Need renderer for primary school class
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I am a primary school teacher who often gets to teach kids in year 3,4,5 and year 6 sketchup skills and modelling.
I have been trying to find a renderer that is free (school = no money).
Renderer needs to be simple enough for children to use with assistance from a teacher.
Needs to be able to run on slower machines.any ideas
all advice is welcomeare there any render software companies that do education licences?
thank you
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Hi morg176,
did you have a look at Kerkythea. In my opinion it is the best renderer to learn the basics.
Charly
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Maxwell for SketchUp is good for beginners.
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@unknownuser said:
are there any render software companies that do education licences?
Seems autodesk's products are "free" for educational !
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
are there any render software companies that do education licences?
Seems autodesk's products are "free" for educational !
Pilou, we are talking about primary school kids and SketchUp here!
Also, Charly, this is why I would not say Kerkythea is the best solution. Not for kids getting to familiarize themselves with the basics.
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Wouldn't Sketchup's own built-in rendering capabilities suffice for under-sixes ?
They'd get fog, shadows, transparency etc... Many "pro's" use these tools daily to convey their design ideas to others...The things a 'proper' renderer would offer them might be extra-lights, reflections, refraction, bump-maps etc... BUT they do need to start somewhere... I suggest they should learn to crawl before they try to walk, let alone before they run...
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TIG is right IMO. In SketchUp, the most fun part is modelling and seeing your model develop. If you start using any kind of renderer, you will risk two major things:
- The whole thing will become too technical and the kids easily lose interest
- any renderer that is fast enough for the kids to (still) enjoy and do not lose interest while an image is "cooking" (and is already ready within the time frame of the class) will nowadays be based on GPU and therefore needs quite strong computers
- no free solution (unless some trial versions which of course could still be fun) but Kerkythea - an excellent program but the learning curve is steep (and too technical).
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So if you can't find an easy render indside the Autodesk products seems to me that the more easy "renderer" for Kids is Lumion !
User's interface is a Kid's interface!!!
With the free version that is very sufficient and so fun!
The bad thing is that it's not working very well (or not) on old computers!
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For me learning rendering is sometimes like watching paint dry--and when it's done, it's the wrong color!
I can't imagine what it'd be like for a kid. On the other hand my nephew loves SU and becomes totally enthralled with the modelling. When we visit he asks if I want to do "architectural drafting" with him. What it looks like in terms of realism or presentation seems not an issue at present.Kerkythea ? Uh
Maybe Maxwell Fire free version. -
I agree with all of the comments, advice and suggestions that you have given.
You are correct in that we have only introduced sketchup this year, actually this term. And the kids absolutely love it although for some the learning curve is steeper than others. Some have downloaded the software at home and their skills are increasing through play.The reason why I wanted to use a renderer is to show the kids how light and shadow play a part in a model, especially with curved surfaces. Don't get me wrong, I'm planing ahead for most of next year. Most of my students take a while to get used to the tools but they are very engaged in their attempts.
Kerkythea is not right for them but i will look into some of the other options you have given. Please if you come up with any other ideas I would love to hear them.
Thank you
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@unknownuser said:
easy "renderer" for Kids is Lumion !
The recommended system requirements fo Lumion are very high though:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
System memory: At least 6GB
Graphics card: NVidia 460GTX / ATI 5850 or faster, with at least 1GB memory -
Someone suggested Maxwell render above. I have never used it so you may try their free version. What I was able to start rendering at least fairly acceptable results was Twilight Render (which actually uses Kerkythea's rendering engine built into SU and running inside SU). Its interface is simple and intuitive enough even for a beginner at rendering.
It has a free trial version with limitations: no export to Kerkythea, size limited to 800 pixels and some watermarks in the corners. But they also offer academic licenses for both educators and students: http://www.twilightrender.com/buy-top/86 (full price would be $99).
The fun part of Twilight is that it can render special SketchUp animations like SketchyPhysics.
In any case, you can start with the trial version here and see if it fits your needs. Keep in mind however that any of the renderers will always benefit from more powerful computers. Twilight only uses CPU but of course, the faster your CPU is or the more cores/threads it can render with, the faster your images will be.
Another option could be LightUp which also has some trial version although I am not sure what the limitations exactly are: http://www.light-up.co.uk/index.php?t=download They also have academic license: http://www.light-up.co.uk/index.php?t=student
The cool thing in LughtUp is that once you render your scene in SketchUp, you can interactively walk about that scene and even export it into a standalone player (or publish the walkabout scene on the web). I am sure kids would love this (and to how off to their parents/friends, too).
So there are many possibilities to get them acquainted with. Christmas is coming - maybe a license of some of these lesser expensive apps is affordable for some families.
@adorno said:
The recommended system requirements fo Lumion are very high though:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
System memory: At least 6GB
Graphics card: NVidia 460GTX / ATI 5850 or faster, with at least 1GB memoryTrue that since it's a GPU based engine,it needs a stronger machine. I use it on a 3.5 year old, 32 bit XP though (i.e. max memory usage is less than 4Gb) with an 1 Gb nvidia 9600 GT which was not a top notch card even when I bought my PC.
(I know, time to upgrade...)
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