Cheetah3D renderings

Francois · 30 Jan 2008, 14:14

I originally posted this message and the images on the SU forum on June 21 ( http://forum.sketchup.com/showthread.php?p=558955#post558955 ).

Hi,
When I saw this scene ( http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...prevs tart=24 ) , I thought that it would be a good case to test the new sky light now available with [url=http://www.cheetah3d.com/:2fjupb6u]Cheetah3D[/url:2fjupb6u] 4.2 (only on Mac).
So, here is the screenshot of the Sketchup scene + the same scene rendered with Cheetah3D 4.2 with ONLY 1 sky light and the radiosity tag. I think this came out fairly well and demonstrated again that the new lights are very easy to use and efficient.

[url=http://www.cheetah3d.com/gallery.php:2fjupb6u]Cheetah3D gallery[/url:2fjupb6u]

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:15

Looks great Francois. Here's the thread at the Cheetah3d forum.

http://cheetah3d.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1839

The new Cheetah really has some great new features. Cheetah3d is a great, inexpensive software for the Mac and does really nice animation to boot. ALL Mac owners should be using it. I'm going to mess it with and see if I can catch up with the Francois and the others at the Cheetah forum!

Mike Lucey · 30 Jan 2008, 14:15

@unknownuser said:

Looks great Francois. Here's the thread at the Cheetah3d forum.

http://cheetah3d.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1839

The new Cheetah really has some great new features. Cheetah3d is a great, inexpensive software for the Mac and does really nice animation to boot. ALL Mac owners should be using it. I'm going to mess it with and see if I can catch up with the Francois and the others at the Cheetah forum!

Jeff,

Glad to learn that you HIGHLY recommend Cheetah 3D as I am giving the program a serious stab. I've played around with quite a few in the past and managed to get some results with Podium but now that I'm on a MAC I think C3D is a wise choice.

I think what has won me over is that is possible to use 3DConnexion Navigator with the interface. I've also ordered the Beginner's CD Pack that was mentioned on the C3D forum, which I also joined

I understand that the program 'does really nice animation to boot' as your say Can you steer me to an animation created with C3D It would further encourage me to get stuck it.

BTW, its fantastic value for money

Cheers,

Mike

Edson · 30 Jan 2008, 14:16

francois, jeff and mike,

beautiful work. as part of my search for a rendering engine that I could learn in a reasonable stretch of time I downloaded cheetah 3D but have not started working with it. my hunch is that it is probably one of the best bets around. (I keep waiting anxiously for kerkythea to be ported to mac)

on the other hand, I have been playing with Artlantis R/Studio (rendering and animation app) and the first tries have been encouraging: easy to learn, intuitive, real time application of materials to surfaces, etc. however, it is not as cheap as cheetah (even though I got a faculty one year free license).

but I shall get to cheetah eventually.

regards.

edson

otb designworks · 30 Jan 2008, 14:16

I have to throw my support behind Cheetah, too.

It is a really capable program, and the developer, Martin, really does a ton of help and support.

Updates come quite frequently.

I use it primarily for rendering, but I have started to play around with the animation and modeling aspects of the software. The forum is second only to here for help and advice and friendliness.

Check out this link for a quick example of an animation I made, experimenting with lights, caustics, transparency, etc.

It is 3.5meg, so it will take a few moments to load (I would suggest using a second tab)

500 Internal Server Error

(www.otbdesignworks.com)

Mike Lucey · 30 Jan 2008, 14:17

Thanks Chuck for posting animation, quite impressive

otb designworks · 30 Jan 2008, 14:17

here's another little animation; me just playing around

500 Internal Server Error

(www.otbdesignworks.com)

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:18

@mike lucey said:

@unknownuser said:

Looks great Francois. Here's the thread at the Cheetah3d forum.

http://cheetah3d.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1839

The new Cheetah really has some great new features. Cheetah3d is a great, inexpensive software for the Mac and does really nice animation to boot. ALL Mac owners should be using it. I'm going to mess it with and see if I can catch up with the Francois and the others at the Cheetah forum!

Jeff,

Glad to learn that you HIGHLY recommend Cheetah 3D as I am giving the program a serious stab. I've played around with quite a few in the past and managed to get some results with Podium but now that I'm on a MAC I think C3D is a wise choice.

I think what has won me over is that is possible to use 3DConnexion Navigator with the interface. I've also ordered the Beginner's CD Pack that was mentioned on the C3D forum, which I also joined

I understand that the program 'does really nice animation to boot' as your say Can you steer me to an animation created with C3D It would further encourage me to get stuck it.

BTW, its fantastic value for money

Cheers,

Mike

There are some older Cheetah animations on this page–the yellow circled guys. I am going to give the new version a run and see how it works.

http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/

Nice animations Kannonbal!

Edson,
I like Artlantis too. Does a great job with certain situations and is pretty fast.

