A new version of D5 posted up for all those on the render side of SKP!
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It looks like enscape just popped out a new version as well:
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How does D5 Render compare to Twilight Render, Rayscaper or other render software.
Can you really use D5 Render fo free?, If so, are there any limitations?
I can only compare D5 to enscape, twinmotion and prior SU podium. All opinions are specifically my own…
Podium is CPU based so much slower to render and I could never get lighting colors accurate to my liking but it was better quality at the cost of much longer time to render. in reality, I highly recommend it not for rendering but for it’s library of assets (podium browser) which I still use in all my models.
Enscape is exceptionally easy to learn even it’s advanced portions and does solid and quick renders. It’s heavily used in the arch industry and it’s a blessing using live sync which maintains parity with the SKP model and enscape viewport at the same time in real time meaning I make a change in my SKP model and it automatically reflects in the enscape viewport. It is the easiest to use. The cons are that it is expensive compared to it’s competitors (use it’s black Friday deals for decent savings) and, I feel, it’s quality these days is slightly lacking comparatively but they are still solid high quality renders. Most clients likely wouldnt know or see the difference… but I do. It is also only mediocre to weak for animations and doesn’t offer much beyond animating camera movements only.
Twinmotion is good and again now free and its a middle path to using the very complex unreal engine. It’s good. It’s renders are comparable to enscape imo. It’s better than enscape for animations and easy to get people and cars to animate etc. It also has volumetric lighting which is nice because enscape does not. It’s more complex to get it to animate things like fans or doors etc but it can do these things. It does not have a real time live sync but a button you need to press to synchronize with SKP.
D5 has the best rendering output imo. It’s lighting is fantastic. It has both a free and paid version. I have the paid which I believe only really gives me access to it’s full asset library. It may also be limited in the free version for resolution when rendering but they may have relaxed that and I think they did. I don’t remember. It is cheaper than enscape for the paid version. It is more complicated and complex to setup models and it’s not as intuitive as enscape in various different ways. I also find that it’s slightly buggy especially on larger models and sometimes maintaining synchronization of layers etc. It does weird things like mixing up textures on back of transparent materials or the background overall sun light gets a bad texture attached to it giving entire rooms the wrong color or color skew (there is a name for this but I forget it offhand). I’ve learned this painfully multiple times but still… It has the best output when it’s working correctly. Usually a reboot alleviates it but sometimes I have had to re-create materials and re-attach them for d5 to correct itself. It’s painful when it glitches. D5 has a limited live sync so not as good as enscape but not as manual as twinmotion.
Having said all that,it’s my current goto renderer.
I would like to migrate to full blown unreal but it’s learning curve is terrible and I haven’t really been able to find a project that make sense to make the deep dive. It will have the best quality and animation ability etc at the cost of being the hardest to learn. Both D5 and Twinmotion use the unreal engine but in limited ways to be easier to use.
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Thanks for the reply. I will have to take a look.