What is your favorite overall rendering engine for SketchUp?

Rich O Brien

welcome back

andybot

Wonder how many new members SCF have gained because of this thread...?

It's a balance, lose some in the corner bar, gain some in the plugin competitions

jason_maranto

So far the results of the separate (but related) survey I'm doing shows very similar results to this one -- but that should be expected since it's the same user base.

BTW I set it up so that anyone can see the current results by completing this survey so there's no need to wait to see what the current consensus important features are... just bookmark that page when you get to it.

Best,
Jason.

solo

@unknownuser said:

So far the results of the separate (but related) survey I'm doing shows very similar results to this one -- but that should be expected since it's the same user base.

Quite different actually:

jason_maranto

I meant for the amount of votes -- when the vote count was similar here the results were similar.

I'm not sure why anybody would get bent out of shape about this -- as far as I know nobody is getting any incentive for voting, this is purely voluntary... considering there are over 100,000 SketchUcation members, many of whom never (or rarely) post I think any presumptions about what we "know" are pretty premature.

Isn't that the point of asking in the first place?

BTW not answering the questions really is a crappy move as there are only 100 chances for people to answer -- whoever did that (just so you could put in a vote for Thea), you just took away a chance from somebody else to be heard on the real points of the survey... very uncool and selfish.

Best,
Jason.

Ecuadorian

People in different countries tend to like different software, and it's always interesting for me to see such differences.
It would be really cool to have a much bigger sample (say, 10K votes), and also the country of each vote. But for so many people to vote, you would probably have to offer something in return, say, entering every voter into a sweepstake for an iPad.

jason_maranto

@ecuadorian said:

People in different countries tend to like different software, and it's always interesting for me to see such differences.
It would be really cool to have a much bigger sample (say, 10K votes), and also the country of each vote. But for so many people to vote, you would probably have to offer something in return, say, entering every voter into a sweepstake for an iPad.

You are totally right -- but I don't believe we could organize something like that without corporate sponsorship and then it gets into the messy parts of who has access to the information and for what purposes... plus which you would have people entering who don't even own rendering software, just to get a chance to win, which would skew the results.

It's plainly obvious which softwares the regular posting and browsing SketchUcation users prefer -- but the longer something like this goes on the more likely you'll get input from people who maybe only come here infrequently... which I'm afraid is a sizable chunk of the SketchUp using population, if you believe SketchUp usage numbers (which I do).

I'm not so interested in which softwares people use, but why -- and taking that information into account when you see their choices... of course the assumption you have to make is that they chose based on knowledge of the options.

Best,
Jason.

Zoom123

I own a forum which is running the same forum software as Sketchucation (phpbb) and I installed a mod where the choice of each member in a poll can be publicly shown(if this option was chosen when the poll was created). I also have the forum setup in a way that newly registered members can not vote in polls.

This way the results have more substance. You don't only get a vague number as a result but you can also see who exactly voted for what option and judge the results accordingly.

jason_maranto

Realistically by the end of the day there will be more people who joined SketchUcation today than have voted in this poll thread (it's almost there already) -- the participants are a very small (but vocal) minority.

Getting too upset over the results when it represents roughly 0.1% of the membership of this forum is pretty strange if you ask me -- and SketchUcation membership only represents about 10% of the total SketchUp userbase (which means this poll represents only 0.01%)... we are dealing with an infinitesimally small sampling here.

There's alot more to the SketchUp world than what we say here -- which I believe is the point Ecuadorian is trying to make.

Best,
Jason.

Ecuadorian

@jason_maranto said:

Getting too upset over the results when it represents roughly 0.1% of the membership of this forum is pretty strange if you ask me

I always find it funny how some people believe their native language is the "most expressive and complete one", or how their particular dialect or accent is "the only neutral one in the language", or how their national food is the "best in the world". Most of my friends are like this, with the big exception being one who has mastered Chinese and English besides her native Spanish, befriending native speakers in the process.

Truth is, you only realize the shortcomings of your own language/dialect/cuisine/favorite software/etc when you truly learn and appreciate another.

roland joseph

Lumion - render time 14 seconds. No postpro, no 2d or billboard or clips...all3d and movie ready.
The movie from which this was taken is 45 seconds long and rendered in just over an hour.
Seems hard to beat.

prostata123

Hi guys
I'm new here but I follow your forum from a very long time

Well well, what do we have here
a Render Engine comparison for Sketchup!

Just what I needed!

Let's say a couple of things
I've tryied Lumion and I really don't like it!
I loved the idea but it's a way to slow o my PC (mobility Eadeon HD 5400)
The Cryengine 3 instead, works very well, but I just tried Crysis 2 not the SDK (I think it would be too complicated to me)
And I also tried Keyshot and I've found it very very useful, but it's mostly for product design and not for Architecture.

And so I'm still looking for a render engine
something quick and "wow" like keyshot but for exteriors / interiors etc
What about Fryrender?
No one voted it but I remember a very useful function to swap the materials post rendering (without having to re-render the scene).
But I'm not able to find any updated information about it in their website.

What do you think?

Burkhard

If you like Keyshot, take a look at Bunkspeed Shot. The Pro Version contains lightsources.

Fryrender or Maxwell doesn't take to much.

Depends of your hardware ( when you want to update ) take a look at Octanerender, very fast but GPU based.

From the list you'll see the leaders here.

Hieru

@prostata123 said:

No one voted it but I remember a very useful function to swap the materials post rendering (without having to re-render the scene)

Thea has that via Colimo. Very useful when working with interior designers.

Burkhard

The best is to have alook at the Product Galleries or in the forum over there.
Btw. Maxwell will have the colimo integration too ( it is in pipeline ) and has with multilight a very nice feature.
Maxwell has a free and a small fee standalone Sketchup application,
Thea can be a lot faster ( biased and unbiased )and is much cheaper with a full package to start with.
Both are great.

prostata123

Thank yoo for all the answers

Well, I think that Bunkspeed shot it's very similar to Keyshot (except for the lightsources)
and it's still very product design oriented (am I wrong?)

And so, maybe I have to learn how to use Maxwell or I have to try Thea render that it's very popular around here

Do you have some exterior renderings to look at?
thank you in advance

Edit:
I'm just trying Thea Render
It seems to be just what I was looking for, even if I have no materials now.
But I still want to see your works

sawhack

I was a sole user of Vray since I seriously started learning about rendering, but lately I freqeuntly encounter error in rendering in Vray such as "you dont have enough space in temp", error rendering, materials disappear and became just color, applied bump gone, sketchup crash(bugsplat), etc. I don't know if its right to move from another rendering or find some solution in this bugs, because i'm quite sure other rendering engine have also bugs that i haven't met neither. I'm looking forward in learning more on vray and i'm trying to learn Kerythea as my alternative to vray.

Chris Fullmer

Almost sounds like you need more space on your hard drive. Are you running low on disk space?

Razorback

I just introduced SketchUp to the design/build firm I started working for recently. They love being able to show clients detailed models of their designs, complete with site info, materials, shadows, etc. I would like to up the ante a bit and begin using a rendering engine and creating fly-through clips that we can send to clients. Since this purchase will be out of pocket for me (I already own SU8 pro), price is a big consideration. From what I have been able to find online, it seems that RenderIn and Podium would be within my price range. Other than price though, I know nothing about these programs. Is one better than the other in quality, features, render time, ease of use, etc? Thanks in advance for any info!

pilou

Between RenderIn and Podium : easy of use - the same --> very easy!
Podium has more functions and is more powerful