I like 3ds a lot.. I tend to use it in conjunction with acad and Final Render a lot these days. Recently, I've started to learn Modo, which seems very promising, both as a modeller and a (fast) renderer.

Try Indigo Render, its a plugin for sketchup which seems similar to maxwell Render (never used it) dont know if it takes as long to render as maxwell but i am asumming it does. I know time is a problem (rendering time), But even so It would be alot easier to learn one of these render plugins then Try to learn a whole new program ( I realize you probaly only want to render with it, But if your going to learn 3DS and would like to add it to your resume, then you should learn it to its full potential - and a class is not going to give you that.)


www.indigorenderer.com
www.maxwellrender.com

and plus Indigo Renderer is free, and Maxwell is way cheaper then Studio MAx

Just an idea of the general "look" i'd be interested in...



I have to plead ignorance on this but what are nurbs? I've heard the term here and there, but never really knew what it was.

thanks!

somethin' you may not know. developers,clients etc are longing for hand drawn perspectives to sell their visionary projects of tomorrow.

NURBS is Non-Uniform Rationalised B-Spline. It's a way to represent and manipulate curves.

ArchiCAD is quick.

You'll need Maxwell or Indigo to produce a rendering like that, but be prepared for SERIOUS render times (although Indigo is free). Vray provides a very nice balance of quality, price, and render time.

So wait, 3DS AND Vray together? not just 3DS?

Are Vray and 3DS difficult programs to learn?

oh and meta-mechanic: i do know FORMZ, so I can appreciate your angle on this... haha

I have heard people who use Form Z complain on how many steps it takes to something, that would be basically simple to do on a program such as Rhino

Max is still the industry standard. VRay can produce results that are as good as anything on the market (so can Final Render and a handful of others).

Max has mental ray built in, that can also produce exceptional results, but I would still invest in a plugin (such as VRay or fR).

kd - yes, you will need to buy Max (about 3500) and VRay (I think they just upped the cost to 900). It's not cheap.


Keep in mind that the quality is a result of the artist doing the render. I've seen a billion horrible examples done with the best software and many amazing images done with ancient software. You need to know your tool, don't expect it to do all the work.
These programs are not for the faint of heart. There is a reason renderers are paid very well.


meta - Autodesk hasn't owned Maya for long, and as far as I know, there are no parts that have been moved into either. They are still different programs.


Instruction - there are many quality DVDs out there. Look into buying a few of those (Gnomon has great ones). A class is not a bad idea if someone is footing the bill.

In the end it all comes down to your skill and your eye. Without either, you'll never create professional quality images. Work on understanding what makes a good rendering, a good photograph, a good film, etc.

Yea like I said in the other thread, play around the vray for sketchup for sure. Theres a 30 day trial. Im still playing around with it, I was able to get very real looking renders quite easily. Not like photo realistic, but very good, hopefully I can push the realism up even further as I continue to learn and experiment

I'd recomend vray for sketch-up as well. Vray is as capable if not more so than any other render engine of producing photoreal work. It certainly can achieve the results in the example you've shown.

The problem with using anything with Sketch-up will be the very small details, the edges and corners of your objects, may not be as nice as 3ds Max could achieve but pretty good.

Vray for Sketchup

Check out their gallery to get an idea of what's possible, both good and bad. And if you are already handy with Photoshop that's half the battle.

the other thing to keep is mind is that sometimes you don't want photorealistic images. Unresolved designs should not, in my opinion, be made into finished-looking scenes unnecessarily.. just because a fancy rendering can simulate lighting tricks effectively. You're supposed to be showcasing your design.. not the renderer programmer's ability to understand caustics :)

... and sometimes you need to make an unresolved design look like its done.

true.. hence the "unnecessarily" ;-) ... boss' directive usually connotes a necessity

meta - gotcha, I have yet to dive into Max 9. Max 8 has had everything I've needed and I've only heard of nightmares running complex animations in Max 9 (although I do have machines with it installed, due to Max's stupidity with downsaving).

I am anxious to see what the consensus is regarding 2008.

In school I just did most of the renderings in 3ds max with the final Render plugin.

Now at work, we don't have that much time. So I just model everything in sketchup using layers, then I export into 3ds max and THEN use the fR.

I just got a license for v-ray for sketchup, and I'm loving it. I'm pushing for our firm to use it.

Given my proficiency in SketchUp and it's growing popularity, I'm leaning toward using it with a VRay plugin... Can anyone attest to how easy/diffcult it would be to learn VRay on my own?

thanks in advance...

with the vray plugin you dont need to learn much. to get some decent renders you just need a few pre-set settings and adjust 1 or 2 fields to compensate. for the most part you can rely on sketchus lighting, the vray lighting elements are fairly fiddly to get setup.

go grab the 30day trial and check out a tutorial or two