Rendering Engine

Not strictly a grasshopper question, but i need to invest in a rendering engine, and im totally lost.

Im an archtiecture student, so it needs to be able to produce environments. I also don't have months of time to invest in learning it, so complexity is a concern.

Maxwell or Vray?

V-ray looks good, but on the website it seems that all the good architectural renders are coming from 3DS vray

What do you guys use or recommend? any feedback would be appreciated

Thanks,

Nick

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by MARIO VERGARA on October 21, 2011 at 1:27pm

vray_one vote

Permalink Reply by Nay Soe on October 21, 2011 at 1:36pm

I also like brazil, very easy to learn.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on October 21, 2011 at 2:35pm

I have been using flamingo NXT lately

Permalink Reply by Martin Hedin on October 21, 2011 at 4:11pm

Vray!

Consider vray for sketchup, typical for any render engine such as Vray, Mental ray or Luxology is that a new scene needs the a set up of lighting, environment and correct choice of presets set up before you can produce a nice render. If you are using vray for Rhino you need to first learn how to set up (as an architect) a nice solar daylight system with environment, is actually very easy. (1 - set up sun lighting, 2 - set up environment, 3 - choose correct settings, such as activating indirect illumination)

However, since sketchup is the perfect draft tool for architectural design, it happens to have an environment with daylight defined already when you open an empty file. Vray for sketchup knows how to use all these settings so the only thing you need to do is to hit render. Apart from that you need to learn some simple material settings, which you find here: http://www.vray.com/vray_for_sketchup/manual/, the same manual for rhino here: http://www.vray.com/vray_for_rhino/manual/

The advantage of using vray for sketchup rather than for rhino (although if you can handle vray for one program its exactly the same for the other), is that you can easily import models from 3d warehouse. Sketchup is an excellent render set-up platform, except its only 32-bit so a to complex scene will simply not render. Rhino 64-bit will handle this better.

Conclusion, learn vray, whatever you learn can be applied to sketchup, rhino and 3ds max. Sketchup is probably a tool you already use and vray for sketchup will render with correct settings by default. Later when you take it to the next step you can go one and learn vray 2.0 for 3dsmax.

Personally I like using Luxology render engine that comes with Microstation, simply because I handle it better and Microstation is the best tool for architects in my opinion. However Vray is similar but more powerful.

Permalink Reply by Nick Tyrer on October 24, 2011 at 9:59am