Seems writen in the tittle "free Render" ;)
so http://www.luxrender.net
http://www.yafaray.org/
http://www.nvidia.fr/page/gelato.html

I'm sorry I also read this part <<<Can anyone recommend an easy to use renderer (cheap!)?

So the more easy is podium http://www.suplugins.com (only 2 cursors) and cheap (179$) or free in 500*500 without logo or watermark but it's a plugin of the free Google Sketchup ;)
No problem as Moi has the Skp native format :)

A little less easy is TwillightRender and super cheap (99 $) http://www.twilightrender.com/ or free in
* 800 x 600 pixel maximum resolution
* Rendered image watermarks
* Images only savable as JPG
* XML export is disabled

LightUp 149 $ http://www.light-up.co.uk/ Real time render after one computation of the scene
Interest of this 3 programs is that you control all objects inside Google Sketchup the more easy modeler!
http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/
And you have the biggest free objects library at http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

And you have an another solution and free ;)

A new world of simulations in real time: export on any supports, computers, Web, console etc...
http://unity3d.com/ (free as Indy name section)

Have happy rendering!

Here Podium in free version 500*500 with a Moi Object : you see the interface with the 2 cursors
Small is beautiful ;)

Twilight & Podium are based on the Kerkythea engine, The people behind Twilight & Podium they've licensed the Kerkythea SDK...in other words you should be able to get the same results with Kerkythea for FREE, if you don't mind the GUI...also note that Kerkythea it may not develop much since the developer is putting his effort to the new engine (Thea Render).

Yes simplicity of UI and presets are the difference ;)

Also an interseting app. is 3D PaintBrush (99,- € online from Germany)

http://www.3dpaintbrush.com/

•Import models from SketchUp, Rhino, 3DS, Autocad, STEP, IGES & OBJ files
•Capture 3D models from any graphics application running on your computer
•Drag and Drop Materials, Lights, Backgrounds and Animations
•Import images and apply them as textures and backgrounds
•Manipulate material properties like Diffuse and Specular color, transparency and shininess in real time
•Visualize and position lights in the scene as well as modify light properties like colour and direction. Modifications are reflected in the Graphics Area in real time
•Animate camera, material and position of components to create key frame animations
•Use Ray Tracing for exporting photo-realistic images from your 3D scene
•Export to 3D PDF
•Export to EXE (Executable format)
•Export to popular image formats like BMP, JPG, PNG, TIFF & GIF
•Export to 3DS, XAML, OBJ & SVG
•Export animations to Shockwave Flash (*.SWF) and Microsoft AVI (*.AVI)

It`s a product of Geometric...

Wow, you ask a question before going to bed and get lots of great answers - thank you!

@ Pilow, @Michael @et all - I have looked at Blender (like everybody!) before "finding" MOI. Its certainly a fantastically powerful program with a fast-UI for the experienced user. Huge learning-curve and I imagine requires practice to keep the key-strokes in organic memory. Still, as many of the free renderers use it to set materials etc, I have run through a few tutorials and could see it being useful if I followed a process-list for the odd rendering. My personal summary: so powerful, so non-intuitive! (please don't flame me).

- Kind of reminds me of WordPerfect Vs. Word 20 odd years ago.

@Paolo - No offence taken at all! Answer is "very little" $E ;-) .
This is purely a hobby for me with no financial gain (actually the opposite), and with 20 mouths to feed in a recession....

@neo - thanks I'll look at Thea, looks interesting. The developer/s working on Thea (with its potential for income), instead of working on KT would explain the tumble-weeds blowing thru the KT website. Perfectly understandable really.

@Ralf-S - another interesting program requiring investigation, thanks as well.

Looks like I need to spend some more "quality time" with the PC tonight!

Thank you all, any more?

Regards - Brendan (argo)

Hi Brendan, so also same as 2 years ago one inexpensive commercial choice is Carrara - there is a stripped down version called Carrara 7 Express (http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/carrara?_m=d) which costs $90.

- Michael

Hi Brendan,

There's a free version of truespace 7.6 available, although I don't' know about the render quality or ease of use...

