don't be afraid to render

realistic Rendering is a journey

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Basics to photo realistic Rendering 

3D rendering is the 3DHYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics" HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics"computerHYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics" HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics"graphics process of automatically converting 3D wire frame models into 2D images with 3D computer HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorealism"effects. 

 

This post is for enthusiastic architects and designers who need to render professionally, but don't want to spend large amounts of time or money to achieve it.

You can to render either directly from your current platform or through the products specified in this post. Rather than an in depth approach I will be presenting to you a wide arrangement of software capable to help you use the best approach for your specific needs. It will help you avoid long hours and mediocre images.

There are many ways to render with an assortment of renderers and you will be shown the best option for you. Many internal renderers of architectural software do not have the capabilities to give the renderer the quality images to really impress the client. There are some that have above average internal rendering capabilities, but the user just needs a push into the right direction to give the renderer's image that missing spirit.

Some renderers have long rendering hours for a single image and even then do not produce excellence. Yet there are magnificent software out there that specifically counters this hassle. 

 

Rendering shouldn't be time consuming. Therefore the info given in this post are for the architects or designers who needs stunning renderings fast.

 

Basics to rendering methods

 

Biased or unbiased?

A biased renderer is what we may call a faux rendering solution. They typically take shortcuts in producing a near realistic image. They also typically render faster than unbiased renderers.

An unbiased renderer computes light photons with extreme accuracy. These renderers have great difficulty with interior scenes, although they are very realistic, be prepared for extreme long rendering hours. New renderers are trying to solve this by adding a little biased techniques. But still nowhere near the speed of a biased renderer. These renderers typically have a grainy image which over rendering time diminishes gradually.

I have over the years experimented with an array of these two types of rendering methods and found that I use an unbiased renderer for exteriors and a biased renderer for interiors. I particularly love unbiased programs because they have incredibly simple interfaces. You basically import your model and throw some textures on if needed and hit the render button. Whereas with fast biased renderers I always seem to be adjusting the endless configurations to get the light and settings just right. Although I am very proficient in these biased renderers, I hate using them in times when I do not have time.

Unbiased renderers are fast with exterior scenes. I use them on all my exterior scenes because they work so easily and within 20min or so you can have a decent exterior scene with no hassle. But with interior scenes expect render times to go up to 10 hours or more, definitely not what you want during crunch time.

For interior scenes that look realistic and render fast it will require you to use a more intricate biased renderer. The best of all that I have tried is unarguably Vray. It is an expensive option but little comes close to speed quality ratio. Vray can handle extremely large scenes with little slow down whereas many other biased renderers suffer with high polygon scenes. If your business is more aimed at interior design, Vray is the absolute ultimate for rendering beautiful realistic scenes fast.

 

To GPU or not to GPU?

 

When a rendering program uses the GPU to render it can be up to 40x faster than conventional CPU rendering. Although the rendering is vastly faster, the lack of memory on your graphics card will hinder you from rendering large scenes. A typical graphics card has between 1gb to 2gb memory a lot less than a 64-Bit machine's unlimited amount. Lots of memory is crucial when rendering. The amount or speed of memory makes little difference in rendering speed but a large amount of ram preferably minimum 4gb will ensure that your rendering speed is linear and that your rendering does not crash half way through. GPU only renderers do not utilise the system's memory constricting the user to smaller scenes. As with hybrid GPU & CPU rendering programs they do use system memory and will handle large scenes but with a higher price tag. Nvidia Cuda which is now almost standard is the hardware to look for if you want to use GPU rendering. Keep in mind that an Intel i7 is a quick CPU processor for rendering, and that an affordable Nvidia Cuda based graphics card won't come close to the speed of the i7. So only a very good top of the line GPU or SLI configuration will have great benefit.

 

32Bit or 64Bit?

 A 32Bit system windows only allows 2gb per application which makes it difficult to render large scenes and your rendering program could crash more frequently.

64Bit is not faster in rendering than a 32Bit solution when the scene uses little memory. But because a 64-Bit system can utilise unlimited ram the rendering of very large scenes won't crash as regularly. 64-Bit solutions offer the ability to render as large as you need, just pop in more ram. There is a slight downfall with a 64-Bit configuration. I find that windows vista/7 64Bit has difficulty in distributing memory across open applications. When a 64-Bit application is open it normally uses a lot of system memory and Windows has trouble freeing memory to other applications when needed. In a 64-Bit system the user will usually make use of one application at a time. If the user uses a lot of programs at once the user will need a truck load of memory at least 8-24gb while using a 64Bit machine.Ram is becoming cheaper so soon 64Bit will rule!

 

Do you need an expensive workstation card?

