Yes it’s pretty good, but for my course I have to average a new animation every 5 days so cycles is too slow but I’ll be using it for stills for sure and then my own animations later.
Consider sheep-it renderfarm. It’s free for Blender.
Also, it works pretty good as a fast local render solution if you have multiple machines at home (or at work, or combination).
There’s also https://www.crowd-render.com/
A bit more complicated, but never leaves your network.
Oh I’m well versed, I’ve got a Quad RTX6000 setup at home and a real farm at the office.
Have almost 18500 rendering cores over just two PC towers.
When I say I have 5 days per animation, that included making the scene from scratch, materials, lighting, rigging and everything else. That typically only leaves me half a day to render out the scene in 4K. So for now it will all be evee, after the course is finished I’ll probably go back and do some longer ones in cycles.
In work we have a 16-17 machine cluster but I’m yet to put Blender on that, hopefully when this is all over and I get back to the office it will be the top of my list! Then we should hit some speeds.
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Yeah, good for you. I prefer rendering in EEVEE too. You just need to know about reflection and irradiance probes to get the most out of it.
That came out really good Liam - did you use Ian Hubert’s fish tutorial for the squid group? Animate Fish in Blender - Lazy Tutorials - YouTube
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“With algorithmic modeling you work on process to “draw”, you don’t “draw” a lot. So you discover two options : work an hour with a nice UI on SketchUp or work 5 seconds to get the same result with algorithmic modeling…” @presence-architecture
This is so true.
SketchUp may not be the fastest or most feature rich software for doing a lot of stuff, but it IS one of the most intuitive programs to use.
When I build in SketchUp, I build exactly as I would in real life - creating parts then assembling them. Everyone I show my models to can “understand” them quickly and we can change the design around together…
Even for a piece of organic furniture, I’ve seen people model a chair for example, by making it out of stock-sized timber and THEN shaping each piece by cutting away - exactly as you would in a workshop (stock removal method). This is a differnet approach than to programming a CNC machine.
For large project models involving lots of bespoke objects or shapes, SketchUp can be a bit tediuous.
But for buildings, furniture, and landscapes where there are a lot of parts repeated and fit together, it is great.
Revit and other AEC BIM products also work in terms of assemblies, but the added layer of BIM organisation and data does somewhat remove the user from act of assembling things - encoded rules and information guides assembly moreso than human logic.
I’m curious about Blender and how that works according to psychological principles.
The videos Chipp shows and some of the Grasshopper (or even Ruby) stuff scares me to death with the idea that i’ll be forever working in code or updating nurbs curves in a very ‘detached’ manner from my actual design.
Some videos have shown some great stuff like the rendered view while working - with better lighting etc. That is somthing SketchUp really lacks (we have Lumion live sync, but it’s not the same)
haha no but I do know that tutorial. In this case the squid are just particles with very simple swarming AI.
I just have one squid mesh and then lots of instances of it.
I am on this course: BLENDER ONLINE CLASS — HEAVYPOLY
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Just finshed my 4th weeks project, three days to make and one day to render. All built from a blank slate besides the squid model that I downloaded. Edit: oops forgot the the link!
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Fun quick course for anyone wanting to learn scripting in python for Blender. FWIW, this guy’s website is full of architectural goodies. https://chocofur.com/
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And our very own Justin has a new tutorial on arch modeling. I really like his casual and very clear approach.
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am i allowed to ask for some blender help on here? I have a question that i have no idea if its simple or complicated. thanks
You are right, SketchUp is a great 3D app with the best intuitive UI. Unfortunately, it is not developed by LastSoftware and Google.
Maybe the good news is the end of the principal patent on may 2021. in the public interest, it would be nice if what made Sketchup fall into the public domain.
For the moment, Blender need more time to be learned. But when you understand the principles, it is not difficult.
It seems to be more closer as an intuitive 3D app on new developments, and with third party add-ons. I am interested to develop now on Blender.
you are right
In Blender you have two professional rendering engine. One of them is an incredible real time engine. I test it on a non recent computer and it work. For glass material, you have to switch on an option (see videos on the web)
oh for gods sake. will everyone stop flagging things?
let the rest of us be offended for ourselves… we are mostly adults ffs…
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Scratching my head too. What’s wrong with Grasshopper? In a lecture at AIA/Connecticut, Phil Bernstein detailed a history of hand drafting to 2D CAD to BIM, and now to computational design. As far as he’s concerned, BIM is now in the history books and stuff like Grasshopper is where it’s all at now.
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I wasn’t the flagger but AFAIK Grasshopper is a Rhino feature so it is not about Blender.
Most Grasshopper-generated things I have seen are about Zaha Hadid-type blob structures and such, that have nothing at all to do with the day to day practicing done by 99,98% of architects. BIM is of no use for Hadid, but the rest have to use things like walls, roofs and doors instead of walk-in sculptures. I don’t see how Grasshopper can make it easier for me to get my doors detailed and scheduled for the builder to manufacture.
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I suppose that’s mostly what his Yale students are doing with it.
I assume you can do more mundane things with it, sort of like dynamic components on steroids.
Once again, we should be able to see WHO is hiding behind these flags AND have the ability to up-vote posts.
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I just wonder who thought up the system in the first place…
it’s not like it’s totally open to abuse / sarcasm…
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Every side bar DOESN’T need to be flagged 
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