- Vray. Biased/unbiased. has the best time/quality result, complicated setting, but it can handle any ext/int scene. It has steep learning curve, but hey, not that steep, just read “VRay - The Complete Guide - LEGRENZI STUDIO” and you’re good to go
- Kerkythea, thea, twilight render are faster, easier setting than vray, but with lower quality, not good for int scene.
- all other unbiased renderer: maxwell, indigogo… easier setting, nice result like vray but very looooong render time.
- My new fav: Corona. unbiased, so very few setting, but it’s faster than vray. 3ds max only. C4d is coming. Sketchup? Let’s wait n see.
Maybe these statements are somewhat subjective?
http://www.thearender.com/cms/index.php/gallery/album/2-interior-architecture-and-design.html
- those int scene are “not good” indeed. sry bro. go to evermotion, ronen berkerman etc… and you’re gonna surprise
- GPU rendering seems fancy, but it’s not ready.
BOXX Blogs: GPU Rendering Ready For Prime Time? - and it’s still “slow”, cause i’m comparing those unbiased engine with Vray biased engine.
Unbiased rendering - Wikipedia
Not fair, i know, but that’s why they choose biased rendering method as default engine in vray! And that’s why i’m in love with Corona, it unbiased engine work as fast as Vray biased (fastest) engine. How come? Magic.
hi there
im wondering if you could tell me about octane render, im all new to this and not particularly computer savvy, is it beginner friendly, or on the techy side…
Hi Guys
We 100% agree with you. VRay produces some top quality renders, however it is very cumbersome to use for the everyday person. I also agree that Thea renderer is a great alternative solution, however I would also try Shaderlight at a similar price point and also includes a little more rendering solutions that are fast and easy to use and also includes animation! We have a few basic examples on our website of a Jeep Wrangler and a couple of animations http://www.fruntside.com/think-outside-the-box.htm
Best of luck with your rendering in the future and if you have any questions be sure to drop me a line.
Cheers.
Manu
Hey Lars, sorry for my tardy reply. Apparently I don’t have email ping set. Anyhow… Octane can be very easy to use, or extremely robust. It depends what you’re going for. Out of the box it will render materials you’ve set within SketchUp. If you’re looking for ultra-realism, they provide the tools to achieve such materials within the base program. There is a very useful materials library that Otoy provides as part of your license, with some 700 materials on a range of mediums.
As of right now, Octane renders rely on nVidia cuda cores only. So an AMD card wont work. I had it running on a mobile laptop card, while it took a bit longer it was at least 10x faster than traditional CPU processes.
I’ll never go back to any other render solution. My office rig is well equipped GTX780SLIs. I can shoot off a render in 2 minutes on Path Tracing.
I think its a good idea to try before you buy. With Octane you’ll have to download the base app demo and the sketchup demo. I think if your serious about your work, your renders should reflect that. Unfortunately with other plugins those images can take a serious amount of time. Where as that stress is no longer a part of my workflow.
Hope this helped a bit!
hi there five by three
here is my configuration,
hi there i have an MBP from mid 2014,2.5 GHz Intel Core i7,16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB,500 GB Flash Storage,
do you think this enough,I’m also a little confused as i contacted octane, they said that they didn’t have a plugin for sketchup… whaddaya think
Lars
octane looks to be really good,
do you have any experience w lumen rt or thea???( tried to contact lumen, and they are impossible to reach)
Hey Lars,
From my personal experience, I’ve used Podium, Visualizer, Render[in], Maxwell and v-ray demo (way back at v8). Only Maxwell and v-ray compete. The problem with v-ray and Maxwell is they’re both CPU rendering system. Octane is a GPU based render system.
From what I’ve seen Thea looks great, but again CPU based which means lots of time wasted. I’m on the fence about using Eon Software products, because of the absolutely terrible customer service I received during the winter.
Your system is the perfect setup. The only way to make the renderer faster is to add more GPU’s. But the GT750 is very adequate. Make sure you update your drivers when they’re available.