Good luck with your research.

Marc

Some more options to investigate - thanks Guys.

If cost is a concern and Blender does not suit might I suggest Bryce 5.5 .... It is an older 3D program that is of a different sort but it imports .obj files rather well. The interface is unusual and seemed to attract artists and repel CAD guys. DAZ still sells it as version 6.1 which includes HDRI support but v5.5 was a relatively fast & stable version.

You can get it here: http://www.daz3d.com/i/support/downloads?product=bryce&_m=d
The only caveat is that you must register for a free DAZ account to get the serial number...
BTW: I notice that the manual is still available as well as the v5.5c upgrade, I definitely recommend grabbing these if you plan to use the program.

To show you what you might expect of it I have included a MoI model and the resulting Bryce render.
Hope this helps,
David

I can speak a little about the default renderer in truespace. It is known as Lightworks and for checking your model as you work it is nicely integrated into truespace. It isn't however, in my opinion, a patch on Kerkythea or some of the other free renderers out there. Like Blender, there is a lot of power buried in the truespace gui (which up to V6 I actually like, don't really get the V7 gui). Given that it is free I think it is well worth downloading.

For a while truespace was also a cheap path into vray. They don't offer cheap vray anymore as far as I know but I'm guessing the integration is still there?

Thank you all.

I thought I would look at Podium first as it looks simple enough to use and 500x500 image size would certainly meet my immediate needs (which are to visualise a model before 3D printing). Thanks Pilou.

David, Bryce 5.5 also looks intriguing, the render you posted is exactly the sort of thing I am looking to "build". Cheers for that as well.

There are some great options out there it would seem! I hope this thread helps others that might also be looking for a solution to start out with.

Cheers - Brendan.

I recommend you check out the tutorial that I made on how to import MOI models into Blender and then render with Lux render. It hopefully breaks down some of the "Blender is hard!" barriers and allows you see the power of a stunning render engine, Lux render.

You can find it here:

http://www.vimeo.com/4810249

Phil

PS, Michael, you are correct in that the Blender file dialog box is AWFUL! It's so cluttered. Hopefully it will continue to evolve and improve as 2.5 is only in Alpha 0 status.

I seconed the motion on Bryce 5. I downloaded it a while back for free, not sure if it's still available at Daz for free, check it out.
I just posted some examples in gallery. See "recent additions" Old West Firearms.

Hi Phil,

> PS, Michael, you are correct in that the Blender file dialog
> box is AWFUL! It's so cluttered. Hopefully it will continue
> to evolve and improve as 2.5 is only in Alpha 0 status.

It's just generally a problem to use a totally custom file dialog at all - that's one area where it really makes sense to use the platform specific UI.

If you know a place to put Blender requests, maybe you could post a suggestion for that. I think it would remove a pretty major stumbling block for brand new users.

I know that Blender wants to have a cross-platform overall UI that works the same on different platforms and that is fine in general but the file dialog should be an exception to that.

They must already have some platform specific stuff in there anyway since on Windows there seems to be some shortcuts to stuff like "My Documents", which is a Windows specific thing, why not just use the whole standard dialog (which is very easy to call) ?

It's not just about ease of use either, there are things like shell extensions that may be adding additional file access functionality which won't be functioning in a totally custom replacement dialog.

- Michael

Hi Jerry, I saw your Old West firearms gallery entry pop up yesterday - that turned out great!

- Michael

Hi Jerry,
your pistol is especially nice with the acid etched data and wood handle... Bryce still can be magic in the right hands.

Michael & Phil,
Blender is still my favorite app after MoI but I must say the newer interface is a mixed bag for me, it took me quite a while to become comfortable with the old interface and now I'm less than happy with the new one (old dog, new tricks)! As you point out, it is an alpha and the Blender team are a hard work group of guys so I think that it will be very good in the end.

Also I noticed that interface work for integrating the LuxRender script with 2.5A looks like it is part of Blender rather than an add on... This is great news for those that are not very familiar with it.

- David

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.

You can see the renders in this post:

http://moi3d.com/forum//index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2631.13