Mike Lucey · 30 Jan 2008, 14:18

Thanks Jeff, I particulary like this one,
http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/kitchen.html

I'm expecting delivery of the training CDs
over the next few days so hopefully will be
jump in a get going.

Mike

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:19

@mike lucey said:

Thanks Jeff, I particulary like this one,
http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/kitchen.html

I'm expecting delivery of the training CDs
over the next few days so hopefully will be
jump in a get going.

Mike

I think that is just a photo VR. Must of circled that one by mistake thinking it was the one with the metallic blob. I wish my renders were that good. Sorry.

Mike Lucey · 30 Jan 2008, 14:19

@unknownuser said:

@mike lucey said:

Thanks Jeff, I particulary like this one,
http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/kitchen.html

I'm expecting delivery of the training CDs
over the next few days so hopefully will be
jump in a get going.

Mike

I think that is just a photo VR. Must of circled that one by mistake thinking it was the one with the metallic blob. I wish my renders were that good. Sorry.

I was half thinking that Jeff BTW, I got
the CDs and will be going through them over
the weekend. I viewed / listened to a little
of Vol 1 and think they will help a lot .....
even more once I get used to the North of England
accent

Mike

kwick7 · 30 Jan 2008, 14:20

@mike lucey said:

Thanks Jeff, I particulary like this one,
http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/kitchen.html

I'm expecting delivery of the training CDs
over the next few days so hopefully will be
jump in a get going.

Mike

Do you know which rendering program this was done in?

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:21

@kwick7 said:

@mike lucey said:

Thanks Jeff, I particulary like this one,
http://www.designorg.com/openWeb/kitchen.html

I'm expecting delivery of the training CDs
over the next few days so hopefully will be
jump in a get going.

Mike

Do you know which rendering program this was done in?

That was a mistake. It was done with a camera.

Tim M · 30 Jan 2008, 14:22

I am a SketchUp pro user and have been looking for a good rendering
program. My company is looking at Turbosketch which I am just
beginning to try. I came across this thread regarding Cheetah3D and
was impressed with the quality. I would like to know how easy it is to
import a SU model into Cheetah to get these results. It doesn't look
like Cheetah supports the .skp extension. I love modeling in SU but
wouldn't be opposed to using another app along side. As I said, I am
looking at Turbosketch which integrates right into the SU model. Any
insights would be appreciated.
Thanks,

Tim M

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:22

@unknownuser said:

I am a SketchUp pro user and have been looking for a good rendering
program. My company is looking at Turbosketch which I am just
beginning to try. I came across this thread regarding Cheetah3D and
was impressed with the quality. I would like to know how easy it is to
import a SU model into Cheetah to get these results. It doesn't look
like Cheetah supports the .skp extension. I love modeling in SU but
wouldn't be opposed to using another app along side. As I said, I am
looking at Turbosketch which integrates right into the SU model. Any
insights would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tim

Tim,

The .3ds and .fbx exports from SketchUp work well with Cheetah. You can also get some nice animation work out of it. I just tested a scene I've using with other renderers and it was a bit slow compared to Modo which I use quite a bit. Your best bet would be to go to the Cheetah forum and ask. There are a decent amount of SketchUp to Cheetah users there.

I'm afraid I've been away from Cheetah for many months and there have been a lot of changes since I've used it to any great extent. You really can't go wrong though– it's only 120 bucks! It's a great little program.

Tim M · 30 Jan 2008, 14:23

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

I am a SketchUp pro user and have been looking for a good rendering
program. My company is looking at Turbosketch which I am just
beginning to try. I came across this thread regarding Cheetah3D and
was impressed with the quality. I would like to know how easy it is to
import a SU model into Cheetah to get these results. It doesn't look
like Cheetah supports the .skp extension. I love modeling in SU but
wouldn't be opposed to using another app along side. As I said, I am
looking at Turbosketch which integrates right into the SU model. Any
insights would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tim

Tim,

The .3ds and .fbx exports from SketchUp work well with Cheetah. You can also get some nice animation work out of it. I just tested a scene I've using with other renderers and it was a bit slow compared to Modo which I use quite a bit. Your best bet would be to go to the Cheetah forum and ask. There are a decent amount of SketchUp to Cheetah users there.

I'm afraid I've been away from Cheetah for many months and there have been a lot of changes since I've used it to any great extent. You really can't go wrong though– it's only 120 bucks! It's a great little program.

Jeff,
Thanks for the info. I did post to the Cheetah site and got some good feedback. I see you are from Valpo. I work in Louisville but live in southern Indiana. Thanks fo ryour help.
Tim

jeff jacobs · 30 Jan 2008, 14:23

Yea, good ole' Indiana. You can't buy a bottle of wine on Sunday, but you can get enough fireworks to level a city 24/7.

I'm glad they were helpful.