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    What is your favorite overall rendering engine for SketchUp?

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    • M Offline
      mwm5053
      last edited by

      Reading through this seems like renders are like women and wine you like what you like for one reason or another. When I got into SU and this forum it opened a whole new experience for me and I have tried many of the trial renders to make my models look more realistic. I use KT because it was free since I don't do this for a living. Since I lost my wife and the kids are grown up need to find something to fill in the time. Sorry maybe shouldn't have said that. But just to say how much this community means to me. Thanks to you all.

      2011 iMac
      SU 2015 Pro, 2017 Make
      V2 Twilight
      macOS Sierra 10.12.5

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      • holmes1977H Offline
        holmes1977
        last edited by

        @jason_maranto said:

        I believe it -- and I wasn't pretending Maxwell could compete with V-Ray in terms of raw speed... in the same way V-Ray cannot compare to other render engines (like Keyshot) in terms of raw speed. My point was simply that the time frames are not out of the question, which is often implied with Maxwell.

        It is slower no doubt, but still completely doable.

        Best,
        Jason.

        Totally doable. Im actually looking at other options other than Vray. So disappointed at its development path compared to other renders.

        Exaggeration makes a dull story better.

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        • HieruH Offline
          Hieru
          last edited by

          @unknownuser said:

          it rendered out at 1600x1200 in 5mins.

          It would be interesting to see the quality. Infact it would be good to see a test scene rendered using all of the software in the poll.

          www.davidhier.co.uk

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          • Rich O BrienR Offline
            Rich O Brien Moderator
            last edited by

            Twilight have a Bauhuas lamp scene to test speed (or rather boast on your setup) that would make an interesting test here.

            Though a generic Cornell Box scene would suffice.

            Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp 📖

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            • HieruH Offline
              Hieru
              last edited by

              I agree that the Bauhaus lamp would be pretty good.

              As another option I've got a challenging product-viz scene with difficult glass materials. It's based on a photo which would be good for this purpose, as the end results could be judged according to how closely they resemble reality (taking time - both set-up and rendering - into consideration). My only reservation is that different approaches to materials could skew the results.

              www.davidhier.co.uk

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              • andybotA Offline
                andybot
                last edited by

                @hieru said:

                It would be interesting to see the quality. Infact it would be good to see a test scene rendered using all of the software in the poll.

                Well, if anyone wants to compare this test with other rendering software, I'd be curious to see other results.

                @holmes1977: I'd be curious to see the image output too. If it's similar, I would say the roughly 1:6 difference between biased and unbiased speed still holds.

                http://charlottesvillearchitecturalrendering.com/

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                • holmes1977H Offline
                  holmes1977
                  last edited by

                  I can post the picture but am out of the office till Tuesday, so will have to wait.
                  The picture looks the same, if not a wee bit darker.

                  Exaggeration makes a dull story better.

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                  • HieruH Offline
                    Hieru
                    last edited by

                    Thinking about it, I don't think my Skog Lamp scene would be suitable (too many variables). It might be good for a render-this thread as we haven't had one in a while.

                    Yes/no?

                    www.davidhier.co.uk

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                    • jason_marantoJ Offline
                      jason_maranto
                      last edited by

                      I do enjoy the "render this" series.

                      Best,
                      Jason.

                      I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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                      • jason_marantoJ Offline
                        jason_maranto
                        last edited by

                        I decided to create the survey I suggested a few pages back -- you can check it out here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZZJD8LM

                        Since this a free account I think it will only allow 100 responses -- but I'll post the results here after it completes.

                        The idea is to to get a clearer idea of what is really important to SketchUp users when deciding on which external render engine they will use... this service just supports a more complex type of poll than forum software usually provides.

                        Best,
                        Jason.

                        I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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                        • E Offline
                          Ecuadorian
                          last edited by

                          Most interesting poll. Here in Latin America Artlantis is still very popular, and so is V-ray. Thea is unheard of here, but it looks like it's the favorite of SUC members.

