What is the best Shaderlight replacement Program?

SketchUp Pro
1

Shaderlight is no longer, so what is the best Shaderlight replacement Program?
Everything I see is overcomplicated unlike shaderlight… your thoughts?

2

Wow this is a real shame.
I really liked this software for the simplicity it offered - being able to edit the sketchup model and instantly see your scene rendered a Window is a pretty unique feature.

Try Lightup, Twilight and Podium Walker,

Enscape, Lumion and Vray also have live-sync capability, but these are expensive programs and a lot more complicated.

I’d also recommend having a look at Twinmotion because its also very simple and not too expensive.

Shaderlight announcement

It is with real regret that we must announce that due to circumstances entirely beyond our control Shaderlight Ltd. will cease to trade with effect from the 15th December 2021.

Unfortunately this means that you will not be able to purchase new licences or upgrades after this time. Customers with existing licenses will be able to continue rendering with Shaderlight however we are no longer able to offer technical support at any level . In addition, the current version of Shaderlight will not be updated to work with the next SketchUp version whenever that is released.

We’d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to you and you customers and on behalf of the entire team here, we’d like to thank you for your support over the last 12 years and we wish you well in the future.

3

AK_SAM,

Thank You ever so much!I have been looking at just about every program and also your suggestion of Twinmotion seems to perhaps the one I will go with.
Vray, although probably the best, just presents too big of a learning curve.

Again Thanks, Cheers, Rene

4

Again Thanks,
But after all my looking I am going with SU Podium as I think it is the closest to Shaderlight…. Well we will see… I’m sure a learning curve.

Cheers, Rene

5

Twinmotion… Bought it for $1600 in 2016… now its free [for me] and vastly better… intergrates well with SU… keeps all the model structure naming, very flexible and different but relatively simple interface for quick results…but as always, spectacular results require commitment…

Very Fast … for me I still do all my materials in SU, simple entourage and replace as needed in TM… it is very simple to swap SU materials and entourage for TM high quality substitutes.

EPIC is a huge company and very committed to dominating the 3d asset market!

6

Yep and the new 2022 version has Raytracing which does look like a gamechanger - whereas before TM never produced “professional looking” renders, now it can create some decent looking images in more complex scenes.

7

Thank you ever so much Sam,

I have been looking at SU Podium and Twinmotion… a learning curve from Shaderlight for sure on either.

Cheers, Rene

8

Thank you ever so much Gary,

I have been looking at SU Podium and Twinmotion… a learning curve from Shaderlight for sure on either.
Leaning toward Podium.

Cheers, Rene

9

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10

Thank you for that heads up, this is the first time I used the forum although having used SketchUp for decades. Cheers,

11

Twinmotion is based on Unreal engine (currently 4) but the new Unreal 5 is just around the corner

Watch the end, high poly assets ( each statue 30M+ polygons and there are hundreds of them) rendered realtime….(!)

Where raytracing actually shoots rays from the camera (= eye), the new lighting algorithms in Unreal 5 is much more realistic because it does what it does like in the real world.

Btw, Nvida is prepping up the next gen of videocards to cope with that aspect.

Unreal is free, btw, but has a bit of a ‘Blenderish’ learning curve. If you use TwinMotion (direct link) it will do that work for you.

‘Free’ for own use , If you develop a game and earn +1M Us dollar, you need to pay 30%)

1 Like
12

Thank you Mike,
I have bought two seats in Podium as I think it seems to best work with SketchUp .
Im at the point of the learning curve.
The good thing is my Shaderlight is still working as well.
Cheers, Rene