Your favorite .ies-capable renderer?

Turner

Hi all-

I'm new here but have been using sketchup for various things for a while now... anyway, renderers really seem to be coming into their own, and I'm looking for suggestions for your favorites.

I do see some very capable ones including RenderPlus, which I just looked at tonight and seems to properly implement translucency but I don't see a reference to .ies.

Capability to use .ies is necessary. I also love the idea of the price of some of the low-cost renderers! I understand there are some pretty good ones for $500, $700, or whatever - but those are out of the range I can really justify at this time.

I have been playing around with Kerkythea, LightUp, Podium demos, and am getting some feel for them but figured I'd ask here since undoubtedly some of your longer-term use of renderers may have revealed some plusses and minuses that short-term use will not.

Last... would love for it to be mac-capable if possible.

Any help/suggestions appreciated!

thanks,
Andrew

xrok1

my votes for twilight renderer, @ $99 bucks its hard to go wrong! hell at any price its hard to go wrong with twilight. check out the demo: http://www.twilightrender.com/downloads/demo

i also find lightup kinda interesting but its a bit of a different renderer, check out the site to see what i mean: http://www.light-up.co.uk/

Gaieus

Best would be to try out each (or any other renderer). RenderPlus currently has a contest and for the contest, they released a fully working version.

Twilight has a trial version that does not expire and the only limitation is that you can only export max 800 pixel wide images with watermarks. Perfect for learning and experiencing.

Other render apps like Podium, IDX Renditioner, Indigo (and a bunch of others of course) also have trail versions with similar limitations.

You can also try Kerkythea which is a very powerful, standalone renderer and FREE!

Turner

Thanks!

Yeah... it's 2 years later. Not sure what happened there.

I actually was in the middle of searching again... for the same thing.

Anyway - Believe it or not, I'm back around the circle and looking again. I tried finding a "clearinghouse" or listing of all current renderers for SketchUp but didn't find much.

I tried running Kerk this morning but it won't run on my Mac anymore - not sure why. Looking at Maxwell, it may be good but no .ies.

I also tried Twilight over the weekends, but a) it's PC only (not a deal killer) and 2) it doesn't seem to be moving much, meaning, it looks like people have been expecting a new one for some time now.

So... my apologies for taking so long to respond, I was... ah... out.

cheers
Andrew

irwanwr

@turner said:

I tried running Kerk this morning but it won't run on my Mac anymore - not sure why.
Andrew

there is a forum where you can have inquiries for anything regarding Kerkythea
Kerkythea: Forum

andybot

@turner said:

Anyway - Believe it or not, I'm back around the circle and looking again. I tried finding a "clearinghouse" or listing of all current renderers for SketchUp but didn't find much.

This piqued my curiosity. I tried searching through the forum, and here's one thread I ran across.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=4199
Seems (for good reason) most are gun-shy about doing a rendering engine comparison. Here's a moderate comparison I participated in recently:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=41848
actually, here's another comparison one on a specific topic (stained glass):
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=19778

Anyway, my question to others is this: besides this list and doing a google search, is there a good listing of all the current SU capable rendering engines that describe current features, etc.? Should there be a thread - maybe one that avoids comparison as best as possible. It would be handy. For example, I'd also like to know which engines support ies, and to what extent (can any of them do linear ies sources?). Also, which ones can do volumetric lighting effects.

Turner

Hey Andy -

Not sure what a "linear" .ies file is, but .ies is one of my requirements.

I'd also like to see this kind of tabular comparison across a lot of features. I notice that several renderers have .ies compatibility, but only once upgraded to the "pro" versions.

I also like Twilight's material editor (at least, as much as I've experimented with it in the demo) but then I see things like this texture for Maxwell http://resources.maxwellrender.com/news_scripts.php?t=1#page=2&mode=1&id=5540 and wonder what other renderers can do "that".

Another biggie is subsurface scattering - or, at least, proper handling of light through transparent and translucent materials. For example, a "Japanese screen" that properly transmits illumination when being hit on one side with either bright ambient illumination, sunlight through trees (shadows), or a small bright spotlight. I don't know how to look this feature up comparitively.

[edit] perhaps a good way to create a tabular comparison is to create the categories and ask the companies who make the renderers to fill in the details. Not sure what the best way to create the categories would be, but I assume a group effort may actually pay off in this case...

cheers,
Andrew