                          I'd suggest splitting the poll in two:

                          -Favorite for still images
                          -Favorite for animation

                          Some of us work almost exclusively with animations.

                          -Miguel Lescano
                          Subscribe to my house plans YouTube channel! (30K+ subs)

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                          • andybotA Offline
                            andybot
                            last edited by

                            Hi Miguel,
                            I'd be very interested too in knowing more about how people do animation from Sketchup, which plugins are preferred. May be worth another thread for that discussion.
                            -Andy

                            http://charlottesvillearchitecturalrendering.com/

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                            • jason_marantoJ Offline
                              jason_maranto
                              last edited by

                              I can easily set up a poll for those specialties after my current one gets done -- but it does already have a question regarding animation support as a major factor for selecting an engine...

                              Best,
                              Jason.

                              I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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                              • IdahoJI Offline
                                IdahoJ
                                last edited by

                                As a longtime user of POVray, I'm finally looking for another rendering option to use with SU. I've been using Didian Bur's POvray plugin, but it's engineered to give good basic POVray functionality. I have to do a lot of tweaking to the exported files to get the final results. These days, I'd rather render more, and tweak less ... 😉

                                I'll be looking forward to the results of your poll Jason.

                                Cheers

                                "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."

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                                • FrederikF Offline
                                  Frederik
                                  last edited by

                                  Wonder how many new members SCF have gained because of this thread...? 😕
                                  The other day, Maxwell was far behind Thea and Vray... Now it's a close race...
                                  Strange, cause I don't seem to recall seeing that many renders made with Maxwell in the Gallery section... 😒
                                  (I don't want to start a debate here... I acknowledge Maxwell is a great render app, but for SU renders made with Maxwell are few and far apart...)

                                  BTW... I agree 100% with JD Hill, who's one of the developers at Maxwell... 👍

                                  @jd hill said:

                                  Please don't take it wrong, but I generally think such polls are akin to: which is the best overall tool?

                                  • hammer
                                  • screwdriver
                                  • paint brush

                                  Cheers
                                  Kim Frederik

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                                  • Rich O BrienR Offline
                                    Rich O Brien Moderator
                                    last edited by

                                    @Fred

                                    welcome back 👍

                                    Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp 📖

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                                    • andybotA Offline
                                      andybot
                                      last edited by

                                      @frederik said:

                                      Wonder how many new members SCF have gained because of this thread...? 😕

                                      It's a balance, lose some in the corner bar, gain some in the plugin competitions 😆

                                      http://charlottesvillearchitecturalrendering.com/

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                                      • jason_marantoJ Offline
                                        jason_maranto
                                        last edited by

                                        So far the results of the separate (but related) survey I'm doing shows very similar results to this one -- but that should be expected since it's the same user base.

                                        BTW I set it up so that anyone can see the current results by completing this survey so there's no need to wait to see what the current consensus important features are... just bookmark that page when you get to it.

                                        Best,
                                        Jason.

                                        I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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                                        • soloS Offline
                                          solo
                                          last edited by

                                          @unknownuser said:

                                          So far the results of the separate (but related) survey I'm doing shows very similar results to this one -- but that should be expected since it's the same user base.

                                          Quite different actually:

                                          results.jpg

                                          http://www.solos-art.com

                                          If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                                          • jason_marantoJ Offline
                                            jason_maranto
                                            last edited by

                                            I meant for the amount of votes -- when the vote count was similar here the results were similar.

                                            I'm not sure why anybody would get bent out of shape about this -- as far as I know nobody is getting any incentive for voting, this is purely voluntary... considering there are over 100,000 SketchUcation members, many of whom never (or rarely) post I think any presumptions about what we "know" are pretty premature.

                                            Isn't that the point of asking in the first place?

                                            BTW not answering the questions really is a crappy move as there are only 100 chances for people to answer -- whoever did that (just so you could put in a vote for Thea), you just took away a chance from somebody else to be heard on the real points of the survey... very uncool and selfish.

                                            Best,
                                            Jason.

                                            I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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