@notareal said:

If I recall right 3DS Release 4 had a scan line renderer. So pretty much all "modern" renderers do use much advanced technologies (and also material systems) and naturally results are quite different, even with low quality settings. So... using default settings, new renderers are probably slower, but if you are willing to play and test, then I think most biased renderes should be able to give fast enough results, if you happy with quality like in those reference images.
If looking those reference images, I am pretty sure that Thea can render a interior like that (720p) about in a minute (with biased core). Thea can also save image sequences as TGA. http://www.thearender.com Not to forget that Thea can produce very high quality results too if needed, but render times will increase.
Naturally "game engine" based renderers can be even faster (Lumion etc.).
Thanks, notareal. The render times sound encouraging, with room to raise parameters for better results. Sheesh! I have a lot to learn re: new terminology. I've been out of the loop too long. Biased? Unbiased?
Oh, well, your recommended program seems to support both, so that can't be bad. One question. In addition to 3D modelling/animating, I also play keyboards in a prog-rock band (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, etc.) and am looking at a cool device called "ControlBLADE", by Music Computing. It is an i7-based computer with a built-in piano keyboard, designed to run software synthesizers and samples for composing, recording and live performing. It has 16 gig RAM, 1 TB SATA drive, but only has system board graphics (dual monitor support at HD 1080p). I assume this program, like Sketchup can only benefit from a heavy-duty graphics card (nVidia?)? Also, this system is 64-bit. Do either of these programs benefit from that?

@jason_maranto said:

You can easily get that quality level from several "real-time" render engines (I'm partial to http://lumion3d.com/ for this type of work) -- however most of them use GPU processing so if you don't have a recent/powerful video card you would need to purchase that in addition to the program.

Alternately you might look at http://www.artlantis.com/ or http://www.light-up.co.uk/ which can also hit that target very quickly and have different relative strengths.

Best,
Jason.
Thanks, Jason. I know I can get the quality needed, but my concern is that render time for an animation TGA sequence of frames is prohibitive. I need to produce TGA sequence for post-production studios. I am looking for a renderer that can output animation sequences with the minimum quality shown above at a rate of about 5-6 minutes per frame at HD 720p(?).

@thomthom said:

Think we need to see some reference imagery of what kind of results you are expecting.
Thanks for reply. The top image is the quality needed for rendered still to be printed. The middle and bottom images represent the minimum quality needed for animations.

Hi, all...

I've been following threads here that discuss render plug-in options for Sketchup and there appears to be a sizable selection. They all seem to be fairly equal with some consideration as to strength and weakness. I have soldiered on as a 3D modeler/animator for many years, using old 3DS Release 4 for DOS. I've come to like how fast and simple it is. Time has come to move on as the old DOS towers have died. They served me well.

What really puzzles me when looking at the options to render within and without Sketchup is the astronomical rendering times! My old system could render fairly complex scenes with shadows and reflections aplenty at about 3 to 5 minutes each frame (animation TGA sequence at NTSC res.). It seems this new generation stuff is MUCH slower, despite far more sophisticated technology! Sure, scene generation is much more sophisticated and light calculation far more accurate, but it seems the machines can't keep up with demand. How is it practical to do animation sequences with frames coming out at 20 to 30 minutes each???

Can any of the dozens of render options out there produce render times even approaching what I was able to do in 3DSR4? Do you find yourselves having to resort to render farms?

@adamb said:

LightUp (http://light-up.co.uk) will render TGA sequences from your SketchUp Scene animations.
Thanks! I'll check into it...

Can anyone recommend a good high-quality renderer that can render TGA sequences in addition to animation files? I'd like to keep the expenditure under $500.00.

TIA!

@idahoj said:

Dell Vostro 3500 series: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3500/fs

Great bang for the buck. Bought one after my Sony VAIO crapped out after only 2 years use ...

As far as the debate concerning Radeon chipsets ... Since AMD bought ATi and started branding under the AMD label, the driver quality has gotten much, much better. I run Radeon cards in my desktops without any appreciable issues.

Cheers.

Thanks, Idaho. While this does look good indeed, I am hoping to find one who's scanline resolution can match my old Dell M60. It is 1080, while I see this one is 768. Given that the card sports 4 times the on-board ram, I'm a bit surprised that they don't have a unit sporting 1080 scanlines.

@fletch said:

Why would Radeon not work with SU?

I've built and rendered massive projects on an old Dell Lattitude D620 with its TERRIBLE graphics card even in SU7 before it handled big scenes well.

http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/A660/A665-S6094 (corei7 laptop for around $1000)

I have heard great things about Sony VAIO.

Thanks for link. It looks like a lot of computer for the money, but it seems to only support 720p (I currently have 1080p on my old Dell M60)
Re: Radeon, it just seems to be the consensus in the forum over the years that Radeon is problematic and Nvidia is the choice. I went with that. Interesting that it has served you well. Wonder what the forum is saying about it now?

@2kemon said:

...you could take a look at the sony vaio e-series. It got me drooling a bit

But maybe that's just because I'm limited to a budget I can actually save up for before I retire as an old man!
If you customize it on the sony page you could end up with around a 1100 USD configuration that would probably fly well with sketchup and other graphical resource hogs

There's a review that seems to be legit right here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VPC-EB1S1E-BJ-Notebook.27201.0.html

Thanks for that, 2kemon, but it seems that the Sony comes with Radeon graphics. I hear that the card of choice for SU users is Nvidia. Can the Sony be ordered with that?

@ledisnomad said:

I'm no expert, but I try to keep up on exactly what you're looking for: bang-for-the-buck hardware. My office just bought a new laptop for presentations, but it needed to be robust enough to support real-time fly-through and design charrettes. We got an Alienware laptop from Dell. Although the Alienware is great, the 15" uncustomized model is $1200, perhaps a little more than your budget. However, the uncustomized Dell XPS 17" with similar power, maybe even a little more, is listed as $949. The only thing I'd upgrade on that is from Windows 7 Home to Pro for $130, so $1079, just over your budget.

Thanks for reply. It seems Alienware is a stand-alone brand, not attached to Dell(?).

I'll look into the XPS 17.

Thanks again!