For a few years now I have been using Match Photo in Sketchup Pro and Twilight Render to add rendered client products into supplied photos. With the advent of the M series of Mac chips Twilight Render was discontinued, and as I am now upgrading to an M4 Mac I need to find a suitable replacement for TR.
The current workflow within the TR extension is to export three different renders of a scene (one for shadows, one for reflections and one for the alpha channel) , then layer them over the supplied photo in Photoshop. This doesnāt give a perfect photo-realistic image but itās close enough to give the client a good idea of what their product will look like in-situ.
Iāve started to look at replacements, but it makes sense to ask if others have any knowledge or advice in this area. From the research Iāve done so far, not all rendering engines appear āwithinā SU and therefore donāt support a fixed camera position when exported.
Does anyone know of a suitable Mac-based rendering engine that supports a SU-fixed camera position and will give the same end result as TW?
Since you are rendering commercially, i donāt think the free twinmotion rendering is an option, but you can use their trial for free and if it suits your needs may consider the payed version?
Iāve only tried it once or twice, and do like their animation/video features.
Not sure about his Mac developments, but i started to use RayScaper for windows as an alternative for the discontinued twilightRender.
It has about the same interface/pricing as twilight had(?)
Else you could upgrade your Pro subscription to a Studio subscription, it does include the V-Ray rendering tool.
There might be other options, but i think twinmotion and v-ray are the best known and rayscaper is most affordable a.t.m.
(feel free to correct me if i am wrong )
Hope you can find the rendering tool that suits you best!
twinmotion is free for everyone, even commercially, below 1M$ revenue.
So yeah, they can try twinmotion
however, the question here is about rendering with the same point of view as in the photomatch, and thatās a thing twinmotion canāt do. it doesnāt keep the scenes upon import, so no way to render the exact precise point.
Rayscaper is on the back burner, Vray could indeed be a solution, as well asā¦ Sketchup 2025
Have you seen the previews from 3dBC ? depending on your process, you might not even need an actual render
Keynote was quite the mix...! Unsure how I feel about all the AI stuff, definitely like the materials generator stuff, just don't want to lose the fast and efficient modeler we have now.
Iāve looked at Twinmotion, and it does look very impressive but, as you say, it lacks the fixed camera position. If I can find a suitable work-around, I still may give this a go. Iām also absolutely nowhere near the $1m cut-off for commercial use!
Iāve also looked at Rayscraper (not currently available for Mac) but even if it were, Iām a little dubious about getting into lesser known software packages as history dictates that one day they might shut up shop and disappear like Twilight Render did.
Iād like to stay with an internal SU rendering if possible, so the likes of V-Ray and possibly Thea Render are currently under consideration.
V-Ray comes highly recommended, but has anyone used Thea?
In addition, I also use Adobe software which includes Dimension in the subscription - which Iāve never used. Does anyone know if this is capable of being used in a Match Photo workflow?
hello,
twinmotion doesnāt have camera import but itās on their roadmap, it should be implemented soon.
vray is indeed capable of rendering a photomatch, it seems like the best option but youāll have to buy it separately since sketchup studio isnāt available for mac
canāt wait for that. planning the scenes in SU and directly using them in TW.
actuallyā¦
ok, sketchup studio is misleading. itās advertised as windows only. but itās not true
scan essential is PC only
revit importer too
Vray however is PC/MAC
If you have the studio version and you simply go to chaosās website, and you log in with your trimble account youāll be able to download the installer for PC or MAC.
Turns out Vray is agnostic.
In term of pricing, getting studio JUST for Vray is still worth it. youāll save about 50 bucks.
I uninstalled it from my mac right before leaving for the holidays. The one I got from my Studio version.
Also a Twilight user here. I think itās worth checking out Thea. Iāve never used it but have seen the excellent results others have achieved over the years. They do have a perpetual license model available.
Iāve used SU Podium and V-Ray as renderers. They both appear inside SU and work with the current camera POV. My own workflow with Match Photo is to build the final composite in Photoshop. I output just the model from SU for import to PS.
BTW, Photoshop itself (as well as Dimensions) has a perspective matching feature, but Iāve never mastered them.
Iāve read a few threads in different places and have decided to trial three āinternalā renderers - SU Podium, Thea and V-Ray. From what Iāve read the order Iāve placed them in is also the order of ease of learning and price, but may also be the inverse of output quality.
Iād love to use Twinmotion but currently the lack of a fixed SU camera removes it from the running.
if you check their roadmap, it is still in the āunder considerationā section. So it is not going to be āthatā soon.
However, you can vote and mark it as a critical feature (which I did), explaining why and it may climb up their priorities
it is listed as āimport camera (views) from datasmith sceneā in the link above
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