off-topic, but - I don't think unbiased rendering is the future for everybody. There is another alternative such as Modo which is a hybrid of unbiased and biased engine. I considered buying Fry, but just can't wait for those long render times. Yesterday i had to render 5 different color variations of a beaded necklace for a client. It had over 1,400 glass beads (mesh instances) all with refraction plus a bunch of metal components with colored enamel inlays. Modo rendered an 800 x 640 image in less than 10 minutes with 2 GI bounces and using blurry reflections on the ground plane and all of the metal shaders. In less than one hour i rendered out all 5 color variations... How many days would this take with Fry or (even worse) with Maxwell?

jonah

There is also Indigo http://www2.indigorenderer.com/joomla/

with very good exporter for SketchUp (and free).

News about future development of Su exporter

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2686

And Rhino4 established very good relationship (import-export) with SketchUp.

If it is not proprietary,
I can render your image for your in Indigo - but I can tell you that 10 minutes isn't enough time for a clean render. A few hours probably.

If what you are using is acceptable, than stick with it!

I personally love the realism and feeling of scenes done in Maxwell, or Fry, or Indigo.

thanks for the offer, but everything i do at work is proprietary. This time was client's design... i love the realism of unbiased engines too. But it has no practical use for me if it takes a few hours. 30 minutes is usually about as long as i can wait, but only if I need single color variation of a design. Unfortunatley for me, speed is critical...

jonah

Hi Jonah, have you looked any more at Hypershot by any chance?

- Michael

Hi Michael. Hypershot is interesting. But it doesn't have the full material capability of other modern engines. And i think soon it will not be alone in the real-time market. Fryrender already has it's own real-time engine coming soon, or so Feversoft has been saying for a long time now !!! :)

We will see how this real-time market develops. Right now, i don't want to jump on the first thing available.

jonah