Bloom Unit (Real time Render Engine for sketchup)
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Archigrafix,
Yes, we've been very deep down in improving the product so our website has had less attention than it should have. But we are now giving it a bit of an overhaul because of a large number of problems that have become clear to us.
I can also now announce that after some licensing changes we're now able to offer Bloom Unit for free with one hour of cloud time, its not live on the website yet, but it will be soon. So wait for another announcement from myself that that change is live, it'll be happening later this week or early next week at current estimate!
Then users will decide if they want to buy more hours at 6 dollars an hour (which is used in 10 minute segments).
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I can also now announce that after some licensing changes we're now able to offer Bloom Unit for free with one hour of cloud time
great news Damble!!!
So we can go for a sort of demo mode first hour.Nice to see you so reactive about our demands. I sure things are gonna boost for you with that new approach.
Now I cant wait to take a look at Bloom unit
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Well, I could take credit that we were super reactive to these forum demands in particular, but they were more of a final push from other feedback we'd had.
The technology is just a bit too different and its hard to understand it entirely until you use it yourself so we think this approach is necessary.
I do hope everyone has fun with it once its out though!
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Its largely the same information as on here, however i've started to add more updated information to our facebook and twitter feeds, if you want updates a bit more conveniently!
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Fantastic. I'm following both as "Arqui3D".
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Hello all,
New video is now live, hopefully it might answer some questions you have! Stay tuned for that switch over to free, still not quite live.
Hope its informative!
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The free release of Bloom Unit will be early next week, still have to finish testing the website and the latest version of the plugin on our end.
Nearly there though!
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Conducting personal experiments in the lead up to the free release, have a look, 21 reflections in real time!
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Hello again everyone, I've created a new thread now that its gone free, but i should note the same message here;
Bloom Unit is now free to download and use.
Bloom Unit is a cloud based, physically accurate renderer for Sketchup, now downloadable for free.
Coming with one free hour you can trial and test with, users then purchase more hours at $6 an hour.
Simply head over to http://www.bloomunit.com to download now, also don't forget to check http://www.youtube.com/bloomunit for more movies and interesting features!
Note; We are aware of an issue when arraying our light objects where it creates two lights ontop of each other at the terminal point of the array. This is being fixed as we speak.
Please post any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer promptly.
Enjoy!
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So here's my quick test.
Upload speed test:
Filesize: Almost 20MB.My location: Ecuador.
Time to upload to BloomUnit server, in the US: 19 min, according to BloomUnit's clock, which counted this time against my total time of usage.
Time to upload the same file to MailBigFile, in the UK: 2min 2secs, measured with a stopwatch.
Render test:
Both were left to cook for 2 minutes @1280x720. The Bloom Unit image is framed different because the SU window resized after starting BloomUnit.Bloom Unit
Settings: Default
Hardware: Amazon Cloud. I imagine it must be iRay running on a rack of GPUs.
Thea Render
Settings: TR1. File exported from Twilight Render after deleting all TWL materials except the glass. Doubled exposure during rendertime to better match the light levels in Bloom Unit image.
Hardware: 3-year old Core i5 750. CPU-only.
Additional information: I'm not a Thea expert. This is the first time I open it in months.
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Ecuadorian,
Its very unusual that you've had such a long upload time, it should be much shorter. Could you retest tell us exactly what the upload window says about the upload time and speed? We think what's happening is that you're being rerouted to our servers in Australia as we're in the process of moving our server bulk to the US. Even then its peculiar.
We'd like to know so we can correct it as we've never had times like that from anywhere in the world we've tested from. Any more information would be very helpful.
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Also, as a note you'll have faster performance using Bloom Unit materials, its having to convert all the Sketchup materials to be compatible with Bloom Unit as is.
(Which it is capable of, but takes a little bit longer)
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Sure, here you have a screen capture. It says the upload rate is 25.07 kB/s.
I had to kill the upload process manually after closing SketchUp... It kept open.My connection with Miami, FL, for reference.
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Thanks Ecuadorian,
25 kbps is much, much slower than what we experience, I've handed it to the developers and they're taking a look at why you might be getting those upload times.
I personally have to assume its then bouncing to Melbourne, but I'll let you know when we do.
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Hello again,
Could you rerun your speed test but run it to Melbourne, Australia? We're encountering some significant speed issues to Ecuador from here, we're curious if its the same both ways.
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Sure, here it is:
BTW, since Bloom Unit runs on iRay over CUDA, I decided to dust off Octane Render (have a license but haven't used it since last year), which is also CUDA-based. Here's my 2-minute test. I was successful on my third attempt to export from SketchUp, since the first two times the exporter crashed SU.
Export time: 3 min. 5 sec.
Render time: Same as the other two tests, 2 minutes.
Hardware: NVIDIA GTX 570 w/1.25GB mem
Settings: Pathtracing. The only change from the raw export was that I made the glass a portal since I could not figure out how to make proper glass in Octane.
I'd love if someone could compare Blender Cycles vs. Octane vs. Bloom Unit. Battle of the GPU renderers! Unfortunately I'm a zero in Blender.
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A side-by-side of my results. To recap:
Thea: 3-year old Core i5 750
Bloom Unit: Amazon Cloud
Octane: 1 1/2 year old NVIDIA GTX 570Observations:
All three are noisy. However, Octane and Bloom Unit seem to have the most "treatable" noise, with Octane having an advantage in supersampling/antialiasing (notice the louvers). Unfortunately, Octane is also the most difficult to use from SketchUp, IMHO. (Users of more integrated versions of Octane totally love it, however). Notice how the vegetation ignored the alpha channel, for example.
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Thanks for the information Ecuadorian, it looks like you must be getting put through to Melbourne, the very first couple of users are put onto spare servers here in Melbourne before the rest are put onto servers in the US.
You should try a fly around comparison!
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New article just posted from CG architect!
Go have a read,
More BU fans, always appreciated!
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Hi Danble, I think no need to use three threads for Bloom Unit and doublepostings to cg writings. We hear you
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