Lower cost rendering programs
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I agree. I am not a particularly talented renderer (yes, you need some talent there - much more than during the more logically based modelling) so for me a user friendly and (almost) "wysiwyg" renderer is more essential than one with all the bells and whistles.
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@gaieus said:
The very problem with these questions is that there is (probably) no person who uses all of these renderers to be able to correctly answer your question.
I wouldn't despair about the usefulness of these threads. I've read through many of them and learned a lot.
I think the problem is the initial question that starts the topic tends to be too broad - i.e. can you make dazzling photoreal renders with this or that program? And the answer generally is - Yes, if you're Solo.
But my interest was in the opposite direction - let's say you have a client who announces that in an hour she is popping off to somewhere (Paris, Biarritz, Le Cote d'Azur, wherever they go) and you want to show her progress so she'll cut you a check before she leaves. You want to send her something in literally 15 minutes and you want it to be a bit better than the native SketchUp or Layout output. Some amongst us could do that in any program but most of us can't.
So, given that scenario the question becomes quite different. I followed up on the Twilight suggestion and found that it fit the bill pretty well.
No setup, no lights, no fussing at all. Now I understand that Twilight can probably generate much more spectacular results than this but that wasn't what I wanted to find out. Given the parameters of very low cost and as close to being a one button solution as is reasonable - what rendering programs fit that description?
So I have one good option as a result of starting this topic. I intend to try out Shaderlight and LightUp but during the week I didn't have the time to try out 3 different programs.
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Certainly Twilight is an excellent renderer - I use it myself a lot, too. In fact, I have Thea, LightUp, SimLab, IDX Renditioner (and of course Kerkythea) and I have also tried Podium (back when it was still new) and maybe even others I forget now but I have found Twilight the most handy for my limited rendering capabilities (indeed I am not solo either
).So I did not really want to put the topic (and similar topics) down of course.
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Nice output
Glad you like it.
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Yes, I do. Sometimes however I feel that as an admin here, I should not express my preferences. But then who knows?
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@gaieus said:
Yes, I do. Sometimes however I feel that as an admin here, I should not express my preferences. But then who knows?
Admittedly, that could be an issue. I'm not sure what's appropriate. Cheerleading for a program as a user is different than cheerleading as an admin. It might give the appearance that Sketchucation is giving an official endorsement and that would be wrong.
I spoke to someone on the phone this morning who wanted advice on a rendering program and the conversation opened up a whole other avenue of thought.
On the basis of my very limited knowledge I suggested he try Twilight and dissuaded him from any of the more complex programs because he wasn't clear where he wanted to go with this. He's a designer / builder and he's not sure if he just needs a good renderer to show his work or he's going to follow a path similar to mine and leave shop work behind and try to make his living off his computer. If he was sure that his days of actually building were behind him I would suggest V-Ray or Thea. (I use modo but that's sort of a whole other thing.)
But when you're starting out it would seem that a program like Twilight is a relatively inexpensive way to get the basics down and, if you hit a wall up ahead, your cost to get there will have been pretty minimal and you'll have learned a lot of useful information that you can then take with you to V-Ray or one of the higher end programs when you need to expand your abilities. Alternately, you might get to a plateau where you find that the cheaper program does everything you need and you won't have spent six or seven hundred dollars for functionality that you'll never use.
So we could break this general topic down into different categories of questions:
What renderer produces the most extraordinary images (let the brawl begin)
What renderer is the easiest to produce the most extraordinary images (the brawl spills out into the parking lot)
What renderer should you own for those occasions when you need to get something out the door quickly (my original question)
What renderer should you start with if you're not sure how much rendering you're going to need to do in the future (my friend's question) -
Gai
@unknownuser said:Did you know that after setting up your scene and materials in Twilight, if you export it to XML (originally for Kerkythea use), you can open that XML file in Thea and more or less everything comes through without the need for further tweaking?
Yes I know that. I tried it with Kerkythea, but "more or less" is IMO more tweaking, because the material, light system is different itc. This way one doesn't use Thea's advanced features out of the box, and that would be my goal...and of course it is not in SketchUp window, like Twilight is...we are "tuned", waiting for new su2thea
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True, lights do not get through this way to Thea - but you can always just export and merge lights.
However indeed the new exporter should be the real solution!
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I didn't notice anyone mention shaderlight? I played with it only breifly and thought it might have promise, but I do not yet know much about the rendering game yet. What do you more experienced rendering folk think of it?
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@matte said:
I didn't notice anyone mention shaderlight? I played with it only breifly and thought it might have promise, but I do not yet know much about the rendering game yet. What do you more experienced rendering folk think of it?
I've played with both Shaderlight and Twilight. IMO Shaderlight was too limited. The realtime preview is a plus. But on all other areas, Twilight wins I think. The fact that you cannot use your own bumpmaps is a big downside to shaderlight. That might change in the future, but for now it is too limited to grow into I think.
With Twilight you can make more progress over time. And if you've reached the limits, you can add kerkythea or thea.
I have bought Thea just before the price went up, and I'm planning to buy twilight soon. I thinks I'll use twilight most of the time. But with the quality materials over there on the Thea forum, I should really expand my (yet to be explored...) rendering skills to thea asap. -
There's a 64-bit version of Kerkythea on the way. I'd say that's good news for prospective Twilight users.
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Pick up to three:
-Low cost
-Photorealistic
-Fast render times
-Good SketchUp integrationYou can't have it all.
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Ecuadorian, do you know which one to remove for Twilight?
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All four applies for TWR - actually...
Although some perhaps will start arguing about "Fast render times", I'd say; it all depends on your scene/model, the materials used, lightning, wether you're using one of the biased or unbiased presets and - of course - how fast your computer is...
Others may debate the "Low cost" and we need to acknowledge that although 99,00 USD is a low price to many, the price is high for many people in other parts of the world...
My statement is, that compared to other render applications, all of the above points applies for TWR...
So... It's impossible to say exactly which one to leave out from the list, since it will depend on the individual person...If I personally had to leave out one, it would be "Fast render times"...
To me it's also a little fuzzy... Fast... Compared to what...??
To me it's fast, to others it's Acceptable, while others again may find it slow...
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