I have gone through the same process of looking for rendering software that will accept non-mesh style formats like STP. I don't like the hassle of exporting to a different format and uploading to the cloud for file storage, but Fusion 360 can be acquired for free if a user earns less that $100k using it commercially. It has a decent enough render engine and a user can get something right out of the box, so to speak.

Here are some models I rendered with Fusion 360: http://www.textualcreations.ca/Flash_Gallery_Fusion/Fusion_Gallery.html
Not many but I don't have near enough time to play and experiment.

I believe I learned about the existence of Fusion 360 right here in the MoI forum.

I have been looking at SimLab but I think my trial is going to run out before I have enough time to 'render' an opinion.:-)

Hi Timouthy, I'd think the basic hobbyist package would be fine if you just need to make renderings.

But I guess it depends on what you need to get done, if you need to make long animations for example then that would change what edition you'd need.

- Michael

Thanks Michael,

One of the best things amongst others for this software is your direct and continuing involvement.

please, don't offer me Keyshot. I don't have money for Keyshot, Keyshot is too expensive for me, I don't have a job to earn with Keyshot, so, please, don't offer me Keyshot.

I hope it is clear now.

Not "offering" you KeyShot-- just correcting the perception you can't do soft lightbox lighting effects with it.

If I were you, I'd look at Marmoset and collect some standard HDRIs which already have the soft lighting you want. Also, because it's PBR shading, I suspect it would be simple to create a soft lightbox object(s) which you could easily drag around. Just create a plane and either give it a diffuse soft map or make it white and add a soft transparency map and set the material to emissive and voilà, you have your soft lightbox.

Keyshot HD won't create, edit and place. you can use presets only and this is completely useless. Keyshot PRO has all needed features, but the price is too high for me and I wrote about this

Hello glmr,

In Thea it's called a projector light, specify the soft shadow amount to get your "falloff panel" as you call it.

An animation I made with Simlab a few years back.... Ran into a deadline and only went half way. Finished it out with just the text... lol


Mag Lev Dog's Aliens Invade! on Vimeo.

Cool video Clip!

Je cherche un renderer capable de rendre en wireframe et en nurbs ( donc qui ne convertit pas en triangle comme Ks )

Est ce que ça existe ?

merci

Hi Dzeko, you might try saving to PDF, AI, or DXF formats, those will generate a 2D drawing using edges and silhouettes of the NURBS model.

For rendering programs the standard way for renderers to work is to convert surfaces into triangles and then render the triangles. With a renderer like that you might be able to get a better looking wireframe though by exporting out from MoI using N-gons instead of triangles which will preserve more of the original edge structure of your object, and also if you export with "Weld vertices along edges" turned off some renderers have a "toon" mode which can put outlines on the open edges which will correspond to the original edges in your NURBS model so that's another possibility.

- Michael

Salut
Si KS c'est keyshot, tu peux importer directement un fichier 3dm en Nurbs.
Ensuite tu choisi Matériaux > Toon
un visuel en pièce jointe

KeySHot has the 2 modes!
Nurbs and Polygons!
But it's some expansive! :)

Moi Itself is some cool ! :)

I'm using Simlab and I'm just a hobbyist. Moi and Simlab work very well together and its easy to get nice looking renders. Happy to talk about my experience with it or to upload video or pictures.

Thanks to all.
Looks like Thea Render could be a good solution to start. Here are some other solutions for Keyshot PRO poor fans:
1. The best of and better than Keyshot: Maxwell Render Studio + HDR Light Studio. Total price is like Keyshot PRO but this solution has a lot of better features than Keyshot PRO.
2. Arion Studio + HDR Light Studio. Total price is less than Keyshot PRO, but has less features and materials library is not so developed.
3. Zbrush + Keyshot plug-in with Keyshot Bridge. Total price is less than Keyshot PRO, but it works completely as Keyshot PRO, exept import feature. So you can import only through Zbrush and work only with Zbrush-supported formats. OBJ format is ok, so it could be good for someone.

3. Zbrush + Keyshot plug-in with Keyshot Bridge. Total price is less than Keyshot PRO, but it works completely as Keyshot PRO, exept import feature. So you can import only through Zbrush and work only with Zbrush-supported formats. OBJ format is ok, so it could be good for someone.

Hello,

It might work if Zbrush could understand vertex normals from imported .obj, but it wasn't the case few months ago.
So you have to export really dense mesh from MoI to keep the result acceptable (but not perfect), and that's a pity because you can't take any advantage from MoI meshing engine.

Consider Strata3D, which now has an HDR Light Studio module. You can get them as a bundle for about $850; or, if you prefer a subscription plan, they have options for that as well.

Strata has always had a very good renderer for a mid-level package, but I am really loving it with Light Studio. Perfect lighting and reflection setups are a snap, and it plays well with MoI.

I do not recommend it for animation, but it excels at still images.

The only drawback to Strata's renderer is that it lacks subsurface scattering.

Strata could be good, but they have an integration with HDR Light Studio only for their MAC version.

I'm interested in what better features it has?

For me rendering products in controlled environments, Maxwell render, an unbiased CPU only renderer, would take too long for me for production quality renders. I suppose Maxwell Fire is a bit faster but I doubt if Maxwell Fire can keep up with KeyShot or render as high quality as Maxwell Render.

I recently just tested Octane with my workflow (and I have both the Nvidia 1080 and 980ti installed), and I don't think it will work for my workflow. While renders are a snap (even faster than KeyShot on my rig), scene setup is too long. In KeyShot I can very quickly create 'render sets' where there are different positions of objects, with different materials, which I can then render at 4K resolution in a snap. I literally go to lunch and finish a dozen renders, each with different lighting, materials, camera settings and component configurations. The workflow for setting something like that up in Octane would be a deal killer for me-- and I would think the same could be said for Maxwell Studio as HyperShot uses a siimilar render engine.

If I recall correctly, HDR Light Studio has a fairly restrictive policy on creating Light Maps and in particular won't allow you to resell them. Not sure if that's a problem, but might be worth looking up. FWIW, KeyShot has a proprietary HDR format of it's own with their HDR Studio which sucks, but I've been told by their CEO they will be opening it up to export non proprietary formats soon. I hope that's the case.

Were you able to do any performance testing in any of these solutions? (Maxwell, Thea and Arion)