What render program should i go for?
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@oceanembers said:
Firstly, you should understand that software like LumenRT, Lumion, Twinmotion, etc. are not the same as renderers like VRay, Thea, Indigo, etc. The former are real-time, and offer a prettier and arguably simpler interface with the sacrifice of output quality. I don't rate them as highly as renderers, having used Lumion for a long time, but they are good nonetheless.
When it comes to which you choose, it mostly comes down to personal preference. Look at images that have been created with them, look at the pricing, look at the interface and ease of use. None are inherently bad or good, just find one that suits you.
Thanks for clearing that first for me.
V-Ray and Thea both looks good from what i can see people have manage to do with those softwares. But then again, i can't know how much effort has gone to get it. Therefor i ask if someone use any of them and can tell me how it works. how they feel the basic setting and use are?
Thea looks good for many things considering the price for it. Like micro surface, sounds great if i want to get a mat wall surface paint look. Which is used a lot in building generally.
But like i said how intuitive is it to use?
How easy is it make good lightning fast and easy?
How is it to make new materials that you can put in fast for later use?
From videos both looks good and easy to use. But looks can deceive. And putting between 400-800$ on a render software i would like to be sure what i spend it on.
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I'd love to say something, but I'm sure a lot of people here will see my answer as biased...
There are a couple of threads here with exact same question as you've posted...
Have you tried making a search...?That said, I can highly recommend Thea Render!
Lots of great features and more to come...
With the Thea4SU plugin, you can't get it more simple and easy to use render application...Why don't you download the trial versions of various render apps and play...?
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@frederik said:
I'd love to say something, but I'm sure a lot of people here will see my answer as biased...
There are a couple of threads here with exact same question as you've posted...
Have you tried making a search...?That said, I can highly recommend Thea Render!
Lots of great features and more to come...
With the Thea4SU plugin, you can't get it more simple and easy to use render application...Why don't you download the trial versions of various render apps and play...?
Iv searched. not only this forum but elsewhere. too cant seem to get enough information input. But the more i look into it and the more i find i tend to lean for thea. price is ok. material edit looks easy but complex enough to make good textures. meaning i would have to model less in sketchup. Letting the render do the job instead. Making sketchup run more smoothly while working. The posibility of animation also seems good. So yeah. it really does seem like a good pick. V-ray is a but pricey i would say. And i dont know what vray can do that thea can't? Thats probably the question im looking for? What can vray do that thea can't?
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@u5tabil said:
Iv searched. not only this forum but elsewhere. too cant seem to get enough information input. But the more i look into it and the more i find i tend to lean for thea. price is ok. material edit looks easy but complex enough to make good textures. meaning i would have to model less in sketchup. Letting the render do the job instead. Making sketchup run more smoothly while working. The posibility of animation also seems good. So yeah. it really does seem like a good pick. V-ray is a but pricey i would say. And i dont know what vray can do that thea can't? Thats probably the question im looking for? What can vray do that thea can't?
So I'm biased the other way, I'm a vray user. The render engines are different, but as you can see from examples with either, the output can be comparable. Either one has a learning curve and different interface. I personally didn't like the Thea interface when I tried it, but it seems with Thea Presto, they have a more integrated product now. Like others have said, the best thing to do is try out the software, plus look at tutorial videos.
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I use Thea.
In terms of quality expect only the best. Biased, Unbiased, Presto doesn't matter.
Presto is Blazing fast specially if you have a good Nvidia Card. It can handle your video card, your CPU, or both together. If you have more than one computer it can do that for every computer on your network simply and effectively. In minutes you'll have terrific output with only one computer though.
You can have Presto MC (Unbiased better quality) or Presto AO (Ambient Oclusion)You should compare Presto to Vray RT or Octane renderer (Though Octane is an older engine that has a few more features like displacement wich in Thea Presto aren't still there because it's still 1 year old).
Unbiased is slow (like Maxwell for instance) output quality is unbelievable (compare to Maxwell for instance). Unbiased settings are a nobrainer... click start and wait overnight and you won't believe what you see. There are basically two options very complex lighting TR2, regular lighting TR1 (what does this mean? I don't really know as it always looks good on TR1.
Render faster and interactive with Adaptive AMC, AC, AO. This goes from Unbiased (AMC) to Biased with Ambient Oclusion (AO - fake ambient light). Lesser quality but you must have a keen eye.
Any of this unbiased engines inside Thea can use relight. What does that mean? Fine tune your lights or sky or sun after the render is finished. You can make a movie out of this or a night shot and a day shot in one render. Render times will increase though.
Biased rendering, Like Vray. I simply don't use it. A lot of settings to configure for optimizing between speed and quality output. I don't have time to think on those and I want quality everytime so I simply choose Presto or Ubiased engines because it's not my working hours I spend. It's the machine that's working longer.
In terms of easyness of use you can get good quality easily. The better the quality the harder it will get, but that is similar to Thea or Vray or any other rendering software.
In terms of integration with sketchup... It's fully integrated and getting better every new release. You can ask for more... probably!
