Sorry if I caused any trouble? It is not so much difficult as it is almost impossible to compare Rendering programs, with enough time they can ALL put our great work! And I should have also mentioned that Shaderlight is in beta form right now so I probably should not have even include it in the tests, Sorry for that.

As mentioned earlier, the test was to learn what things can do, I agree if you’re an expert at any one of the renderers out there you will get excellent results. I wish I had lots of hours to devote to each one of them! But since time is limited I do not have that option.

The original Idea was what could some one not knowing anything about rendering put together and get decent results when you are under pressure to produce decent images fast. As I mentioned earlier this test was narrowly focused on only residential/commercial interiors with a bit accent lighting that did not need to be perfect photorealistic, just good enough to show the mood of the space in a pleasing way. I tried to use lights in the exact same place as much as I could. I am not trying to say who is better then whom. I’m just trying to limit down the choices so I can actually spend some deep quality time with the one best for me.

My test was also to bring up answers that some of you already know that might help myself and others choose a direction? I have learned from others that there all great, it just depends what you want to do, and of course how well you know the program, but that didn’t help too much to make a choice.

I also should mention that I have an older computer that isn’t working up to snuff all the time. That’s probably why I can not get Lightup or IRenderNXT to load, it has nothing to do with that I can’t figure out how to use them.

I choose to use a test example of something that I would be rendering instead of a “cornell?” box or other object, as the out put was never expected to be perfect, just better then what I can make without help of a good rendering program.

Ok here goes.pdf

Hi All,
I dont know how to properly upload text and images, I am going to attempt to cut and paste from "word", I hope this works?

Nope no luck? Does anyone have any advice on uploading a group of images with text notes? Make a PDF and Insert?

Thanks Matte

I will post the comparison images each renderer did as soon as Im done, along with seamed good and bad things about each one. But to let you know I am not looking for which type of renderer will do a perfect image after days and days of calculations. I'm looking for something more realistic, so I am doing quality at 5, 15, 30 min. and an hour. Im looking for something to add extra "feel" to the scenes with lights placed where needed. Ill also let you know what was good and bad about each type of light from the different packages. My present goal is to limit it to the two "best" and then look more under the hood of those two. Hopefully it will not take to much longer. Im having a problem reinstalling IDX renditioner at the moment. And there was one other I wanted to test. But the ones for Shaderlight, twilight, indigo, and podium are done already. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks d12dozr,
I use that one! it's very useful for showing the cabinet structure, I usually put a isometric view or the exlpoded view in the top left corner that wat the guys building the cabinet have a clear view on how it fits togather.
Matte

Thanks Dave,
I'll try to PM you. But to make things more clear for everyone, I pretty much do the custom commercial cabinet work, and more of the unusual custom kitchen, bath. etc. work. Though many of the cabinets are still in the traditional form. But exploding and labeling each piece by hand with SU is still better then drawing it up in 3D from scratch with ACAD Mechanical Desktop, and then break it up, draw and labeling the individual pieces and views as they do now.
Matte

Hi All,
THis was also posted in the Wooodworkers forum, but since everything I need to know is related to what Ruby are out there to do cabibnet work I thought I should also ask for your help here. I just got a job! (Yea after 9 months unemployment). It's for a cabinet company. Some of my SU sketches, drawings and animations were showed to the owner last Friday and he was quite excited by them. I was told he wants me to make a presentation to him on monday (Tomorrow!). I know SU pretty well, but haven't really dived into layout or the ruby scripts related to wood working (Cut list, Dovetail Plugins, etc.) Could some of you who know what SU can do for Cabinet creation give me a quick low-down on what SU can do? Draw Cabs, Explode them into parts, make lists of parts and sizes, make easy dados and hardware holes, send to computer cutting machines, etc? I would greatly appriciate anything you can tell me, I don't want to promise the Boss that SU can do something it cant? (I guess one could always pay someone to make a ruby to do something if I mislead them in the power of what is already out there?)
Thanks again,
Matte

Hi All,
I am new to the Wooodworkers forum, but have been floating around the SU world for a while. I just got a job! (Yea after 9 months unemployment). It's for a cabinet company. They say some of my sketches and drawings last Friday, and showed them to the Owner, he was quite excited and asked me to make a presentation to him on monday (Tomorrow!). I know SU pretty well, but haven't really dived into the ruby scripts related to wood working (Cut list, Dovetail Plugins, etc.) Could some of you who have used SU for Woodworking / Cabinet creation give me a quick low-down on what SU can do? Draw Cabs, Explode them into parts, make lists of parts and sizes, make easy dados and hardware holes, send to computer cutting machines, etc? I would greatly appriciate anything you can tell me, I don't want to promise the Boss that SU can do something it cant? (I guess one could always pay someone to make a ruby to do something if I mislead them in the power of what is already out there?)
Thanks again,
Matte

Hi All,
I thought I saw a woodworkers group out of the corner of my eye in the past? Now that I have a job working for a cabinet company I was trying to track it down to see what was there? Does anyone know anything about it?
Thanks,
Matte

Thank you all for your advice, I will slowly go thru and check out each of these options one at a time to see what works best. I'll use the same model with each option and see what each option creates.
Thanks Again,
Matte

