The new Render[In] plugin
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At the recent 3dBaseCamp SketchUp User Gathering there was a demo of the new radiosity rendering plugin developed by Abvent. For those who don't know, Abvent are the makers of Artlantis. What they've done is develop a new plugin for SketchUp that uses the Artlantis radiosity engine. The plugin is called Render[In] and until the end of the year it is offered for free (no resolution limits or watermarks) through its website: www.renderin.com
The plugin is very easy to use. It is similar to Podium except it offers a real-time image preview you can keep open as you model. It provides almost instant feedback on many of the settings which greatly aids in making it an easy to use rendering solution. The preview pans, zooms, and scales automatically along with your model in the main SketchUp window. You texture your model just as you always would in SketchUp but the plugin allows you to give materials reflectivity, shininess, and a bump effect just by adjusting sliders. It has lights very similar to Podium and a number of pre-designed lighting fixture components can be downloaded. Custom lights are easy. The plugin also has a sky system that is easy to use and impressive in its flexibility. You can chose what kinds of clouds you want and at what density they appear. The sky is tied to SketchUp's time & compass orientation so you can easily adjust for sunrises and sunsets. The sun will also appear.
I attach my first attempt at rendering a building. It followed a short amount of playing to see how it worked. The attached image was very easy to produce and it has no post processing. I don't know why the grass is so washed out. I have asked for advice on fixing that on the Render[In] forum. I suspect I can avoid the problem in future renderings. Anyways I've been very impressed with the plugin and how easy it is to use. It probably won't appeal to the experts in more full-featured renderers but seems a very practical tool for the rest of us. It is my understanding that it works with both the free and pro versions of SketchUp.
Regards, Ross
![Quick SU Rendering using Render[In]](/uploads/imported_attachments/6reD_RM-003.jpg "Quick SU Rendering using Render[In]")
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Thanks Ross. I am kicking the tires on this one as well.
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@ross macintosh said:
The plugin also has a sky system that is easy to use and impressive in its flexibility. You can chose what kinds of clouds you want and at what density they appear. The sky is tied to SketchUp's time & compass orientation so you can easily adjust for sunrises and sunsets. The sun will also appear.
This was a nice feature in the demo they gave. It might be worth having Render[In] just for that.
Nice start Ross.I can vouch for the fact that he was there as I sat next to him.
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From the login page:
@unknownuser said:
To participate in our beta trial, simply register, and you will immediately be able to download a Macintosh or Windows version, and you will obtain your Beta Serial Number. The Trial Beta will expire on December 31, 2010.
isn't there any info about the stable release price???
I shouldn't wanna spend time in trying an app that I'll never buy because of its high price
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Ditto on the ball park cost of a license, for the same reason.
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I met the Abvent team, Brigitta and Stephane, at 3DBC. I'll see what I can find out as I have their cards.
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It looks like they will be in the USA until the 16th but I have asked the question on the Render[in] forum. Will report as soon as I hear anything.
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At 3dBaseCamp Brigitta and Stephane noted that Abvent haven't set a price yet. They noted that how popular this public beta is will likely help determine the price. I took that to mean the more popular it looks to be the lower the price.
It does seem to be the kind of plugin that the vast majority of SketchUp users could use so I hope they'll be smart and give it a aggressively low price and make their profit from volume.
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Seems a new killer one!
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Is anyone else getting faceted geometry for round smooth objects?
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@pixero said:
Is anyone else getting faceted geometry for round smooth objects?
explode and regroup. works with most render apps.
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This looks very interesting! Anybody know how it will affect other plug-ins like Twilight?
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Ross gave me permission to post this. I used his original rendered image and ran it through the Oil Painting setting in Fotosketcher. I tweaked the original image (within Fotosketcher as well) then played a bit with the Oil Painting settings to produce this image. It seems Render[in] and Fotosketcher are a nice match so far.
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@ross macintosh said:
At 3dBaseCamp Brigitta and Stephane noted that Abvent haven't set a price yet. They noted that how popular this public beta is will likely help determine the price. I took that to mean the more popular it looks to be the lower the price.
It does seem to be the kind of plugin that the vast majority of SketchUp users could use so I hope they'll be smart and give it a aggressively low price and make their profit from volume.
Hi Ross, Sad to say that generally, the forces of economics work the other way. Big supply, small demand is lower price. Because the supply is unlimited, the greater the demand, the higher the price. Sigh!!!!! If the cost to produce is too expensive to fit the demand, the product bellies up. Of course, in this case I would be happy to be wrong:-)
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That is really nice. Good work, Ross and Eric!
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@olishea said:
@pixero said:
Is anyone else getting faceted geometry for round smooth objects?
explode and regroup. works with most render apps.
Doesn't work with Render(in).
My first impressions are that it's just plain okay. Not worth more than $50. Too limited in features (only beta though). Can't handle large models. Causes frequent crashes. Not suited for a 32-bit platform. No way to stop a render once it starts. Heavy on system resources. Autobump is less than desirable. Render times with AA turned on and medium radiosity quality, are fairly long. It renders smoothed geometry as faceted. Clouds are very cool though.
Again, it's beta, so hopefully there is some improvement before the release candidate.
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Interesting that you would say "Not suited for a 32-bit platform."
The installer doesn't work on a 64 bit system,therefore making it uninstallable. They tell me a 64bit installer will be available soon.
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@earthmover said:
@olishea said:
@pixero said:
Is anyone else getting faceted geometry for round smooth objects?
explode and regroup. works with most render apps.
Doesn't work with Render(in).
My first impressions are that it's just plain okay. Not worth more than $50. Too limited in features (only beta though). Can't handle large models. Causes frequent crashes. Not suited for a 32-bit platform. No way to stop a render once it starts. Heavy on system resources. Autobump is less than desirable. Render times with AA turned on and medium radiosity quality, are fairly long. It renders smoothed geometry as faceted. Clouds are very cool though.
Again, it's beta, so hopefully there is some improvement before the release candidate.
My first thougts exactly. Don't know about the 32-bits thing (I'm not into that stuff). Nice to have a quick render but the faceted geometry kind of turns down my enthousiasm.
I consider it a nice gimmick at this point since it's the free beta, but don't think i would pay for the beta-version as it is today. Nice as beta but they have still a long way to go.
In their defense: i found it very userfriendly = big pro especially for the hobbyists amongst us (like me) but don't think professionals would go for it right now.
At this point I guess I'll stick to KT (free, great forum and tutorials and off course with a huge variety of possibilities/tweaking ... but less userfriendly for newbies)
Flapsy
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I got to say that I was looking forward to their demo, but it left me not wanting to spend the time to download and try it out.
When the answer to all the audiences questions (the typical ones that SU users would ask of any render program) the typical answer was, "Don't worry about it, it will work" instead of explaining why they understood the question and that it would be an issue they were working on...or if they didn't have the information that they would check into it.They stated that there wasn't a problem with 32 bit because it somehow ran on the Artlantis engine outside of SketchUp at 64 bit, I'm not sure how that works, but that was their explanation to the question of the limits of 32 bit.
The clouds and change in day was about the only thing I noted as "Cool" in my notes.
Seemed like it had lots of limits to texture manipulation when compared to Twilight.I was definitely under-impressed. The "real time" render was interesting, but I had just seen that feature in the Thea demo - so I am hoping that the real time render is a trend and products like Twilight might be featuring this in the future.
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Does anybody who's installed this have Twilight installed as well? Any conflicts?
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