Here is the link to the SketchUp plugin. Be aware that you have to purchase the base software for the plugin to run. https://render.otoy.com/shop/sketchup_plugin.php It’s 379.00 € - very competitive for the bundle versus 740.36 € for V-Ray. Maxwell is much cheaper. Both do not include the base software, which I sometimes do some more complicated renders. Everything exports within the plugin very smoothly.
I know how these choices can be especially though after going through the other systems. But Octane is the first to truly impress. The Octane Forum is also a great place to learn about the bells and whistles, as well as this link https://render.otoy.com/features.php The plugin creator is active with us as well makes for direct help, and usually quick responses.
Good luck / thanks for reading all this!
Domenic
Hi domenic
thanks for your reply,
now something i still can’t figure out is if i would have to export my sketchup scenes to octane ,or does it work like for example visualizer, where i can see changes instantly…
Lars
Simply export an .obj, OR while the Octane viewport is open you can select on the skechup menu - Extensions > Octane > Export to OCS/ORBX. Usually use the second option for proxy geometry within sketchup.
Once in Octane, the right panel labelled SCENE - right click / context click Geometry > Mesh - click and load your obj mesh. It will load into the scene it will include the colours and textures applied in sketchUp.
The other option is to use the plugin. Within the visualizer you can change options as you please with the drop down menu on the right side of the viewer.
Best regards, Domenic
domenic,
thanks for your help,
it appears that octane has not seen it necessary to develop product specifically for mac,thus i will not be able to work within the plugin… quite the bummer as octane looks VERY promising.
Lars.
Ah, yes. The standalone app is for mac. The plugin is not
There may be one in the future, if the plugin ever gets out of beta. I would just stick with something like ‘Visualizer’ for now. It takes all the mystery out of rendering. AND IT’S FREE!
not sure what you mean here, also do you think i could run it through vm ware???
I don’t know why Thea render is looking as such a secondary renderer at this post.
Want biased render like Vray? Thea can do it with quality and fast!
Want Unbiased like Maxwell and Indigo or Octane? Thea Can do it with CPU only TR1/TR2/AMC with extraordinary quality and full caustics calculations. Or you can go fast, really fast, with Presto MC (CPU, GPU or CPU+GPU) ubelievably fast and not many renderers can pull of full power from GPU+CPU.
You can go even faster if you want to use Presto AO wich will give you extraordinary results in the least amount of time…
Is it the best renderer around? I would say so without a doubt, if I didn’t know that is a very subjective question. Best in what aspect?
Omg could I please be the one you share your podium license with? I’ve been trying out the free or demo versions of various renderers and podium seems really nice and simple. I think I could really get used to it.
I would probably wait for a mac version, lars.
And to the other cat down bellow; its personal preference. Tried both Thea and Vray, both were slow and expensive (more so at the time of my trial). Now I render an image in mere seconds. Presto simply isn’t fast enough, and its result doesn’t really stack up.
Well we use Lightup to create realtime flythru’s , its not like Vray, super realism but by god its quick… I consider render times of secs to minutes…with atmospheric results but also can give technical information as lux levels, total insolation etc.
Its quirky… sometimes frustrating, and developed by one man (adam) who seemingly struggles to keep pace with manuals and technical support .
Allows realtime rendered flyarounds in sketchup, realtime materials editing in sketchup, realtime post production in sketchup… creates self-contained rendered model files (luca) that you can send to clients that they can fly around with a simple viewer… has an android /ipad viewer app…
Remember these are completely rendered models, not rendered static scenes… for me if a final presentation render takes more that 10 minutes I’m not happy… I don’t have time for single scene renders waiting for hours…
But be warned, it is quirky and you have to delve thru lots of user forum feedback to isolate issues sometimes…but you will be flabbergasted at how quick it is and if you stick to defaults will get reasonable results that will surprise you.
Eg, we created a virtual rendered model for a apartment showroom, reflections, hdri backgound, ies lights, furniture, flowers, interior nick nacks… render time 4-5 minutes… notebook i7 16gb ram, gtx970 gpu…
Visualizer is great for exterior renderings, but I use Kerkythea for interior “shots” because you can apply lighting fixtures.