Full Version: Basic Free Render?

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Hey all

So I'm using Moi to model, but I also need something to render what I create with Moi.

Are there any good free render packages?

I could use Blender, but was just wondering if there was anything better (and easier to learn) out there for some basic graphics rendering?

The graphics are quite small (for a game) and thus fairly low in detail. The materials I require are quite basic, too.

Thanks!

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You could try Bryce 5.5

http://download.cnet.com/Bryce/3000-6677_4-10974201.html?tag=mncol

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Now you have the very simple Shaderlight in beta so free as plugin for free Google Sketchup
(so export from MOi in Skp format)
site of ShaderLlight http://www.artvps.com/

Else you have Kerkythea but some medium complexity ;) (stand alone or plugin of free Google Sketchup)
http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/

The more easy is Podium
in free: limitation is 500*500
(always plugin of free Google Sketchup ;)
http://www.suplugins.com/



By Kargall Shaderlight


By Orgelf Shaderlight (+ toshop)

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Not quite free, but if you buy this book ($30): http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=9166.
you will also receive Carrara 6 Pro, an excellent renderer amongst other things, and Hexagon 2.5, an excellent vertex modeller.

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Hi NightCabbage, also check out this previous discussion thread:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3136.1

Also if you do want to dig into Blender, you'll want to use Anthony's special Blender build that keeps the smoothing information intact for the render which helps make better quality shading, it's in this other post:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3583.1

Also Anthony's Blender import script also helps get the good smoothing information loaded into Blender as well:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=979.1

- Michael

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Hey Frenchy - Shaderlight looks pretty good.

I've been playing around with it a bit.

One of my requirements is that I need to give certain materials 100% self-illumination (3ds max term meaning that the material is unaffected by lighting, and just displays its colour - so white would be 100% white, with no shading or lighting).

Any idea if this is possible?

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I guess Shader light wont be free it is just a beta, the normal one is around 400 dollars?!

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Came across this one a little while ago, never happened to try it out though, so I don't know how easy or hard it is to use, it looks quite capable looking at the gallery pics.
Looks like it hasn't been in development for two years.
http://www.bee-www.com/parthenon/

Cheers

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@NightC
In the forum of Shaderlight
http://www.artvps.com/content/discuss~action=view,p=410,page=0

Here the answer ;)

< Can shader emit light? (self illu etc etc)

The Art Professional Material supports self illumination, but as yet does not contribute to scene lighting.

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Well, I'm still on my quest for an easy to use renderer :)

Blender - has a really terrible interface, it seems very difficult for me to learn, given I really don't have much time to spend on it.

3ds Max - at $4,000, it's way over my current price limit, and also it has a pretty archaic interface...

Cinema 4D - this looks pretty good. However, it'd end up costing about $2,500 for the Core and added modules I'd want.

Modo - currently I'm thinking this might be my best bet. $1,000 and seems to be a pretty good package for modelling and rendering (and even a bit of animation).

Carrara - well, if I can find August issue of 3D World magazine, I can get the Carrara 7 Pro version for free :) I've had a little bit of a play with the trial version, and so far I'm liking it a lot better than Blender!!

I wonder if it's worth spending $1000 on Modo right now, if Carrara 7 Pro might be able to do what little I'm after?

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Hi NightCabbage, well Modo does has a kind of more sophisticated renderer than Carrara, so if for example you are going to be producing renderings professionally and need to do them on a tight schedule so that things like quick render speed is very important, then that could be a good investment.

However, if you're not going to be producing renderings on some kind of deadline or tight timetable, then I don't see why you wouldn't want to try Carrara 7 first, it does have a lot of capabilities so you can produce nice quality renderings with it.

But I guess in order to answer your question more fully you would need to give some more information about what you are going to be doing with these renderings.

For example, are you producing product brochures? Or are you doing animations? Or do you possibly just want to do some creative visualization?

Anyway, the more information about what your particular goals are would definitely help for giving advice.

For example if you are going to be working on producing a feature film, the advice of what renderer you will want to work with would be different than if you want to make some simple stills.

- Michael

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Wait, I think I remember now that you're trying to produce some pretty simple rendered tiles for a game?

If you only have pretty simple needs I'd think that you would want to stick with Carrara 7 Pro, or at least give it a deeper try to see if it will work for you.

It sounded like you were already testing it though - is there any particular reason why you are not able to use it, like is it missing some particular feature that you need?

- Michael

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Just baught a copy of 7 pro in current 3DArtist for my brother to feel.

Best thing to start with is go nto the presets on startup and choose a lighting scene. Like "3 point", then just delete the rocks and place your object and shade it.

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Hi Burr,

> then just delete the rocks

It comes with automatic rocks?

- Michael

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Yes Michael, rocks and trumpets,bottles, glass balls, even a fully furnished room, that's what you get with a preset in Carrara, sometimes it's annoying, I guess it shows how the lighting will look with objects in place.

-

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Yes, it's a bit of a funny package - more of a hobbyist package, from what I can tell?

Whereas the main competitors for the professional market are:

Modo
3ds Max
Cinema 4D
(and Maya I guess)

Is that about right?

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> I guess it shows how the lighting will look with objects in place.

Well, rocks are an interesting choice for displaying lighting... :)

Does it have some way to save your own presets so if you find a good setup you could save it off to have a rockless preset scene?

Not a big deal, just seems curious.

- Michael

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> Modo
> 3ds Max
> Cinema 4D
> (and Maya I guess)

I suppose you might find LightWave and Softimage listed along with these pretty often.

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Hi Michael,
Well, maybe "Rocks" was a poor choice..."Objects" is more like it. This is a "3 point lighting" scene.



It comes with a bunch of prests for different things.



This is the room Danny was mentioning.



This is that same room in model view.



Note there is only one light outside of the entire model.

Remember that Carrara also is handling atmospheric data as well as lights. We have seen impressive work from Grendel using Carrara. I think it is a powerful render app along with the others. I think the thing that drops it off the others is it's lack of development, not it's ability or a "hobby app".

"""""Can you save your own presets"""""""

Yes, all this stuff is just a saved carrara file. Set up your own lighting scene and render settings you like and save the file. They have a browser thing where you can put scenes, objects/content etc.... I could open the "3 point lighting" rock scene, delete tyhe rocks and save it as "moi object test scene".

FOr a beginner, it's good to load a preset scene thats close to your idea, then delete the preset content and place your own in it for render. If you dont have experience in setting things like atmospheres with your lighting and "shaders" (materials, colors, textures) then it's hard to get something looking as you want.

Like for that room render, you could take max3d's waspbot, set it on the table and dolly the camera around and get a good render from all areas that appears the bot is in the room...

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When I first learned of Carrara (v5 at the time) I started a whole big thread over at CGTalk about it perhaps being a (better) replacement for e-on's Vue.

There aren't many other mainstream 3D animation packages that also let you add / edit environments for your scenes and models without plugins or addons.


The fact you can create mountains, trees, patches of water & grass etc., right in the app makes Carrara an excellent choice IMO. Also it contains true polygon modeling which Vue does not, so I felt is had an advantage over Vue at the time I bought in.

Of course Vue has way more atmospheric simulation stuff than Carrara but you also have to deal with doggie slow renders.

Carrara's presets are a quick way to get a scene setup where you can plop in your model(s) and render or begin animating.

The Logo scenes are really good for quickly getting that HDR / Sunlight lighting look that a lot of folks use now to show off their models - just replace the default scene object(s) with your own and reap the time savings of a pre-made lighting setup...

-Will

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