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Kerkythea is a free but highly capable rendering program with great SketchUp interoperability. A new version is just out – see the following announcement for some more details. (We can’t pretend to understand what all of it means – but network rendering to unlimited Linux machines! – wow):

Kerkythea 2008 Echo is a full staging application for rendering your
models. And now it’s available for all major platforms Windows, Linux,
and MacOSX!

Introducing the Kerkythea Instancing Brush (Earning KT2008 the name
“Echo”)
It features instancing by loading the “Brush” with any model or group
of models and painting (scattering) instances of that onto any model
“canvas” object you choose. Or, you can choose auto-population of the
canvas determined by grid, or driven by image mask!

Now featuring MLT(BPT) Metropolis Light Transport on top of
Bidirectional Path Tracing to handle the most demanding indirect lighting scenes.

Robust and completely re-vamped material editor featuring nk/ior
measured data support, synthesis layer, procedural ramps, improved materials
and the new plugin SDK for user developed customized objects.

Also featuring:
-15-25% general render speed increase (more for MLT render mode)
-Multithreading support for all render methods
-Network rendering to unlimited machines/threads/cross-platform
(requires manual connection)
-Instancing and grouping of Lights or Models
-Sky Portals, Supersampling
-Physical Camera definition enhancements
-Parallel View Rendering for plans/elevations, etc.
-IES Light implementation
-Specular, Light, Diffuse, and Diffuse Texture passes
-Improved depth map rendering
-alpha channel auto-recognition for .png and .tif files
-More widgets (Drop and align commands, manual sun positioning)
-and much more

Kerkythea now supports a zipped xml version (kzx extension) for saving
files, which, combined with instancing, can result in file sizes 5% to
10% the size of previous versions’ saved .xml scenes.

The new cross-platform plugin SDK implementation allows users to write
their own plugins including new procedural textures, materials and
lights.

See the following link for download info:
http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=42&func=select&id=2

Ever since I started paying regular attention to the Sketchup Pro forum back in 2003, by far the most regular question to appear has been “what rendering software should I use with Sketchup?”. The forum regulars, mostly Architects, would patiently answer this question time after time. They’ve now been doing it for over half a decade. The most regular recommendations were Cinema 4D and the wallet busting 3D Studio Max.

But things have changed in the world of 3D since Google bought Sketchup. Major software companies have released some great export plugins for the best renderers, and some intrepid teams have even formed to produce specifically Sketchup based renderers. But rather than making the choice easier for us, the bewildering array of offerings out there grows daily, making our choice of where to spend our money ever more difficult.

So there’s obviously a need for some sort of rough and ready benchmark to show how easy each renderer will allow you to get good results from Sketchup. After all, great renders with minimal setup time, and produced in the time we take to boil a kettle is what we’re after! I’ve decided to bite the bullet and give it a whirl… so here we go with the first contender:

—————-

Podium

Podium works from within Sketchup. I must say that’s a winner for most people from the outset. But does it deliver the goods in terms of quality, speed, and ease of use? It weighs in at £90 from www.suplugins.com.

This first image is produced with quality sliders at 50% in order to produce a quick lighting check. It took 3 minutes 23 secs.

The second image is at 90% quality and took 18 minutes 47 seconds.

Comments

Whilst Podium is easy to set up and has a quick learning curve, nearly 20 minutes for a 500×500 image, lit only by sunlight seems a little long. We’ll see how it compares to the others. In terms of quality, the lighting is surprisingly good. Notice however the fact that a true metallic/chrome effect is not currently possible in Podium.