Recommended free renderer - An old question, maybe a new answer?

 From:  argo
3136.31 
Well crashed and burned with Podium. Installation and plugin (within Sketchup) seemed to work all ok but in use I could not select a face or object (I imported my MOI model as a 3DS), therefore Podium would not render for me - weird.

Just installed Bryce5.5 - yep Jerry, it is still free if you register. Question though: do you render in Bryce5.5 or DAZ Studio? The Bryce5.5 installer installed DAZ Studio in the install process. Must say B5.5 sure has a funky UI! I'm quite looking forward to playing with this one. Certainly your firearm renders are nice Jerry, as is David's motor example.

Phil, I must also commend you on your Vimeo tutorial, it was actually my stumbling on that tut originally that has caused me to go off my original path of learning MOI! I guess that's one of the things about a hobby - no deadlines (other than your MOI3D trial timeout Michael ;-) so one can afford the luxury of being "diverted". I did actually follow your excellent tutorial all the way through, but must admit to running out of patience with the final rendering (I used my own MOI model and did not really know if I was fully correct in some of my processes). Would love to see how your 3 lightbulbs finally rendered up.

As a newbie I'll report back how I go. Maybe another newbie finding this thread can use it as something of a free-render resource.