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

@ Argo: ??? Could you post any example of your Moi models here that i test with Podium?
Do you know use Sketchup? Mine 2 minutes in podium on very oldcomputer!)
Model is here http://forums.sketchucation.com/download/file.php?id=38414 by Solo



and this one by Olisha (image1, 5 minutes in Podium image 2 & 3 just post prod)

Argo
Just used BR 5. Funky UI is putting it mildly, but for that price I was determined to figure it out.
I did search for BR 5 video tutorials and searched forums, they were also funky but they did get
me started. Just have to play with it a while.

The new 3D PaintBrush app Ralf mentions above seems pretty good! (http://www.3dpaintbrush.com/)

Introductory price = $99

The UI seems nice and actually easy to use.

It can load a 3DM file directly but it does not seem to do a very good job of producing a mesh directly from the NURBS data, but bringing in OBJ files exported from MoI seems to work well with it. It appears to load in all the vertex normals and material information from OBJ files so that is great.

This may end up being the kind of missing link for an inexpensive but easy to use standalone rendering program.

It may possibly be a little too streamlined though, there does not seem to be very many options exposed for tweaking the rendering like anti-aliasing settings, etc... but it seems like you can get a basic result quite easily. I wish there was an option in it to adjust the view rotation to keep the same "upwards" direction while rotating around though.

I would think this would actually go somewhere near the top of the list to check out for getting stuff done easily.

- Michael

Argo, you can render in both programs. I had forgotten about DAZ Studio, Since you can import obj files directly into Bryce I never used the other and am unsure just what it is capable of.
- David

Hi Pilou

Attached is the file I used: argo13DS (3DM also attached). I could not seem to select my object inside Sketchup and the Light/Reflect sliders would move but reset back to zero, almost immediately. It did render, but not well.

Your renders are great, and only two minutes as well!!

Thanks - Brendan.

David,
I'm liking DAZ Studio. I picked up the UI in less than 10 minutes from cold, and rendered the attached in 22seconds. For a quick and dirty rendering not bad.

Phil,
Those lightbulb renders in the post you linked to are absolutely amazing! I can see now the incentive to persevere to learn the process.

@Argo: Podium (you can't find more easy render prog and free 500*500 ;) http://www.suplugins.com/
Absolutly no problem :) here no artistic result just test your file :)
Try with the 3ds file : I suggest to "clean" your model with a plug name "Cleanup" by Thomthom (erase coplaner face ...etc)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=22920&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=cleanup
(this erasing can be also to be made without plug at the Importation file/Options)

Then if you want (like me here:) made a red wall and lighting you must Edit Component then select any faces wanted and move cursors!
Your object here arrives with this stucture Component/Component... So you must Edit Component/Edit Component...
An easy method is select by Menu Windows / Outliner
Of course better is export from Moi in SKP ;)
Shadows asked in Sketchup with no Shadows you will obtain an another nature of render
Render 2 minutes 50 in a very old computer more than 7 years old! :)
Any regulates : biebel_settings.xml presets
Center your objects in the Sketchup Screen because Podium in free don't make any position refine
So any faces can be a light or/and a reflector :) ("box selecting line" means that I am in Edition of a Component)

Thanks Pilou,

I'll run Cleanup on the 3DS import and then try again.

By the way - re: "... Of course better is export from Moi in SKP ;) "
Is MOI .SKP export a V2.0 feature?