Well, I don't know...I guess I'm looking at it from a completely different
perspective than you guys who do professional rendering.

It's taken a long time for the jewelry industry to warm up to CAD.
It's mainstream now among large manufacturers, but I had to learn,
down on the street, try telling a jeweler in NYC he has to wait
10 hours to see a Maxwell rendering, if they don't laugh and
hang up on you right away, then next time, they'll call someone else!
They really don't care how many pixels it has.

The $195 version might just be a teaser to get you to
buy the $995 package, but I won't complain if I
can bang out an email acceptable rendering
in 5 minutes..time is money. ;-)

JDK

yup. $995 is nothing if you are using this professionally. A few jobs later and this renderer starts to pay for itself. It's the reason i didn't buy Maxwell because i just can't wait. In my job, i have to render multiple color versions and often have to bang a dozen or more renders in just one afternoon. they don;t have to be photo-perfect, just convey the idea to my producers. So recently, i've just been capturing screens from Rhino 4 while using environment maps and textures to fake materials. Hypershot is really interesting. I was thinking about VRay or maybe Brazil. But seeing as i have Modo, Hypershot might be a good alternative for me. I'll have to play with the demo myself, but am traveling for the next 2 weeks so will have to wait until then... :(

shorty

If any of you try out the demo, please report back here, it seems like it could be a pretty useful companion to MoI.

The article says that it supports .3dm files, but the FAQs say that is "coming soon", so that would be good to clear up. But even if that isn't ready yet it also supports IGES and OBJ too...

- Michael

Hi Jb,

If you're doing a lot of environmental mapping in Rhino
you might want to try Auxpecker

http://auxpecker.blogspot.com/

regards,

Jesse

yup. I've tried AuxPecker. Hyltom built a nice utility, didn't he? But i'd already built many of my own custom shade modes for ceramic, toon, wax, brushed metal, auto-paint, medical x-ray (that's a really cool one ! ) and i like the results of my own maps. they are optimized to blend the shading effect of the emap with the object's color. So i'm not restricted to the map's color. Hyltom should add a blend adjuster in there. that would be really good...

shorty

how do you get auxpecker to work I selected my model..metal..gold and clicked the icon nothing happens any help here?

"instructions from thier web site"
How to use Auxpecker plug-in?
-Select your object or part.
-Choose a material maps.
-Apply the material by clicking on the icon at the top left corner of the Auxpecker library windows

-

The display mode must be set to "rendered" (or use a custom display mode which uses the "rendering material" setting)

shorty

thanks I'll give it a try

I just tried the hypershot and is very easy and straightforward to use.
Take my 10 minutes to make this picture based on an existing Rhino file.
The importing feature work very well from rhino, recognizing even groups of parts.
Looks like the program is very easy to quick use but getting deeper on it there is a lot more powerful features.

Sergio - That looks great for just 10 minutes in the program. Does Hypershot recognize the texture mapping and decals from Rhino? Or you modeled all the letters on the handle?

jonah

"Thread : What is the simplest and easiest to use free renderer for MoI?"
Moi3d + Rhino + Hypershot + 2 Import steps = 200$$ + 1000$$ + min.200$$ = 1400$$ free renderer for MoI.(HiHi)

Yeah Moi3d import in hypershot and rendering is megasuper. (unfortunately without multi materials,when from Moi3d exports)
My favorite would be:
Moi3d + Hypershot + 1 Import step = 200$$ + 200$$ = 400$$ free renderer for MoI.

Here are some things I did - modeled in MoI - exported .obj with quads & triangles - rendered in Kerkythea 2007.

Not complex, but fun!!!

Hi Michael, that's great, it looks like it is working well for you.

I haven't had a chance to use Kerkythea myself, how does it work after you import your model data? I mean does it have a full UI for assigning materials and textures to things?

- Michael

Use Indigo.

http://www.indigorenderer.com

I export my MoI (.obj, ngons, medium complexity) into Blender, then use Blendigo to assign materials.

Using an unbiased MLT renderer like Indigo (or Maxwell, or Fryrender, etc) means no wierd lighting set up or modes or anything - just set up some light boxes and a backdrop, just like a real studio set up, and then render. I'm surprised Jewelers are screwing around with material settings and stuff for their renders.. - pick a .nk file (or .ior, in maxwell's case) as the material, and you get perfect gold, copper, aluminum, etc.

-

Example image:
http://zsouthboy.com//displayimage.php?pos=-176

If you guys want a step by step tutorial, I'll write something up for this forum.

Hey here is another option.

This is NOT a free rendering app solution, but what about getting your hands on an older version of an app. I have attached two renderings of my model (100% MOI) rendered in Carrara. I have version version 5 but the easy to use "scene wizard" has been around since version 3 I believe. These images were done with the stock scenes and I only tweaked the lights little. The image with the large tiles is the stock texture for that scene.

- Easy= comes with great preset scenes for raytrace, GI, AO, etc.
- Easy= the default controls are basic. You do have the option to have deeper mixing controls.
- Easy= Just export ".obj" from MOI.
- Fast= I looked at indigo and read about rendering times of 2hrs and more. my test images here took about a minute or less.
- Cheap= I had bought carrara v3 from Purplus.com for $30 a while back. I'm sure you can find the deals online.


Anyway, just a thought.


Dooki

Thanks Michael G.

It's UI is very easy to use. When I open a my models exported from Moi I reset the view to show everything that was exported. All objects are assigned individual I.D.'s i.e. object1 etc. You can adjust the view screen from wireframe (default) to shaded to pick up all the detail (visually) on your objects. You can click on an individual object and it highlights/selects it in the "tree" so you know exactly which object you are going to assign material to or make changes to.

Kerkythea 2007 system comes with a default materials library, but if you go to the web site there are many very useful material libtaries that have been created by some incredible individuals.

I still have a lot to learn about MoI and Kerkythea, but they definately have earned there places in my design arsenal!

Thanks agaim Michael G. for the wonderful tool that is MoI3D!!

Why dont support these renders the 3DMfiles directly?

To fully support a 3DM then you have to support a NURBS object. most rendering engines don't render the NURBS object anyway, they only render the attached render mesh. So probably the engine's authors only prefer to support mesh objects. the exception of course is Renderman which can render the Nurbs model directly (and other Renderman engines such as AIR which does have a free 3DM link). But AIR costs about $500 so i guess it's off-topic in a "free renderer" discussion...

jonah