Free will usually equate to harder to use (or requireing knowledge of how to set it up). Almost ALL apps will have a demo to try it out first.

I suppose it also depends on what type of rendering you want to do. There are some apps that make it fairley simple for someone with less knowledge to just push a couple buttons and get great results. A bit of $$ though, like Bunkspeeds tools do this, but starting at 1000.00.

You could checkout DAZ3d for some of these low cost tools that will do scene type stuff too.

Alot of the free ones are very good, but you have to learn what refractions/specularity/samples per depth cue and all this stuff means to your render.

BTW: You can also do some pretty cool stuff with MoI to start out!!!

Hi Mad Hatter, also check out these recent forum threads where some different rendering programs were discussed:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3136.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3310.1

- Michael

Hi The Mad Hatter,

I wouldn't suggest a render engine like octane to start with

- it's in early beta stage (crash ?)
- There are tons of missing features (quite normal)
- it's 'just' a renderer ...
- for the moment it even don't play that well with MoI geometry (that will be fixed really soon I'm sure)
- you need a good mid-level gfx card to really enjoy it.

Sure, things will be fixed with the time, but it's not ready for production ...

You need something that will give you more freedom, and much more tools like :

- UV tools (to prepare/adjust texture coordonate)
- Maybe a 3D painter (so you can paint on you model)
- a render engine that giving you a lot of freedom (lights, hdr, GI, render pass, speed)

Freeware : Blender
Mid price : Modo (There is a 30 days unlimited demo)

I agree with you PaQ :)
except maybe Blender is not a model of easy use for a beginner in 3D or rendering ;)

I can also recommend 3D Coat
The latest version 3.2 :
http://www.3d-coat.com/3d-coat-32/

Hi Pilou,

I don't know about the learning curve, I have the feeling blender looks complicated for someone used to an other software.
Maybe if you start 'from scratch' in, it's not that painfull ... maybe :)

Well 3D coat is cool for scuplting and uv'ing ... but it's not a render engine right ?

I did a video tutorial on using Blender and Luxrender for MOI models. I hope that it breaks down some of the stereotypes of Blender.

http://www.vimeo.com/4810249

Of course I love working in Octane, but there are some things that you must do currently to get the best out of MOI3D models as PAQ stated. We're working on resolving the issues.

Hi Pilou,

> Well 3D coat is cool for scuplting and uv'ing ... but it's not a render engine right ?

Please take a look ;-)

That's what I said, it's not a render engine :P

Can you have custom light ? (planar, point, sphere, linear)
Surface description ? (glass, metal, SSS, emitter)
Do you have any GI solution ?
Can you do caustics ? Render hair of fur ?

I's not because there is a render button that you can actually say that 3DCoat is render engine.

Give to MoI a quick shadow pass and you have probably something similar.

>I can also recommend 3D Coat
>The latest version 3.2 :
>http://www.3d-coat.com/3d-coat-32/

Stay fair, Pilou...

http://www.3d-coat.com/gallery/

Super cool gallery, but probably 1% or the images are actually 'rendered' inside 3Dcoat ...

If you visit MoI gallery, you'll also see nice rendering ... doesn't mean you can actually rendering anything in MoI right ?

I don't get the point sorry ...

Carrara is cheap or free depending on the version, Daz gave away 6.2 Pro some time ago. It produces good results and I've used it for over half of everything I've done with MOI.

Hi Phil:

I wanted to thank to you for your video.
For me it has been one of the most useful tutorials about the way to export to Blender and the first steps into Luxrender.
I am doing a personal project in MoI and I am rendering it in "LuxBlender". I hope to show it soon.

Thank you again!

> Super cool gallery, but probably 1% or the images are actually 'rendered' inside 3Dcoat ...

> If you visit MoI gallery, you'll also see nice rendering ... doesn't mean you can actually rendering anything in MoI right ?

> I don't get the point sorry ...


3D Coat Render ... it is not my favorite, but there is a Render, right?

Carrara (http://www.daz3d.com/) or 3D-Paintbrush (http://www.3dpaintbrush.com/) are probably a good place to start looking, they're inexpensive and kind of more aimed at someone who may not have a whole lot of prior 3D experience.

But as you can see from the discussion, there are a lot of different types of rendering programs available.

- Michael

Hi Ralf-S,

[ 3D Coat Render ... it is not my favorite, but there is a Render, right? ]

Not really, I would say a fast preview mode using some opengl/directX trick to compute a draft ambiant occlusion, with some dof effect option ... at best.
It has nothing to do with any average render engine, supposed to handle any kind of lighting situation or material/surface simulation.

I see in the doc you can do a turn table animation ... but ... I don't think you can consider 3Dcoat as a animation software too ?

3Dcoat has a lot of features, but introduce this software as a render package solution is a bit funny O) ... (I'll even finally consider Octane 100 times more appropriate then)

... or just like BurrMan said, just tweak some surfaces and lighting option in MoI, hit PrintScreen ...

Hi PaQ,

The question came from a beginner, right?
And I have posted a recommendation for a beginner with additional useful tools to a very good price.

3D Coat:
- Voxel sculpting http://www.3d-coat.com/voxel-sculpting/
- Retopology http://www.3d-coat.com/retopology/
- UV-mapping http://www.3d-coat.com/uv-mapping/
- Texture painting http://www.3d-coat.com/texture-painting/
- Render room was essentially improved - realtime render on the fly while tweaking render params + multiple colored light sources
- Support of multiple UV-sets
- Three types of displaying a mesh: no checker, simple checker, complex checker.
- ABF++ UV Unwrapping
- ...

Hi PaQ,

http://www.pi-vr.de

...one of our apps. in daily use... :)

Guys, please let's not turn this into a flame war about different renderers...

Certainly there are a lot of choices for the original poster to check out.

- Michael

Here's some extra looks at the MoI's lighting system for doing clay rendering:
















I think I got the Z Brush look! :o