Heads Up : Free IDX Renderer for Sketchup

JuanV.Soler

i like its simplicity

niño submarinista3.jpg

MALAISE

HI everybody

I tried to install IDX Renderer free version (max 640x480), following step by step
given instructions. A problem appears when installing, the program asks for the latest version
of SU (which is already on my computer for a while) but then denies any installation. Has someone already encountered this ?
Any idea or hints to solve this, are welcome.

Thanks
MALAISE

wmanning

Hi Malaise,

We haven't seen this issue come up in installation yet. For support issues I'll suggest to anyone to look at our forums at http://forums.idx-design.com. We use some elements from SketchUp 6.4xxx, but that normally doesn't stop an installation, or most functions when using 6.0. Have you installed SketchUp to a different location than normal? (It shouldn't be a problem, but helps me diagnose your issue.)

Another question: in your plugin folder do you still have "utilities.rb" and "examples.rb" and their subdirectories? These are SketchUp files we use. If you don't have them I would suggest either re-installing SketchUp first, or if you have access to another version with them, copy those files/folders to the plugins directory.

c://ProgramFiles/Google/GoogleSketchUp6/Plugins

If you still don't have success, a response from our forum is usually faster. Ou s'il soit meilleur, un email serait bienvenu à wmanning @ imsidesign.com
William

MALAISE

Thanks for your Hints wmanning

I effectively move the whole Google folder directly under
Tomorrow ( because it's already the evening for me ), I'll check
the probably missing files you speak about.

Really impressed the way you've taken my little problem in consideration
I'll send some backpost later on ..

MALAISE

jim smith

I gave it a try today. I had bought the turbosketch renderer this spring, but wasn't too impresssed by it. Also got Podium at the AIA convention in May and found it to be better and quicker.

The attached "work in progress"lobby shows the straight SU image and the IDX render. It took about 1300 seconds, maximum size and almost best quality setting. I spent about three minutes setting it up so I'm sure thats why the glass entry only shows up as reflective. I didn't turn on any lights inside.

I like the ease of use of both. The quality may not be near the higher end renderers, but considering the quick set up and low price - it is very interesting. I will be experimenting and comparing to Podium before I would consider an upgrade to the full version.

JuanV.Soler

that will be very helpful if you keep us telling

wmanning

Jim, glad you're giving it another look. TurboSketch is about 18 month old technology, so Renditioner should do better for you. Regarding speed, the full version has multithreading, so is a lot faster than the free version for dual core and beyond. (From 40-80% faster depending on cores.)

But the free version has an unbeatable price.

MALAISE

Hi wmanning

All is now ok. I reload SU V6 at its original location ( after removing the previous folder
and saving Plugins;) No problem at all for IDX installation. It works pretty well and quite fast

Thanks for your help.

MALAISE

wmanning

Thanks for the heads up -- it should work with SketchUp installed elsewhere, so we'll look at that.

JuanV.Soler

the funny thing about those things, renders engines,
is that instead of having to wait to the /7 version to get improves
you just get them
and free
and it works inside SketchUp

what are we waiting for ?
i mean.......,,

plot-paris

I gave IDX a go yesterday. and I have to say I am not impressed.

maybe I have not understood the interface properly (was too lazy to read the manual). but the workflow seemed to be to right click on a textured surface to open the attributes window. the only slider available was the one for "bumpiness", the only means to change reflectivity or roughness of a material seemed to be through presets like "plastic", polished", etc. the bumpiness for textures seems to be set to 50% by default. and due to the automatic update of the material preview it is quite tedious to change this value. that was the first thing that annoyed me - unsufficient control of material attributes.

after applying changes to the material you have to press OK, which closes the window. that means, instead of simply left clicking on the next material (you can't access the attributes window through the material editor) you have to right-click again to reopen the window for the next material. that slows the workflow down quite a bit.

as a last thing: I am used to indigo and to the luxury of having an idea how the image looks like right from the beginning. even podium gives you a very pixelated preview of the render that is refined several times throughout the process.

