@dave r said:

In SketchUp, create two scenes. One of the floor plan only and the other of the ducting only. In LayOut, do the same thing as above with three layers. The bottom layer has a viewport showing the floorplan only scene, the middle has the rectangle with reduced opacity, and the top layer has a viewport with the ductwork only scene. Place the floorplan viewport and set its scale as desired, then copy the viewport, make the top layer the active layer and paste to that layer. Change the pasted viewport's scene to the ductwork scene and they will be properly aligned.

If you wanted to do it entirely withing SketchUp, you could edit the materials used in the floorplan to reduce their saturation or you could move the ductwork up above the floorplan and use Fog. I think the method with the two scenes and the rectangle in between is easier.

Thanks but never worked with scenes before, just tested a little but not getting it to work. Mostly my lack of skills, do you have a tutorial somewhere on something similar?

@dave r said:

Are you modeling everything in SketchUp? Or are you drawing the ducting in LayOut?

One easy way to do it is to put a layer in between the layer the floorplan is on and the one the ducting is on. Draw a large rectangle on that in between layer and adjust its fill opacity to suit.

I have the floor plan in sketchup, but the plan was to use layout to draw the ducting on top.

How would I do what you recommended? Doing it entirely in sketchup instead then?

I am not sure what the proper name for what I want is. But have tried searching under several subjects without luck.

What I want is that the floor plans I work with is a bit grayed out / transparent / opacity / weak.
So that what I draw on top pops more out. By example I will be drawing where pipes for ventilation goes. And I don't want the walls to be so strong. Almost like the model/floor plan lays behind in a way.

What is the proper term for this, and how can I achieve this?

Iv had great fun readin this one. Don't know how i ended up here, but im searching for what render software to go for so thats the reason.

From an pleb as me comming in and reading this its very funny. Cause from what i can read here and from what i found elsewhere in my search is that there is so many prefrences to set to get it right. Some have prefrences that others don't. And that can be both good and bad in my opinion. Thats why all programs have defaults.

And what is the default? well that can be a lot. And from my point of view here. And this post made me think. Cause many renders look at it with a camera point of view. The idea of you taking a picture of something "real". While lightup in my mind looks at it with a human point of view. Humans don't have the same shutter speed as a camera, so we have a hard time capturing what a camera can do. Both are kind of wrong and right, right? You can't compare a human to a camera I think this is more of a argue about default and standard. Thea which i think i will go for btw has a setting as a camera, but it should be easy after this thread to set the "camera" to act like i as a human see the world, thus showing of lighting in scenes to client as they will in real life.

Like my profile picture. it capture a moment of me driving, but its just impossible to redo that picture standing still. i would just fall to the ground.

Thank you. For me it seems like i will go for Thea. Price is decent. Options looks good. the posibility to network render is a good option. And they keep coming up with new features all the time.

But i do have one question. Maybe all can do or maybe none render programs can do this. But a great timesaver for me would be to have a texture that i can paint on a wall that in render will look like a real wall with depth and structure.

like this picture here

Its an outside wall that have many different structures to it. i could draw it in 3D as a component if you like and then paste it on the wall. But it would be time consuming and heavy for the model in the end. A texture that i could just paint to the surface would be much better, easier and timesaving.

Is this possible, and is this really hard to do? What would be a good aproach on that?

@jql said:

I use Thea.

In terms of quality expect only the best. Biased, Unbiased, Presto doesn't matter.

Presto is Blazing fast specially if you have a good Nvidia Card. It can handle your video card, your CPU, or both together. If you have more than one computer it can do that for every computer on your network simply and effectively. In minutes you'll have terrific output with only one computer though.
You can have Presto MC (Unbiased better quality) or Presto AO (Ambient Oclusion)

You should compare Presto to Vray RT or Octane renderer (Though Octane is an older engine that has a few more features like displacement wich in Thea Presto aren't still there because it's still 1 year old).

Unbiased is slow (like Maxwell for instance) output quality is unbelievable (compare to Maxwell for instance). Unbiased settings are a nobrainer... click start and wait overnight and you won't believe what you see. There are basically two options very complex lighting TR2, regular lighting TR1 (what does this mean? I don't really know as it always looks good on TR1.

Render faster and interactive with Adaptive AMC, AC, AO. This goes from Unbiased (AMC) to Biased with Ambient Oclusion (AO - fake ambient light). Lesser quality but you must have a keen eye.

Any of this unbiased engines inside Thea can use relight. What does that mean? Fine tune your lights or sky or sun after the render is finished. You can make a movie out of this or a night shot and a day shot in one render. Render times will increase though.

Biased rendering, Like Vray. I simply don't use it. A lot of settings to configure for optimizing between speed and quality output. I don't have time to think on those and I want quality everytime so I simply choose Presto or Ubiased engines because it's not my working hours I spend. It's the machine that's working longer.

