sketchucation logo sketchucation
    • Login
    ℹ️ Licensed Extensions | FredoBatch, ElevationProfile, FredoSketch, LayOps, MatSim and Pic2Shape will require license from Sept 1st More Info

    What is your favorite overall rendering engine for SketchUp?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Extensions & Applications Discussions
    extensions
    91 Posts 41 Posters 29.5k Views 41 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • 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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • 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/

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • 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.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 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

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 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.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 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.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 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)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 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/

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 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.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • 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."

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • 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

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Rich O BrienR Offline
                            Rich O Brien Moderator
                            last edited by

                            @Fred

                            welcome back 👍

                            Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp 📖

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 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/

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • 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.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • 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.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • 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.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • E Offline
                                      Ecuadorian
                                      last edited by

                                      People in different countries tend to like different software, and it's always interesting for me to see such differences.
                                      It would be really cool to have a much bigger sample (say, 10K votes), and also the country of each vote. But for so many people to vote, you would probably have to offer something in return, say, entering every voter into a sweepstake for an iPad. 😆

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

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • jason_marantoJ Offline
                                        jason_maranto
                                        last edited by

                                        @ecuadorian said:

                                        People in different countries tend to like different software, and it's always interesting for me to see such differences.
                                        It would be really cool to have a much bigger sample (say, 10K votes), and also the country of each vote. But for so many people to vote, you would probably have to offer something in return, say, entering every voter into a sweepstake for an iPad. 😆

                                        You are totally right -- but I don't believe we could organize something like that without corporate sponsorship and then it gets into the messy parts of who has access to the information and for what purposes... plus which you would have people entering who don't even own rendering software, just to get a chance to win, which would skew the results.

                                        It's plainly obvious which softwares the regular posting and browsing SketchUcation users prefer -- but the longer something like this goes on the more likely you'll get input from people who maybe only come here infrequently... which I'm afraid is a sizable chunk of the SketchUp using population, if you believe SketchUp usage numbers (which I do).

                                        I'm not so interested in which softwares people use, but why -- and taking that information into account when you see their choices... of course the assumption you have to make is that they chose based on knowledge of the options.

                                        Best,
                                        Jason.

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

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • Z Offline
                                          Zoom123
                                          last edited by

                                          I own a forum which is running the same forum software as Sketchucation (phpbb) and I installed a mod where the choice of each member in a poll can be publicly shown(if this option was chosen when the poll was created). I also have the forum setup in a way that newly registered members can not vote in polls.

                                          This way the results have more substance. You don't only get a vague number as a result but you can also see who exactly voted for what option and judge the results accordingly.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • jason_marantoJ Offline
                                            jason_maranto
                                            last edited by

                                            Realistically by the end of the day there will be more people who joined SketchUcation today than have voted in this poll thread (it's almost there already) -- the participants are a very small (but vocal) minority.

                                            Getting too upset over the results when it represents roughly 0.1% of the membership of this forum is pretty strange if you ask me -- and SketchUcation membership only represents about 10% of the total SketchUp userbase (which means this poll represents only 0.01%)... we are dealing with an infinitesimally small sampling here.

                                            There's alot more to the SketchUp world than what we say here -- which I believe is the point Ecuadorian is trying to make.

                                            Best,
                                            Jason.

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

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • 1
                                            • 2
                                            • 3
                                            • 4
                                            • 5
                                            • 4 / 5
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Buy SketchPlus
                                            Buy SUbD
                                            Buy WrapR
                                            Buy eBook
                                            Buy Modelur
                                            Buy Vertex Tools
                                            Buy SketchCuisine
                                            Buy FormFonts

                                            Advertisement