francois
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You can do the same with Thea - it is a standalone rendering packages and supports different file formats. Seems You never tried Thea, no? Thea is faster and the price is better. And the quality is very subjective - lower quality but faster rendering can get You a contract in 80% of the time!
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In terms of speed I don't think Thea will get me more contracts. We have 8cores mac's and in a matter of minutes we have renders good enough for communication and in a matter of hours for large prints. I am looking at +100Mb files. Actually contracts are gotten in the pub and at casual meetings with friends..... and consistently providing very high quality work.
If you are into this profession the costs of Thea, Vray or Maxwell is no issue at all. Its paid for in a matter of a few projects, less then months. Its the time invested in the knowhow that can be expensive.Its amazing how demanding archviz really is, the slightest difference in how a pane of glass or brickwall renders makes the image look great or not good at all. For these slight differences we render with Maxwell. It saves us a lot of time finetuning an image.
If you render cars and airplanes with a lot of reflective materials your render engine is less of an issue. Those kind of images look good with most app's. But when you start to do archviz with all sorts of glass and glassprints, rough materials and materials with a lot of characteristics under different types of light and atmosphere you need the best you can get and even then in most cases its still very hard to get it right. What we can't do with Vray and Modo works out in Maxwell.Francois
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@frv said:
In terms of speed I don't think Thea will get me more contracts. We have 8cores mac's and in a matter of minutes we have renders good enough for communication and in a matter of hours for large prints. I am looking at +100Mb files. Actually contracts are gotten in the pub and at casual meetings with friends..... and consistently providing very high quality work.
If you are into this profession the costs of Thea, Vray or Maxwell is no issue at all. Its paid for in a matter of a few projects, less then months. Its the time invested in the knowhow that can be expensive.Its amazing how demanding archviz really is, the slightest difference in how a pane of glass or brickwall renders makes the image look great or not good at all. For these slight differences we render with Maxwell. It saves us a lot of time finetuning an image.
If you render cars and airplanes with a lot of reflective materials your render engine is less of an issue. Those kind of images look good with most app's. But when you start to do archviz with all sorts of glass and glassprints, rough materials and materials with a lot of characteristics under different types of light and atmosphere you need the best you can get and even then in most cases its still very hard to get it right. What we can't do with Vray and Modo works out in Maxwell.Francois
He, he - very funny and constricted outlook! Come to my country and try to live with 150$ a month - my mom's pension! Then maybe You can see how different a world can be! When I worked in the USA and talked to people about how we are living they always thought I'm joking. Not to say how was at the socialism's regime! So, the quality of the rendered glass doesn't matter at all.
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My wife is from the Philippines and I assure I know how people live without money. But I do not expect them to buy render applications. And neither would I if my clients would not make up for the costs.
Buts its funny that even in countries without money, the color of the rendered glass matters as much as anywere else. That's why a few of the best photographers and filmmakers come from the Philippines.
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One thing is to know, another is to live it as we do! That is why I'm using Kerkythea and still have happy clients. Even I hardly render - the SketchUP's native view is in most cases enough. And 90% of the software here is pirated - so we have unlimited choices
And the funny thing is that I worked as a photographer on a cruise ship with a lot of philipinos - mamagayo 
Making 500-700 pictures of the guest per day - this is for one photographer, I can assure You that the quantity really matters! 
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About those challenging materials, fortunately there are several renderers that can handle complex materials and light in physically accurate way, where materials rough or no.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6614442
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