In terms of easyness of use you can get good quality easily. The better the quality the harder it will get, but that is similar to Thea or Vray or any other rendering software.

In terms of integration with sketchup... It's fully integrated and getting better every new release. You can ask for more... probably!

And about releases... I've jumped in a year from now and it was in 1.2. It's in 1.3 right now. Every new release is astoninshingly better than before. If you get into the boat until 2.0 is released, you won't have to pay until then for the upgrade. I can tell you that would be worthy even if it was in 1.9...

You can even expect new features on maintenence releases some times.

For support and learning, the community is very helpful and the developers are reading every word in the forum.

I shouldn't recommend it though as I didn't ever use any of the others. What I can say is that I'm totally happy with it.

Best regards,

João

Thank you so much for this detailed answer, this is exactly what im looking for.

Im wondering about the network think you said. I have a Server in my house and a HTPC on the side of this working Laptop (GTX660m 2gb, i7 etc). Will that mean i could set up my network so that all machines will work together rendering? Making the rendering faster?

I have tried a little of Thea today with the demo. Started like a mess, but think i got the basic already. And it seems really good. And from what i see so far it comes with what i need to start with. then i can edit some textures myself for later. But just to get lights. mat color on walls etc to start with is really a big plus.

One more question for you. I can see that on Thea forum site there is this site only for licensed people. I can't look into this section. But is the quality of stuff being put out there good? A search on google have given me a couple of sites where i can get texture/models that will ad to the easy and fast use.

@frederik said:

I'd love to say something, but I'm sure a lot of people here will see my answer as biased...

There are a couple of threads here with exact same question as you've posted...
Have you tried making a search...?

That said, I can highly recommend Thea Render!
Lots of great features and more to come...
With the Thea4SU plugin, you can't get it more simple and easy to use render application...

Why don't you download the trial versions of various render apps and play...?

Iv searched. not only this forum but elsewhere. too cant seem to get enough information input. But the more i look into it and the more i find i tend to lean for thea. price is ok. material edit looks easy but complex enough to make good textures. meaning i would have to model less in sketchup. Letting the render do the job instead. Making sketchup run more smoothly while working. The posibility of animation also seems good. So yeah. it really does seem like a good pick. V-ray is a but pricey i would say. And i dont know what vray can do that thea can't? Thats probably the question im looking for? What can vray do that thea can't?

@oceanembers said:

Firstly, you should understand that software like LumenRT, Lumion, Twinmotion, etc. are not the same as renderers like VRay, Thea, Indigo, etc. The former are real-time, and offer a prettier and arguably simpler interface with the sacrifice of output quality. I don't rate them as highly as renderers, having used Lumion for a long time, but they are good nonetheless.

When it comes to which you choose, it mostly comes down to personal preference. Look at images that have been created with them, look at the pricing, look at the interface and ease of use. None are inherently bad or good, just find one that suits you.

Thanks for clearing that first for me.

V-Ray and Thea both looks good from what i can see people have manage to do with those softwares. But then again, i can't know how much effort has gone to get it. Therefor i ask if someone use any of them and can tell me how it works. how they feel the basic setting and use are?

Thea looks good for many things considering the price for it. Like micro surface, sounds great if i want to get a mat wall surface paint look. Which is used a lot in building generally.

But like i said how intuitive is it to use?

How easy is it make good lightning fast and easy?

How is it to make new materials that you can put in fast for later use?

From videos both looks good and easy to use. But looks can deceive. And putting between 400-800$ on a render software i would like to be sure what i spend it on.

As topic says, it seem like there is a ton of render program to chose from. Iv tried a little of V-Ray and it seems ok. The comunity seems big, and there is lots of videos on youtube on howto. Which is kind of important, so one does not have to spend lots of time learning. Though i find some stuff anoyingly confusing sometimes.And way to complicated. Sometimes i just want to add something simple and render. And then there is the price, quite expensive. Iv also looked at LumenRT which also seems expensive but good.

And finally the one im looking on more and more. Thea Render. Price is decent and it looks complex enough to keep me going. Many possibilities with it from the looks of it. But i can't seem to find that many tutorials and howto on it. So how is it in use? For me lights is kind of important. So i can find out how lights work in a room etc.

I would like the lights to be easy to set up, like the possibility to adjust lumen/lux, angel of spotlight, kelvin color etc. So is this intuitive in Thea? I find it a little bit confusing in V-Ray sometimes. like spotlight angle. i Have some spots that are 35 dregree. but when i put that into vray it just makes a mess, 1.5 is more like 35 in real life.

And implemented material library. A decent library, render ready saves a lot of time. So how is that in Thea, Vray etc? Is there places to get/buy more at decent price?

So please if you use Thea or Vray or other render programs, share your knowledge. So it can help me chose which one to go for. Thanks.