Which renderer to choose
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If you search the forum you will find hundreds of threads dedicated to your request, with many biased answers.
At the end it will come down to....
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Currently enjoying Twilight, but who knows if it is a relationship that will last?
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Twilight is a great render app, I'd suggest keeping at it until you feel comfortable and fluent, it will prove to be a great SU render solution.
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Solo is right this is a topic that comes up about once a week here. To find the best renderer for you, you have to do some testing. Twilight is a great renderer for SU, however if you do a lot more of larger scale site level work then you may want to look at something along the lines of Vue. It's all about finding the interface which you feel comfortable in, the capabilities you need in the software, and a result that's useful.
Good Luck!
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Everyone (myself including), when they begin rendering asks themselves that. I posted the same question you did, and eventually created my own evaluation of three renderers, and through this forum ended up IMO with a fairly good evaluation.
I eventually made my selection on the basis of which one got me to an acceptable render the fastest. I now know the product I use has a lot of limitations. However, old dog that I am, am reluctant to make the effort to change, and as the product remains reasonably acceptable, I continue to use it.
Although rendering is less then 1% of what I do, it accounts for a large part of my work related enjoyment, as long as it leads to good Architecture.
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I made my decision based on the ease to work within SketchUp, tweak and re-render since I am constantly updating my designs. Using it as a design tool more than a final render tool.
I had worked with Kerkythea, but every time I had to make a change it was difficult to reload the file without something blowing up and re-texturing got really old. When Twilight came out, being a child of Kerkythea, it was an easy decision to work with it. The added bonus of being able to continue to work on the model while it renders in the background is really cool!
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Yes I love that about Twilight!!! It is so great to minimize the rendering window and keep working.
Thanks for your comments.
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I'm always amused when one of these "Which Renderer" threads comes up and IRender nXt (and nXtRender) are not mentioned. I suspect that many of the high end rendering engine users are not the ones most active on the forums.
At any rate, check us out - and especially check out our new web site.
(Image by EliBjr)
Al Hart
IRender nXt from Render Plus -
@al hart said:
I'm always amused when one of these "Which Renderer" threads comes up and IRender nXt (and nXtRender) are not mentioned. I suspect that many of the high end rendering engine users are not the ones most active on the forums.
At any rate, check us out - and especially check out our new web site.
I'm not surprised. I have yet to see a IRender nXt render that looks photoreal like some of the VRay or Thea or even Twilight renders posted here.
I went to the site and browsed the gallery and no image stood out as high quality renders IMHO.
Sorry, nothing personal, just my opinion. Maybe its the artists using the tool?
Now, render quality is one factor. Speed and workflow/ease of use are two other.
Any potential buyer should try a demo before deciding. -
@pixero said:
Any potential buyer should try a demo before deciding.
Also the ability to really test drive the program. I auditioned IRender nXt maybe a year ago (+?) and the output pixel dimensions allowed as a demo was rather small...But what an important factor
Now I like the way Twilight lets me get a larger image, but they will put a watermakr of twilight in the corners (I think that is fair) So I can get a good idea of how it is actually rendering!!!
Perhaps it has changed, but that was my experience with the IRender nXt demo. If I am going to lay down money, I want a fair chance to see what I will be buying. Just my two cents.
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@therealsizzle said:
I've been playing around with different renderers available, kerky, podium, twilight, but would like to start a discussion on the positives and negatives of each...
In case of KT, Podium (1.x) and Twilight... all use the same engine. So they result should be close (if materials and render method is same). Just pick a UI that fits for you.
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@therealsizzle said:
I auditioned IRender nXt maybe a year ago (+?) and the output pixel dimensions allowed as a demo was rather small...But what an important factor
:The demo version of IRender nXt is a fully functional version.
However, the default render size is 600 pixels. You need to increase it if you want a larger rendering.
One a similar note, the default render quality is 40 passes. You can easily add more passes for better renderings.
(Of course, more pixels and more passes takes longer to render)
Al Hart
IRender nXt from Render Plus -
I started out using TurboSketch n/k/a IDX Renditioner, and I thought it did a good job of rendering each image. It's a plug-in, so it's convenient and very easy to use and has a good support forum. But since my purpose is to create Flash animations, I would have to manually render each frame of the animation. Since I've gotten Twilight Render I have used that for my renders, since it will automatically render the animation frames based on the scenes in SU. It's also a plug-in and very convenient and easy to use, and has a good support forum.
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