Many who buy an Nvida Quadro or ATI FireGL and only to find that it didn't improve there productivity. They typically had a slow and unresponsive 2D plan environment. Workstation cards are pretty much the same as there far less expensive gamer cards, but the drivers are very fine tuned to enhance certain capabilities of the card. The memory on the cards are not the same as normal system/gamer memory. Normal system and gamer cards memory are affordable because the hardware does have a few tiny flaws in them that cause them to fail more often if used for days on end as to workstation hardware which are very near flawless and minimising crashes.

CAD software when panning in plan or elevation views won't  utilise a workstation card's performance. Rather 3D views will, but only when OpneGL is used. Engineer's using software like Solidworks see great benefits using workstation cards. Only a few 3D software programs are designed to implement such a card. Sketchup also has great improvement, but take into account that improvements over normal gamer cards are only seen when a workstation card of at least 10x the gamer card's price, yikes! So keep in mind that those cards are basically for 3D views only and minimising crashes.

Rendering will not  be affected by an expensive workstation card as the cards only purpose is for development stage. Al tough Nvidia has launched there Tesla cards that are mostly used by scientists to calculate massive simulations.

Tesla has now made those cards available for GPU rendering! Still expensive though they are by time of writing the fastest rendering solution and the old days of having a building with thousands of CPU's can now be in your PC for a fraction of the price.

Here is a list of best rendering solutions for your budget. There are many on the market, but few have the capabilities and quality needed to render realistically.

Free unbiased renderers:

Kerkythea
Standalone
CPU

Indigo

Standalone & embedded
Supports – Blender, Sketchup, Revit, 3DS Max, C4D and Maya
CPU

Lux Render
Supports – Blender, 3Ds Max, C4D, Sketcup, Daz Studio, XSI and comes as a standalone.
CPU

List of a few affordable unbiased renderers:

Octane Render GPU
Supports – 3DS Max, Maya, XSI, Blender, C4D, Sketchup, Modo

Fryrender CPU
Supports – 3DS Max, Maya, XSI, C4D, Sketchup, Modo

Thea render – Hybrid biased & unbiased
Supports – 3DS Max, C4D, Modo, Blender, Rhino, Sketcup, XSI

Less affordable unbiased renders:

Maxwell render Hybrid GPU & CPU
Supports – 3DS Max, C4D, Archicad, Rhino, Bonzai 3D, FormZ, Houdini, Lightwave, Maya, Modo, Rhino, Sketchup, Solidworks, XSI

Arion Render Hybrid GPU & CPU
Supports – 3DS Max, Maya, XSI, C4D, Sketchup, Modo

Free biased renderers:

Brazil CPU

List of a few affordable biased renderers:

Thea Render GPU

Less affordable biased renderers:

Vray Hybrid GPU & CPU + biased & unbiased
Supports – 3DS Max, Maya, Rhino, Sketchhup

 

So wich of the the above renderers do I recommend?

All of the above renderers are great for photo realism.You'll have to look at the platform you use and your budget. The advantage of buying a rendering option is GPU capability.

I have been through all of them and at the end of the day I use Archicad and Maxwell Render although Maxwell Render is an unbiased renderer it is a great plug in for Archicad to render exterior scenes.I can render directly from Archicad and if any geometry needs to be changed it won't impact my rendering settings that has been setup in Archicad.

From an interior design standpoint, Studio Max/Cinima 4D and Vray is by far the King of rendering. Incredible speed and realism, but Vray has a slight learning curve. Vray and Maxwell Render have a Real time rendering engines that display the result as you work that really helps to save time.

Sketshup's Vray and Kerkythea plug ins are very easy to use and no post settings have to be adjusted to get a decent render.But I found that Sketchup had great difficulty importing large poly count scenes.Sketshup is very raw and to design any object I have to start from scratch.The online library isn't bad bad in comparison with Archicad and studio max's vast support I always seem to run back to the latter for object rich scenes.

free Renderers like Indigo and Thea are very powerfull but there interfaces are clunky and further object editing can't be done, only textures can be added and manipulated. So if something needs to be changed the file first has to be re-edited in the original application and then imported back into the standalone renderer and reconfigured from the start over again.These are a great start to experiment as a beginner and if the scene is set up perfectly, the rendering will be very easy to do.

Of all the above renderers Vray is the leader by far. It doesn't support Archicad yet damn!  It doesn't have a standalone application and for good reason as object manipulation wil make it a very expensive cad program. It integrates into almost all well known packages.

The other thing that needs consideration is texturing. Maxwell Render, Vray,Arion &  Kerkythea have vast shader libraries to download for free and buy. Probably the most time goes in at texturing. To start from scratch in getting a realistic effect on an object can be very time consuming and a good shader library is a must. In times that a custom shader needs to be created a real time renderer like Maxwell render, Vray and Arion have the advantage because as you adjust the settings the result are displayed in real time.

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