Sorry, my bad. Or actually Bigstick's. Search the Podium forum, you'll see. 
Your point about comparing apples and pears seems valid to me. To some extent these kind of comparisons seems to derive from the need to find the 'ultimate renderer' -a thing that does not exist.
Let's also not forget: different tools for different jobs. In my opinion, unbiased yields the best results. However, unbiased renderers seem somewhat unpractical to use in a production environment. Unless, of course, you own a whole fleet of 'manycores'.
Oh yeah: the price counts too, obviously.
Valid points, Jenujacob. I must add, however, that since 1.5 Podium also uses MLT.
A good initiative. The difference in render time is obviously due to the fact the current version of Podium uses only one core. My gut tells me this'll change.
You modern day architects ... What, a person can't have a little room for himself? 
Anyway, thanks.
I'm quite a fan of both apps. They complement eachother really nicely. And the workflow they both offer is actually one I'm able to grasp without much pondering on, say, the physics of light. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to both TBD and Whaat!
"but 24 hours render time compared to 2 hours in Podium" - I must add to this Podium uses only core for the moment, while Indigo uses as many you can throw at it (8, in my case). Imagine rendering the same bathroom in Indigo using only one core. 
And now imagine how fast Podium will be when using 8 cores.
Same file, but rendered in Indigo. The Indigo version looks better, but (!!!!!!!!) it rendered for about 24 hrs (if I remember correctly) on an octo core. I feel Podium and Indigo make a hell of a team. Both are amazingly easy to use, and both provide quality renders.
Without knowing it, Sepo, you answered the question I asked on the Podium forum earlier. Thanks.
As adding bumps makes specularity kick in (which I didn't quite fully realize until now), a 'distressed', 'uneven' look can be added to reflective surfaces in SU/Podium by combining Podium's "auto specularity", and textures from the modo Texture Libraries.
Hey, I didn't buy those for nothing after all!
Oh, critisize away.
The night one I purposely wanted a bit darker. The day one, however, could have done with a bit more daylight.
Just good ol' Podium reflection, no specularity. Bumps seem to affect the way surfaces reflect, though. I think Sepo, Solo and TBD might be better placed to comment on the technical details.
I posted these on the Podium forum some time ago. I thought I'd post them here too, just to show what Podium can do in the hands of even the most un-technically minded users. The bathroom is too big, but that's obviously not Podium's fault. The day version rendered for 1 h 53 m 22 s, the night version for 3h 17 s. Both rendered at 1160 x 646. I suspect the upcoming new release of Podium will be even faster.
Looks good. Haven't seen you around on the Indigo forum since that little flame war. Don't give up on Indigo just yet, it's darn good (and easy to use, thanks to SkIndigo).
Gee, I get to keep my head. Bummer, I could do with a less ugly one.
You working on some materials for P, right? Keep at it, I'd say. Seems like you're doing a fair job.
Must be good ol' Podium.
The Google boys are out of their minds if they don't put Pete on the testing team. I can't think of anyone more qualified.
All the best in 2008, y'all.
Looks pretty good, your highness. A tut? Really?
Not to sound unfriendly, but you seem to missing my point. The images aren't bad as such. They're just not very good for the kind of money you're asking. The same goes for the AccuRender images, btw.
There's renderers out there that are much cheaper (Podium) than yours and produce better quality. Some are even free (Kerkythea, Indigo).
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying a good deal of money. Good ideas and hard work should be rewarded. But I do feel that a 449 $ renderer should produce far better stuff than yours does.
I'm pretty sure quite a few people will agree with me.
Nevertheless, I of course wish you the best of luck with your product.
As far as I know, the Pro version does indeed time out after 8 hrs. But after that period, it magically transforms itself into the free version.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
@al hart said:
IRender and IRender Plus produce very good images.
Take a look at our image gallery for some of the images our customers have created:
Mr. Hart, I was of course referring to those. I'm sorry, but for the price you're asking, those kind of images just aren't good enough.
But again, that mats editor is cool.
The material editor is a very nice touch. The images on your site, however, I find rather unconvincing. Sorry if this sounds a bit unfriendly, but, er, the Plus version costs 449 $ - for that kind of money, it should be able to produce far better images.
Is Google actually generating a lot of income with Pro version? I doubt that...
Good point. But they might be looking ahead. What if they indeed did make improvements 'to the core itself'? Thus providing us with, say, better handling of large, high poly files? Then SU would be a cash cow. (If I were them, I'd choose this strategy.)
And be honest...what did actually change to the 'modeler' part of SU pro since Google took over. Nothing right?
Can't say, really, I'm a fairly new user. But I'll take your word for it.
SU needs improvement to the core itself imho.
I agree. Less topping, more cake. SU is too limited in a number of aspects.
"Why not going Open Source with sketchup Pro?"
It's already possible to develop Ruby plugins for SU, right?
I'm not too sure if I'd just share the code if I'd own SU. Money makes the world go 'round ...