What is your favorite overall rendering engine for SketchUp?
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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. -
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 animationSome of us work almost exclusively with animations.
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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 -
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. -
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
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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
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welcome back
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@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
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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. -
@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:
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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. -
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. -
@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 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.
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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. -
@jason_maranto said:
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
I always find it funny how some people believe their native language is the "most expressive and complete one", or how their particular dialect or accent is "the only neutral one in the language", or how their national food is the "best in the world".
Most of my friends are like this, with the big exception being one who has mastered Chinese and English besides her native Spanish, befriending native speakers in the process.Truth is, you only realize the shortcomings of your own language/dialect/cuisine/favorite software/etc when you truly learn and appreciate another.
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Lumion - render time 14 seconds. No postpro, no 2d or billboard or clips...all3d and movie ready.
The movie from which this was taken is 45 seconds long and rendered in just over an hour.
Seems hard to beat.
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Hi guys
I'm new here but I follow your forum from a very long timeWell well, what do we have here
a Render Engine comparison for Sketchup!Just what I needed!
Let's say a couple of things
I've tryied Lumion and I really don't like it!
I loved the idea but it's a way to slow o my PC (mobility Eadeon HD 5400)
The Cryengine 3 instead, works very well, but I just tried Crysis 2 not the SDK (I think it would be too complicated to me)
And I also tried Keyshot and I've found it very very useful, but it's mostly for product design and not for Architecture.And so I'm still looking for a render engine
something quick and "wow" like keyshot but for exteriors / interiors etc
What about Fryrender?
No one voted it but I remember a very useful function to swap the materials post rendering (without having to re-render the scene).
But I'm not able to find any updated information about it in their website.What do you think?
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If you like Keyshot, take a look at Bunkspeed Shot. The Pro Version contains lightsources.
Fryrender or Maxwell doesn't take to much.
Depends of your hardware ( when you want to update ) take a look at Octanerender, very fast but GPU based.
From the list you'll see the leaders here.
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@prostata123 said:
No one voted it but I remember a very useful function to swap the materials post rendering (without having to re-render the scene)
Thea has that via Colimo. Very useful when working with interior designers.
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