Hi All,
I have been trying to find out which are the best renderers under $200 ($100 would be even closer to what I can really afford) that work inside SU. I have dabbled with IDX Renditioner, IRender Nxt, Liteup, shaderlite(cant get it to work yet) to name a few, but was wondering from the few that have the opertunity to try them all what you think? In my attempts so far I seem to see the most promise was in the first two listed? Basically I'll be mostly doing interiors with a few lights added here and there for either artistic or "photorealistic" that don't look too "cartoon like". Thanks!
Matte

Thanks Cravatman,
I'll check Vue out! In the mean time I'll just keep working with the MAX version I have access to. And thanks for the good wishes, It worked, I just got a job a few hours ago!
Matte

Thanks thecravetman,
Unfortunatly I only have the opertunity to use Max Ver. 7. For the first time in my life I have been unemployed, for over 9 months now! and all money is being spent to keep us from becoming homeless. I think I will have to give up Architecture and try something different? The face problem did not seam to cause me much problems "so far", as long as I have all the faces in the correct direction befor export from SU. I was more thinking about the overall train of thought that goes into putting togather a large/complex project. In the past after many months of work I have often found that the way I have "put things togeter" was not as efficient as it should have been and I have to backtrack to make things more clear. I believe it is better to think through the big picture of what I am making first before randomly putting all the pieces togather? Max Ver 7 is probably a lot slower, but I expect this "Project" to be one of those that I work on here and there when I can over the next few years, it's quite a big undertaking for a "just for fun project". I was hoping to be clear on the proper thought process to eliminate as much back tracking from incorrect construction. My self taught MAX time is very limited, so I figure the learning curve will be extended quite a bit. Thanks again for your reply.
Matte

Hi All,
I could not find my similar SU to 3DS thread. I never got to thank earthmover for his advice on how to export from SU to MAX, your way worked, thanks!

Now that I think I can export "properly" I would like to know if someone could clarify the meathod of construction I am guessing to be the "best" way. And let me know what ideas of mine are not "correct"? Here is the project and my meathod of construction:

I am creating an entire airport with buildings and environment (It's quite large 50 Megs so far, and I am just beginning.) I am useing MAX V7 to get a better/smoother fly thru then I can seam to get with SU, and hopefully better rendering as well.

I am presently have the SU model seperated into many parts that are xref'ed with TIG's wonderfull xref ruby. I take each Part/building/etc. make a new copy and go thru and strip out all non crutial data/faces/etc. Once clean I export it into max. Max is still quite difficult for me to grasp so I do as much as I can in SU.

It looks like Max 7 allows xrefs, so I plan to make one master Xref file from each of the parts. It worked great in SU, I hope it works as well with MAX? Then I can just xref each new building as I create them?

Thanks for any advice, I would hate to go down the wrong path too far on a project that I expect to take a few years to complete, mostly from the MAX learning curve. Thanks Again to all.

Hi All,
Sorry for such a simple question, I am still looking for a good 3DS MAx user board to search for answers, but for now I hope one of the multi talanted users here can help? It gets frustrating when your trying to learn something really simple in a new program that you can easly do in many other programs! The problem I am having trying to grab a corner of one object and move/attach it to a corner of another object! I am using MAx-7, on the web I have seen how the corners, midpoints are suppose to highlight the point of choice, and I saw how to adjust the pick box sizes, etc. But when I try to grab an edge of a box and move it to the edge of another box, nothing happens! Is there some special conversion or grouping I have to do to each object that I am missing?
Thanks for any help possable.
Matte

Thanks Earthmover,
The imported Landscape seames to be much cleaner, I didnt apply any type of modifiers, (I just learned what they are!). I haven't even figured out why the material editor doesent show any of the materials on the imported model? But I am reading how to books and trying to read and watch as many tutorials as I can to get up to speed.
Thanks again to you and Thomthom for your help, (Lord knows I need all I can Get!
Matte

Hi Thomthom,
Yes I went through and checked them all and removed all unnecessart faces I could find.

PS,
I noticed that there about 20-30 materials combined into 2 sub-object materials. Is there somewhere to learn how to separate them into individual materials? (I’m looking through the MAX literature presently to figure this out.) Or am I exporting the drawing incorrectly? It seems it would be easiest to apply named materials in SU and then just replace/switch each image in MAX if required for better quality. Or is it best to remove all materials from SU and just apply them one by one from scratch in max? (Man that would be time consuming!)
Thanks Again!

Thanks Solo,
I was not sure on the settings, so I attempted to recreate them, in the two options I tried with the export texture map off which created the blackened areas, and when I exported it again with the export texture box and preserve texture coordinates checked it went away. The only thing that still looks strange is that while zooming in MAX it looks like some areas have two textures fighting to occupy the same space. Do you have any ideas about that? Being totally new to max I really appriciate the help. It's easy to go off on some tangent since I'm just learning MAX. Thanks again!

Hey, I am not sure if this is a repeat question, but I seem to lose it through the posting phase. I am trying to export my SU drawing into 3DS Max part by part so I can eventually do a smooth fly through, since I can’t seem to do it in SU. When I export the drawing into 3DS Max I get these black areas scattered around the pavement. Is this an error due to complex/bad geometry? Is there a way to fix this before I start modifying textures and importing other 3D object. (I’m extremely new to 3DS Max.) Does anyone have any helpful advice to fix this textural problem?

Thanks in advance,

Matte.