but IDX Renderer takes an awefully long time to process light information, not showing anything. then it starts rendering the final image from top left to bottom right. to be able to judge if your render-setup works as desired, you have to wait until half the render is done...

if anyone of you has more positive experience with this render engine, I would be happy to hear it. perhaps some of the annoying things I fount are simply caused by my lack of knowledge. if so, I may give it another go.

the multi-core support in the full version is quite tempting after all.

pugz1983

I agree with Plot-Paris. IDX renditioner looked ppromissing but the render results are pretty basic in my opinion. I think its very hard to achieve a photorealistic result. But for quick rendering its ok.

Does anybody know how to achieve a realistic metal look?

JuanV.Soler

i think that the renders options are more than sufficient for a learning person.
And the results for comparing one shot and another , are rather quickly to get.
I am waiting the comments about how it is compared to Podium

wmanning

@ Plot-Paris: thanks for your feedback. We do apply a basic bump (on an autogenerated bump map) and matte finish by default so that in many cases only a subset of materials need to be edited, and not faces, which keeps the tweaking down. Designed this way to speed up workflow for novices or for those who are used to the workflow while they design. Changing from another renderer might take a different mind-set I suppose.

Regarding the preview update being slow -- thanks for the feedback. We're just done an update today and we changed the material preview to use a secondary thread so it’s fast now on most dual core machines. (Although for multithreading rendering you need the full version. There is a 30-day trial of that if you prefer.)

We don't perform a progressive scan, so instead we chose the three options for preview renders, standard and presentation. Maybe next release, again thanks for the feedback.

For a quick look at the more positive experiences I'd say check out http://forums.idx-design.com. We've also got a couple of quick videos there that can give you a good feel for the how-to's in < 3 minutes or so each.

@pugz1983, it depends on the type of metal you're looking for. There are two material finish selections for dull metal and polished metal which I often apply to a solid color, like silver. If there’s light hitting it you will see a nice specular effect, particularly on curved surfaces. For metal materials such as those supplied in SketchUp you may want to use the default matte finish. We don't have anisotropic shaders in this version if that's what you're looking for.

plot-paris

thanks, wmanning. the tutorial videos are quite informative and easy to follow - perfect to have your first render ready in a few minutes.

I have to admit, that I didn't try the preview render, but immediately went for the produciton render quality (which of course takes a long time).

however, here are some suggestions, that in my eyes would improve the interface:

add sliders to change reflectivity and roughness (perhaps even glossiness! ) of the material to the existing bumpiness-slider. the presets are fine. but sometimes I would like to play arrount with subtle changes of one of these values. I asume it wouldn't be too difficult to add these sliders to the interface, for you already control the values with presets.
either directly apply the changes to the material or add an "apply-button" so that you can keep the window open. if you now select a differently textured face (or select another material in SketchUp's material editor) the IDX material window updates to this new material. that would save a lot of right-clicking and would speed up the workflow considerably
I don't know if this is possible or if it meant an enire rewriting of the code - but I do like the ability of several other render engines, to apply a "light-attribute" to a material, meaning, that in order to create a light, I simply apply a material to the model of the bulb and define the ammount of light, this material emmits. thus I can easily influence the quality of shadows (crisp or soft) by changing the size of the light source (wide surface = soft shadow). in my oppinion that is easier to understand. and if you add image-support, you can even iluminate an picture (like a computer screen )

I have to say that I appreciate the attempt to keep it simple and easy to use. and I absolutely agree with your way of applying attributes to materials rather than to surfaces (as it is the way with su podium).
a bit more control however would be highly appreciated.

solo

I gave it a quick try, I need to learn how to get control over the lighting settings and material editing.
Quick component based scene thrown together, I used the bump settings which was simple to adjust.
I struggled to get the right lighting and the shadows softer.
Otherwise it was remarkably fast, this render (not very good) took 56 seconds to render.