Thea Render
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Dylan I gotta tell you I love Thea. I still consider myself a rendering noob as well. I still use Twilight quite regularly because it works right inside SU and that appeals to me greatly. However when I started playing around with Thea I found I liked it equally well. It was awkward at first but I got used to it quickly. However keep on it; just playing with it once in a while will get you frustrated.
The relight function in Thea is killer, the materiel editor is awesome, the interactive rendering is worth it alone and the Thea community is top notch, like SketchUcation. If you do get it, read the manual then start reading the help sections on the forum. And as always ask tons of questions.
I don't think it is just for the already proficient and the fact that you know Twilight helps you greatly. I have not used any other rendering packages, just Twilight and Thea and I find it easier to use every day. And it is fun finding that setting you never knew about that makes it pop.
Hope that helps.
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I sed to (and sometimes still use) Kerkythea and indeed, at the beginning it was very disappointingly complex and difficult to understand. Later it became better but indeed for me, as an also rendering noob (which I will always be), Twilight was a real refreshment (once Fletch even said to a post of mine that I can no longer say I am a newbie).
Anyway, when I first started with Thea, it also seemed very complex but somehow I got used to it much easier already (maybe the years of experience and that I already know what a bumpmap is etc.)
@unknownuser said:
I know you use TwiLight, which rocks, but Thea is a natural progression. Although I still use twilight for ease of use. Then I can export to XML and play in Thea. The perfect partnership if you ask me.
And yes. Tomasz' exporter has a lot of advantages (and will have even more in the future) but until you get completely comfortable with Thea, this is a very neat trick. Twilight has a very good preset system and materials tweaked with it can more or less perfectly make their way to Thea with the Twilight > XML (to Kerkythea) exporter.
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Are there a decent amount of materials available for it like with Kerkythea, or does it use the same ones?
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There are good supplied materials. But on their forums you'll get tonnes. One particular has shared over a hundred. You definitely won't be short of materials
Anyway, making new ones is a breeze, nearly addictive
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If you purchase the licence, does it allow you to install it on more than one machine?
I really would want to have it on my iMac and Macbook. -
AFAIK you can install it on 2 computers but can only use it on one at a time.
Now the beta license comes with two additional nodes for network rendering as well. -
I couldn't find that info anywhere? I've 3 node licences but nothing on how many install on my Thea Studio licence?
All I need now is 3 more PCs to put the nodes on.
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Yeah, (maybe) three nodes. However it seems that the main app can be installed on 3 machines:
http://www.thearender.com/cms/index.php/buy.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1&category_id=1 -
@gaieus said:
AFAIK you can install it on 2 computers but can only use it on one at a time.
Now the beta license comes with two additional nodes for network rendering as well.Actually it's even better. It's three installs on different computers but not used at the same time.
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I've got Thea and I love it. I don't do tons of renders, but I hasve spent a lot of time playing with it and learning it. I like how it works. And do read the manual. There is also a video about the material menu that is a must view.
The rendering results are very impressive that is for sure.
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get it....the transition is simple dylan. A day or so and you'll be fine. Just look at the video tutorials etc.
its very fast and easy to use. interactive render makes placing sun and positioning IBL very easy.
you'll love the camera and PP settings like vignette and glare etc...
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I've used most of the render engines available to SU, from Indogo to Twilight. While many provide great out of the box renders I personally find that once you need to do something a little more complex they tend to fall short (not always true), but with Thea you can really create some great renders and textures. Don't forget all of the extras you get or that will be added on like GPU rendering, a forum full of great free materials and the interactive render feature. Sure, there's a learning curve, I still get stumped with the texturing options, but there will be good guts out when it comes out of beta. The discount is a sweet deal at this time, plus the included nodes and I sprung for SU and Blender exporters - so that covers pretty much any possible modeling and animation need. I'd recommend Thea anytime, especially at this price. Oh, and I'm just a hobbyist, just around intermediate skill at best.
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Be sure to let Tomasz know in the Thea SketchUp section on the Thea forum. He is very good at responding.
Your going to love this engine.
Cheers -
shame. The SU exporter didnt work properly for mac a few months back.....it was quickly resolved and works perfectly now....it takes seconds to export a huge model. i'm surprised you have any problems. Thea is absolutely fantastic, its got more than everything you need and the speed is staggering.
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have you emailed the support guys? so let me get it straight...its just your SU exporter that doesn't work? have you tried exporting a simple SU model first?
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Bruce, which exporter are you using?
I am under the impression that all issues are fixed, I too had problems but the last two versions have solved all my issues. (win 7 64, IE9, SU8)
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@unknownuser said:
The bad news is the exporter which I was kinda looking forward to...duh..doesn't work on my box
so for now the in-SU material set-up is not going to happen.
I am watching the Thea forum for fixes or suggestions although so far the best advise is to rebuild or repair win7, +IE...etc. My microsoft tools as well as the arsenal of on-line microsoft troubleshooters are all telling me that IE9 and Win7 are working perfectly and that is evident in all other apps that I run.There been some rare UI corruptions on SU2Thea (one was possible result of a virus), that for my knowledge have not been able to recreate by dev. I think Tomasz will need some detailed info of your system, perhaps even IE registry export. You really have to contact with him.
Perhaps you could create another user account and try if SU2Thea will work fine with it. Then some user profile related issues (or IE settings) can be eliminated.
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Yes, I read this on the Thea > SU subforum, too (from one or two persons). And there is a Hungarian guys down inthe Hungarian forum with some similar issues about the exporter, too.
By the way, Bruce, don't you happen to also have a Twilight license? (Material settings with Twilight are exported fine with the Twilight-to-Kerkythea export option and import also fine to Thea).
Well, anyway, the Thea expo9rter already does (and will) have a bunch of cool settings that this issue must be resolved, not worked-around.
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@unknownuser said:
That is mypost to the Thea forum.
And I was just about to post this:*Bruce, this is a very hot (read new) topic in the Thea forums:
http://www.thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4864
The guy seems to have been able to solve his issue by creating a new user account (but read through, it is not too long).If this IS the solution for all, Notareal hit the nail on the head!
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Could you guys stick to the same username all over the place?
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Have you changed some IE security settings from default? Disabled some scripting... used some ActiveX Kill Bits? Anything changed from default Win7/IE installation... maybe used registry cleaners? Or set some other browser as default, like crome? Anyhow, it's certainly promising that it's pinpointed to profile, at-least it does offer a workaround that does not require re-installation. Just a new profile... and find out what corrupts the profile.
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