SU Podium V2 Trial Released - Public Beta 0.50 Win/Mac

A new version of SU Podium V2 has been released - Beta .50 Trial for Win/ Mac. This V2 Beta version is open to all. There are no requirements to download. Start evaluating, using and producing beautiful, high quality images from your SketchUp models with this new SU Podium version.

This Beta trial version will expire on September 15, 2010. We expect to release the full version of V2.0 on or before August 31, 2010. Purchase Podium 1.7.3 now for $179 and upgrade at no charge to V2 (save $29).

The trial version has one major limitation - rendered image resolution size will not exceed the SketchUp viewport size.

Unlike previous SU Podium V2 betas, there is no requirements to download this trial beta. You do not need a Podium 1.X license to use this trial beta.

Click Here to read about what's new in V2 Beta. Download is here.

Visit the V2 gallery for the latest renders.

Shaderlight for SketchUp free Beta Software

Shaderlight is an integrated, interactive, photo-realistic renderer for Google SketchUp. Shaderlight lets you move objects or camera angles within a scene and see the results instantly as the image refines.

Features

•  Interactive, progressive rendering that updates all changes in the Shaderlight render window
•  Zoom and pan the rendered image
•  Automatic material presets applied to the SketchUp material collection
•  Material finishes controlled via the Shaderlight Material Editor
•  Automatic lighting using SketchUp sun ,sky and shadow controlsImage based lighting (IBL) using preset or custom High Dynamic Range (HDR) images
•  Change background setting with options for SketchUp background colour, IBL environment or custom background
•  Simple quality setting to provide quick previews, or high quality final render

link: [ Shaderlight ]

Octane Render Commercial v1.02 beta2 Released

- New Platforms:
- x64 version for MS Windows
- Apple Mac OS X Native 32bit version
(x64 is not possible due to cuda toolkit constraints at this time)

- Daylight system with sunlight and physically based sky

- Material Channels:
- bump maps (also read from OBJ MTL file)
- normal maps
- opacity (alpha) maps (also read from OBJ MTL file)
- thin film coating maps

- OBJ and Mesh import:
- Option on mesh node to relink/reload a modified OBJ mesh, keeping materials by name.
- Use of smooth groups (option in OBJ prefs panel)
- Loading/Saving of OBJ import preferences

- Universal executable for all Geforce 8000 and up,
no more separate 8000 and 9000+ executables.

- Improved User Interface scheme

- Uses new Cuda 3.0 toolkit - with new drivers
- Better UI response while rendering on single GPU systems
- Linear and Logarithmic toggle buttons for easier control of many parameters
- HDR Images (OpenEXR and HDR) now take 50% space of video memory.
- Can Zoom the render viewport using CTRL + mousewheel.
- No more need for Visual Studio redistributable package installation.

Octane Render Commercial v1.02 beta2 Released

Thea Render Open Beta Launch

Finally, we are here! Thea Render has reached a level that we can safely move forward and publish our work. Our new site has been deployed although there will be improvements and changes in the next weeks for better integration. We want to thank all for your patience and support and we hope that you are going to like Thea and Plugins. We will be waiting for your feedback in the development forums and of course, we are going to answer any question you may have.

Thea Render

SU Podium V2 beta 2

Paraphrasing the information from multiple sources:

This is an interim release with another beta coming after in about 2 weeks. This beta is Windows only.

The V2 engine is multi-threaded. You also need a reasonable amount of RAM to hold 3d scene data. The more RAM you have, the more complex models you can render.

This build represents a stable code base where as far as we are aware, all features are working, although some may need some modification before final release. There will be additional features as well. V2 uses a new, higher-quality render engine. As a result, scenes set up in V1.x will not look the same in V2.