And about releases... I've jumped in a year from now and it was in 1.2. It's in 1.3 right now. Every new release is astoninshingly better than before. If you get into the boat until 2.0 is released, you won't have to pay until then for the upgrade. I can tell you that would be worthy even if it was in 1.9...
You can even expect new features on maintenence releases some times.
For support and learning, the community is very helpful and the developers are reading every word in the forum.
I shouldn't recommend it though as I didn't ever use any of the others. What I can say is that I'm totally happy with it.
Best regards,
João
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@jql said:
I use Thea.
In terms of quality expect only the best. Biased, Unbiased, Presto doesn't matter.
Presto is Blazing fast specially if you have a good Nvidia Card. It can handle your video card, your CPU, or both together. If you have more than one computer it can do that for every computer on your network simply and effectively. In minutes you'll have terrific output with only one computer though.
You can have Presto MC (Unbiased better quality) or Presto AO (Ambient Oclusion)You should compare Presto to Vray RT or Octane renderer (Though Octane is an older engine that has a few more features like displacement wich in Thea Presto aren't still there because it's still 1 year old).
Unbiased is slow (like Maxwell for instance) output quality is unbelievable (compare to Maxwell for instance). Unbiased settings are a nobrainer... click start and wait overnight and you won't believe what you see. There are basically two options very complex lighting TR2, regular lighting TR1 (what does this mean? I don't really know as it always looks good on TR1.
Render faster and interactive with Adaptive AMC, AC, AO. This goes from Unbiased (AMC) to Biased with Ambient Oclusion (AO - fake ambient light). Lesser quality but you must have a keen eye.
Any of this unbiased engines inside Thea can use relight. What does that mean? Fine tune your lights or sky or sun after the render is finished. You can make a movie out of this or a night shot and a day shot in one render. Render times will increase though.
Biased rendering, Like Vray. I simply don't use it. A lot of settings to configure for optimizing between speed and quality output. I don't have time to think on those and I want quality everytime so I simply choose Presto or Ubiased engines because it's not my working hours I spend. It's the machine that's working longer.
In terms of easyness of use you can get good quality easily. The better the quality the harder it will get, but that is similar to Thea or Vray or any other rendering software.
In terms of integration with sketchup... It's fully integrated and getting better every new release. You can ask for more... probably!
And about releases... I've jumped in a year from now and it was in 1.2. It's in 1.3 right now. Every new release is astoninshingly better than before. If you get into the boat until 2.0 is released, you won't have to pay until then for the upgrade. I can tell you that would be worthy even if it was in 1.9...
You can even expect new features on maintenence releases some times.
For support and learning, the community is very helpful and the developers are reading every word in the forum.
I shouldn't recommend it though as I didn't ever use any of the others. What I can say is that I'm totally happy with it.
Best regards,
João
Thank you so much for this detailed answer, this is exactly what im looking for.
Im wondering about the network think you said. I have a Server in my house and a HTPC on the side of this working Laptop (GTX660m 2gb, i7 etc). Will that mean i could set up my network so that all machines will work together rendering? Making the rendering faster?
I have tried a little of Thea today with the demo. Started like a mess, but think i got the basic already. And it seems really good. And from what i see so far it comes with what i need to start with. then i can edit some textures myself for later. But just to get lights. mat color on walls etc to start with is really a big plus.
One more question for you. I can see that on Thea forum site there is this site only for licensed people. I can't look into this section. But is the quality of stuff being put out there good? A search on google have given me a couple of sites where i can get texture/models that will ad to the easy and fast use.
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@u5tabil said:
I can see that on Thea forum site there is this site only for licensed people. I can't look into this section. But is the quality of stuff being put out there good?
These restricted areas contains free tutorials as well as free materials and textures as well as various render ready models (Xfrog trees, plants and scrub, AXYZ Metropoly Models, CGAxis Models, HDRI-Hub IBL Libraries and more)...
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Thank you. For me it seems like i will go for Thea. Price is decent. Options looks good. the posibility to network render is a good option. And they keep coming up with new features all the time.
But i do have one question. Maybe all can do or maybe none render programs can do this. But a great timesaver for me would be to have a texture that i can paint on a wall that in render will look like a real wall with depth and structure.
like this picture here
Its an outside wall that have many different structures to it. i could draw it in 3D as a component if you like and then paste it on the wall. But it would be time consuming and heavy for the model in the end. A texture that i could just paint to the surface would be much better, easier and timesaving.
Is this possible, and is this really hard to do? What would be a good aproach on that?
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@u5tabil said:
But i do have one question. Maybe all can do or maybe none render programs can do this. But a great timesaver for me would be to have a texture that i can paint on a wall that in render will look like a real wall with depth and structure.
Depending on the angle/perspective as well as the distance such a wall is shown in a render, you can achieve this by using a bump map...
If it's closer to the camera and the angle will give it away, you can use displacement...AFAIK most renders have both options available today... Thea Render certainly have...
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LumenRT 2015 or Vue Xstream.
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