Rendering programs

[kellenhaskell]

I'm begining to play with rendering alot more as i am trying to move the company i work for from drawing all our cabinets in Cabnetware to AutoCAD because of the much more impressive job it can do rendering and thats really i we use it for anyways. All im going to be doing is taking stills of kitchens, laundry rooms and such. We just bought autocad 2007 about three months ago when i first got my job here and they dont want to spend the money to buy a program to do renderings. SO im looking for either some freeware programs (if those even exist) or for a recomendation for what programs to look at buying. Do any of them have trial versions? I dont know what rendering programs are out there so keep that in mind

 

MUCH THANKS

[ReMark]

Considering you just bought 2007 even though 2009 is out and the boss doesn't want to spend a lot of money you can either use AutoCAD's native rendering capabilities or add-on a less expensive alternative such as Accurender by Robert MacNeil & Associates. Anything else will probably cost you more. I don't know of any freebie rendering packages out there. If you find one, let us know. Always on the lookout for a bargain.

[shift1313]

3ds max has a trial version from autocads website as does acad 09(still working on installing that one)

 

Depending on how much of a "photo-real" image you want, the rendering capability of acad isnt bad. It will give you a nice image, it wont look real but it will look good.

[Noahma]

I'm begining to play with rendering alot more as i am trying to move the company i work for from drawing all our cabinets in Cabnetware to AutoCAD because of the much more impressive job it can do rendering and thats really i we use it for anyways. All im going to be doing is taking stills of kitchens, laundry rooms and such. We just bought autocad 2007 about three months ago when i first got my job here and they dont want to spend the money to buy a program to do renderings. SO im looking for either some freeware programs (if those even exist) or for a recomendation for what programs to look at buying. Do any of them have trial versions? I dont know what rendering programs are out there so keep that in mind

 

MUCH THANKS

 

 

 

TAAAAA DAAAAAAAAA!!! here is a freeware rendering engine. I have not played too much with it, but someone on the board reccomended it to me for use with sketchup

 

http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=57

[Cad64]

What's wrong with Autocad's rendering engine? Autocad 2007 uses the Mental Ray engine, same as 3DS Max and you can create some very nice renders with it. I'm sure it would do everything you need and then some.

 

The Kerkythea rendering program is very nice for Sketchup, but I think I would stick with the built in Mental Ray engine for Autocad rendering.

 

Accurender is supposed to be good, especially when dealing with plants and trees, but when I gave the trial version a whirl, it kept crashing every time I tried to render. When I contacted them and asked them about it, they said they were working on fixing it. Don't know if they ever did?

 

There are several other rendering programs out there like Brazil and Vray, but they are costly and you may have to buy another 3D program like Rhino or 3DS Max in order to use them.

 

So, before throwing money into other programs, I would recommend testing what Autocad can do first. Then, if you're not happy with the results, you could consider other alternatives.

[ReMark]

So you were planning on doing what exactly? Go from AutoCAD to kerkythea or AutoCAD to Sketchup to kerkythea?

[shift1313]

kellenhaskell i played with rendering in 07 after work today and it does a pretty nice job, and it seems to be a nice jump in quality from previous versions. You will have to import materials and backgrounds but if you just change the color of your solid part and play around with the lighting you should be able to get a nice picture. Keep in mind when you are using lighting what you are actually doing. Acad has the ability to setup your location geographically and you can set the time of day for the location of the sun. you can also insert distance lights, point lights and spot lights with different colors and intensities and a whole bunch of options i wont begin to pretend like i remember what they do.

 

good luck

[shift1313]

thinking about this i made a table quickly in 05 and rendered it.

 

[shift1313]

i was in a hurry when i posted that. i just thought it would show you what a quick render with the basic materials loaded into acad05 would give you. if you play around with settings and things in 07 you can get a much better likeness. I think the drawing took a few mins and a few mins worth of playing with settings and rendering.

[Morgan]

autodesk revit used (i don't know if they still do) accurender, and I got some excellent renders from it.

[Noahma]

What's wrong with Autocad's rendering engine? Autocad 2007 uses the Mental Ray engine, same as 3DS Max and you can create some very nice renders with it. I'm sure it would do everything you need and then some.

 

The Kerkythea rendering program is very nice for Sketchup, but I think I would stick with the built in Mental Ray engine for Autocad rendering.

 

Accurender is supposed to be good, especially when dealing with plants and trees, but when I gave the trial version a whirl, it kept crashing every time I tried to render. When I contacted them and asked them about it, they said they were working on fixing it. Don't know if they ever did?

 

There are several other rendering programs out there like Brazil and Vray, but they are costly and you may have to buy another 3D program like Rhino or 3DS Max in order to use them.

 

So, before throwing money into other programs, I would recommend testing what Autocad can do first. Then, if you're not happy with the results, you could consider other alternatives.

 

I do have to agree with this, the render engine that is in Autocad is pretty darn good.

[Chris77]

i would try Accurender nXt

 

http://nxt.accurender.com/photos/

[papagyi]

I think you already friendly with acad.So,why do you learn as beginner to

another program if you won't to be participate in "Graphic challenge".

You should update to acad 2009 or 2010 coz their mental ray render engine

with photometric light can give realistic quality!..You can see many great

images in our "showcase" thread!:)