What's New

• In beta2 there is an options dialog box which allows you to choose presets, resolution size for the rendered image, image file format (JPG/PNG/HDR) and Physical Sky vs SketchUp Sky. Point light soft shadows have also been added. Sun turbidity and exposure are controlled in the presets.
• There are several pre made presets that have been crafted for certain rendering environments
• With Beta_34you have the choice of resolutions size or matching the resolution size to the your SketchUp's viewport. You also have the option to choose PNG/JPG/HDR as image formats. We will be adding a option to allow you to save your images to a folder of your choice. Currently the images are saved to where the SketchUp model being rendered is located.
• The Environment option allows you to choose between SketchUp background which could be plain background style or SketchUp Sky color or Podium's Physical Sky. When your SketchUp shadows are on, Podium Sun is on regardless of what background option has been chosen. Clay mode is currently not implemented. Sky turbidity (haziness caused by particles suspended in the atmosphere) and exposure are configured in the presets you choose. The preset files are plain text files which are editable. We will release a preset configuration guide.

Download and more @ su-podium.com

Thea Render nearing Open Beta Testing

We have now entered our final phase before open beta, since we are left mostly with 'packaging' work and a rebuilt of our web site. Closed beta has proved a very successful one, where we were able to tune further the render engine and optimize workflow. During our web site building and testing, it may occasionally become unavailable (for very few moments). Meantime, our forum will be always active. We really want to thank you for your patience and support all the months that have passed and even more the trust in us, delivering a high-standards product. We are sure you won't get disappointed.

Working on the Final "Details":

SketchUp Exporter for LuxRender

It's development version. Tested on Sketchup 7.1 Free Windows XP 64-bit
I've included test scene to play with.

Features
- export meshes
- export materials: matte and light.
- setting editor (not completed)
- material editor (only select material type)

SU2LUX Exporter for Sketchup 0.1-dev


About LuxRender

LuxRender is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Based on state of the art algorithms, LuxRender simulates the flow of light according to physical equations, thus producing realistic images of photographic quality.

LuxRender is free software - both for personal and commercial use - and is licensed under the GPL. The program runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Fully functional exporters are available for Blender and Maya, while exporters for a growing number of 3d applications are under development.

LuxRender

Three days left to purchase at 295€ | Indigo Renderer

Three days left to purchase at 295€ | Indigo Renderer: "A reminder - if you want to purchase before the price rises to 595€, you need to purchase Indigo before the 1st of February. Use the buy now button, or contact us for volume licence pricing."

Cooperative rendering for Yafaray -- Corefarm.org

"Corefarm is a place where you can either submit your Yafaray rendering job or participate to other users' rendering tasks. Corefarm splits your job in several small pieces and distributes them across the internet, leading to impressive rendering times."

Unfortunately, there is no direct exporter for SketchUp (can use Blender,) but there is no reason there couldn't be one. It might even make a good project for a Google Summer of Code project.

[ Link to Yafaray XML spec. ]

Octane Render- The Interactive Physically Based Render Engine

Octane Render- The Interactive Physically Based Render Engine: "Octane Render is the worlds first GPU based, un-biased, physically based renderer. As opposed to the handfull of processor cores available in CPU's, the GPU typically has hundreds of cores for parallel processing making it the best resource for rendering in your computer. Yet, to date no other software makes use of it in the way that Octane does. With even a single mid-range GPU you can typically expect to see a 1000%-1500% (10X to 15X) speed increase over a typical un-biased, CPU based renderer."

Indigo 2.2. Released - 2x Faster

A new version of the Indigo renderer has been released and is claiming a twofold increase in speed over version 2.0. Impressive.

Indigo 2.2 | Indigo Renderer

Podium 1.7 Beta Released

A beta version of Podium version 1.7 is out. It features blurred reflections and an expanded Podium Wizard.

Get it here.

Kerkythea Renders

I recently posted these 3 renders done using Podium. Here are the same models rendered in Kerkythea for comparison. Ok, 2 are the same.

 

 

 

podium chair render

I saw this chair by karlfucious on cadyou.com and thought it'd make a nice render.

podium render

simple podium render

I was just interested in how the floor would be rendered using a bump map. The texture is a sample from Arroway.

Just another Kerky render.

Link to model used for second image.

Podium Blue Render

This render was made using Podium while playing with the face divider plugin and Protrude plugins.

Construction Detail Render

I have been playing with Podium since it first came out, and finally purchased a license. Here's the first decent render I was able to get.