V-ray / podium

skylabridges

Hey everyone
I'm looking for a little bit of advice please!
I am yet to purchase V-Ray for sketchup - but am looking at it as a possibility. I haven't really got any rendering experience - I bought podium and used that a bit, but mainly just clay renderings which I've edited in Photoshop. I want to create something more photo-realistic for classical architectural renders with lots of marble textures in. I know this is something I can do in Podium - but by the looks of it it seems a little cartoony. Do I persevere with Podium - or am I asking a too basic program to do something that I want to look very high end? Also, I need to print out very large images from the work I make, Podiums maximum render size was 9999 x 9999 px, any idea what the maximum output is for V-ray?
Many thanks as always for everyones help!
S

valerostudio

Give me oil paint and it will look like a 3rd grader painted something. Give it to Renoir and...

My point is that just by installing V-Ray isn't going to instantly make great realistic renderings. It doesnt matter what program you use, you have to learn every nook and cranny and feature to make these things sing. You have to learn lighting and material principles, good detailed modeling and thinking like a photographer when you setup your cameras, etc. Photoshop goes a long way too for post.

If you are in it for the long haul and want to really learn all the features of V-Ray, then I highly recommend it.

I also use Thea which might have less of a learning curve in SketchUp and will allow you to render unbiased images which, in turn, are the most realistic. But be forewarned, an unbiased engine at the resolution you are talking could take a very long time.

cadmunkey

Thea has my vote over Vray too. Much easier learning curve.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

skylabridges

Thank you both for replying.
Haha valerostudio, yes I see what you mean! What I guess I'm saying is is that I am happy to learn something, I just want to make sure before I go through with one over the other that it is the correct one - rather than learning it all and realising that it will never give me the results that I want! So, I've downloaded a trial of V-ray and Thea, and guess I'll give both a try, and see how I get on.

S

olishea

Twilight is also great for beginners. I really love Twilight.

In terms of ease of use I'd say it goes Podium, Twilight and then Thea. As the "compelxity" increases so does the amount of parameters you can change. So with Thea you can edit almost everything, Twilight is a bit more constrained and Podium is uber simple.

Podium can produce some absolutely stunning images if you check their gallery.

driven

@skylabridges said:

...So, I've downloaded a trial of V-ray and Thea, and guess I'll give both a try, and see how I get on.

currently there are reports that V-ray breaks Thea if installed together on a mac...

V-ray will also add considerable overhead to every model you open, even if you don't run it and will generate a 'Un-Saved Changes' dialog even on unaltered models...

just sayin...
john

rspierenburg

@driven said:

V-ray will also add considerable overhead to every model you open, even if you don't run it and will generate a 'Un-Saved Changes' dialog even on unaltered models...

just sayin...
john

I have yet to see any of this occur in any of my models.

Rob

driven

Rob are you on a mac?
there are many reports of V-rays issues with the mac versions...

but the added Model Definitions is cross platform and can/does add a lot of information to every skp file you open...

if you have a look at model Attributes, you'll see all the vismat params listed for any applied texture... [ene_attribute_editor will show them, and her code is easy to follow]
john

skylabridges

Thanks all for advice. I've bought Thea, and so far I really like it. I find it fairly intuitive to use, and like using it in interactive mode with the sketchup model. The rendered results I think are pretty impressive from it.

Thanks again!

cadmunkey

@skylabridges said:

Thanks all for advice. I've bought Thea,

Good choice

doppel

Yeah, hard to give you a good answer...
I have tried many sketchup renders : kerkythea, podium, maxwell, twilight, lumion, v-ray...
They are all fine, but i prefer v-ray. I have the feeling that i can more control my architectural renders. But parameters are complex. Podium and Kerkythea are easier to handle.
Besides, Kerkythea is free.