Best Renderer when using many plants
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Hello SU Folks,
Can you give me some advice as to which render plugin would be best for me to buy, the list on the gallery page is long and I dont know the differences.
I want cheap and low learning curve. I need to be able to render scenes with lots of plants, so I need the plants, and everything else, to look good.
Any advice much appreciated
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Almost all of the render programs have a trial period. Since something like rendering quality has a lot to do with the "eye of the beholder" I suggest that you set up a test scene with all the sort of plants you would typically use and plug the scene into Podium-Twilight-etc. and see which one gives you the ease of use and quality you expect.
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Vue.
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Its probably not the easiest to use workflow wise, but vue has very good support for outdoor environments and can render huge eco-systems (much larger than SU can handle.) For that reason i think itd be worth a look. The major downside with vue is that its pretty crap at interiors.
For a more general renderer twilight is also worth trying. Its integrated well with SU and is pretty intuitive. Its also pretty good at dealing with large scenes within SU which could be helpful if youve got a lot of foliage to deal with.
Id also second Jims suggestion. Nothing like playing around with a few renderers to help you get a feel for them.
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Thanks everyone
I have downloaded Maxwell, Podium, Twlight and Vray
Maxwell caused SU to splat constantly, so i took it off
Podium and Twlight seem easy to use but b/c its an evaluation, the images only come out reeally small so I dont see the whole scene
Playing with Vray now, will def try VUE
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yikes......vue is expensive, whats the learning curve on vue
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The learnng curve for Vue depends on how expert and precise you want to get. Like any major piece of software there are all kinds of advanced volumetric lighting and procedural textural settings you can play with...but the basic program is drag and drop; and it comes with a mass of lighting presets to cover just about any exterior setting. It's perfectly possible to produce a decent render in an hour or so, but will take months to master completely.
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What type of plants are you trying to render...2D (faceme) or 3D?
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As Alan says, it depends on what you want to achieve.
Straight out of the box you can create a decent scene and pretty good render, however to reach the pinnacle of what Vue has to offer takes time and a pretty steep learning curve.
The good thing about it is it's fun.Why not start with the PLE version (best to learn with as opposed to the free pioneer version that's very limited)
And if and when you hit a snag post on forum and I'll be around to help where I can as well as many other Vue users here. -
thank so much all for the help
Whats the PLE version?
As to the question about 3d versus 2d plants, which are the best to use for rendering?
I assumed 2d b/c so many of the 3d plants in SU dont look realistic at all
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Quality 3D plants will always render better because they cast shadows onto themselves and better emulate the lighting that exists in the rest of the scene. If however, you are a landscaper designer like myself, there are not nearly enough 3D plants to supplement the thousands of plants befitting of my particular zone. I tend to use a lot of 2D plants, but will typically try and edit the color levels and exposure of each plant to try and get a more natural and uniform look.
With 2D plants, most require some alpha information to cut them out. For renders that support alpha transparency without additional maps, you have -
Podium
Twilight
Vue
Vray (for Max...not for SU)
Hypershot
LightUp (if I'm not mistaken)If I were in your shoes and wanted inexpensive quality with support for alpha transparency and both biased and unbiased results....I'd go with Twilight.
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Wonder why nobody have mentioned Kerkythea...
It's free and at the KT Forum you can download some nice and free Xfrog 3D tree libraries...
Using the instancing brush in KT is really easy...
My best advice to you will be to read the Getting started tutorial and watch some of the tutorial videos available...
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thanks for the info
I will try Kekythea too
is it bad for a lap top to spend hours rendering something?
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Depends what rendering engine your using and how much time youve got until you need to hand over the images
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@remus said:
Depends what rendering engine your using and how much time youve got until you need to hand over the images
okay so my computer wont like blow up or anything
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Nah, it will give you the blue screen of death first.
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If it's a Dell, it might really explode.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550
http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//005359.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/dell_fire.htmlJust joking; it's not only Dell laptops which can explode. The problem is in the batteries. Some other manufacturers have experienced similar problems, even Apple:
http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/macbook_inferno_an_apple_macbook_battery_catches_fire.php
http://altatecgt.com/blog/2006/09/08/macbook-se-une-al-club-de-las-quemaditas/
http://www.nowhereelse.fr/macbook-explosion-16747/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/06/27/disaster-on-the-homefront-macbook-pro-battery-explosion-no-images/
http://www.appledefects.com/?p=259Just to be on the safe side, why not assemble a desktop PC for rendering? And please, don't put your "laptop" on your lap.
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@ecuadorian said:
If it's a Dell, it might really explode.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550
http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//005359.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/dell_fire.htmlJust joking; it's not only Dell laptops which can explode. The problem is in the batteries. Some other manufacturers have experienced similar problems, even Apple:
http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/macbook_inferno_an_apple_macbook_battery_catches_fire.php
http://altatecgt.com/blog/2006/09/08/macbook-se-une-al-club-de-las-quemaditas/
http://www.nowhereelse.fr/macbook-explosion-16747/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/06/27/disaster-on-the-homefront-macbook-pro-battery-explosion-no-images/
http://www.appledefects.com/?p=259Just to be on the safe side, why not assemble a desktop PC for rendering? And please, don't put your "laptop" on your lap.
its not a dell its an HP and it runs fabulously compared to the dell i had, are those all linke to computers exploding?? dont want to see that i may be scared to render then!!
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