Does anything other than Podium have render ready lights?
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So I have been using Podium V2 for a while and I really like how it has a materials library with preconfigured textures and mainly a ton of preconfigured light fixtures you can just dump into a model and render. They have some other good materials too which are preconfigured.
My trial is about to run out and I'm looking into other options before I buy it. I don't hear much about Podium on here and I wonder why that is... I hear a lot of talk about shaderlight but does it have a materials/component library of preconfigured render-ready stuff? What about the other $200-$300 solutions? Why should I look at shaderlight over podium?
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Twilight has a Red Carpet Club for licences members with lots of goodies including lights.
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A red carpet club???? It's been a while since I've been on the TW forum. Can anybody (license holders) be part of this, or is the by Invitation only and secret password thru the little eye slot in the door?
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I just checked and it's gone? What did you do David?
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Wait....
It's still there it's just I had licence issues recently and must of been removed.
But the goodies that lie within are worth the $99 alone
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How is their selection and how do the programs stack up against podium? I can get crazy fast ~1 minute excellent quality renders with podium and it is very easy, it seems to not be popular here though I wonder why.
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And herein lies Ongoing Debate. . .The best renderer is the one you like, the one that's easiest for you, and the one that give you the results you want.
(Like I know what I am talking about. . .
)I have Podium, Thea, and TW and I stink at all of them . .. so they're all great!
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Well, Podium was one of the first to bring NPR to SketchUp and it does a bang up job at it too.
There's litterally tons to choose from out now. I'm basing my advice on customer support and content. The guys at Twilight are super helpful and offer one of the easiest to learn render apps around.
It's not all about quick renders. A quick render app will more than likely give you shit results. Look around the gallery here to see the flavour of different engines being used. It's astonishing! If you already have Podium and want better results practice, practice, practice. Learn that app inside out. Apply that knowledge to your next choice and start again.
Take Dave's advice also and don't stink at three
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Point being...all render engines suck in the wrong hands.
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Also Podium is indeed around and there are people using it. I used to play with it (a much-much older version) some time 4 years ago. Of course I really sucked (did not really understand anything of rendering yet) but that wasn't because of Podium.
I also love Twilight - probably I was already "mature" enough for that (and rendering at all) when I first got acquainted with it. I am still not a guru however but I have learnt to live with that. It's like when your feet stink and you cannot sit away from yourself...
And then of course, there are the more robust renderers, standalone studios etc.
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@unknownuser said:
It's like when your feet stink and you cannot sit away from yourself...
@unknownuser said:
Point being...all render engines suck in the wrong hands
Some of the best advice I've read here in a long time
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I knew you'd love it, Rich!
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@unknownuser said:
I am still not a guru
Who wants to be a guru anyway? . . . sitting on top of a mountain. .. living in a cave. . .Limited supply of Junior Mints. Hard life.
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You Betcha!
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Don't most render applications include "render ready lights" that can be inserted into SketchUp?
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I think he means the actual light fixtures. Most biased renderers have a pre-built spot, omni, ies or plane light, while most unbiased render engines use a material as an emitter, which the user applies to self made geometry. Personally I don't think having pre-made fixtures would be a deciding factor on purchasing a render engine. There are enough free fixtures around which alternative light sources could be added to.
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I'm mainly comparing shaderlight, podium, twilight, and a couple others in this range and between shaderlight and podium I haven't really found any huge differences and they are the same price. I have just grown used to having a huge library of pre-made fixtures and it saves a lot of time lighting a model especially when the architecture is not the focus of my models.
Having 350+ light fixtures that are very well modeled and preconfigured with lighting that I can throw in is a pretty big bonus for me. There is also a nice selection of other high quality materials and components. It may not be a deciding factor for some people but when everything else is pretty much the same it might be.
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