Visualizer for SketchUp

[jonny round boy]

I've recently downloaded this render add-on for SketchUp. It's not a full-blown render package, but is a very basic tool for getting better images within SketchUp itself.

Visualizer

There's a free 7-day trial, but it only costs $20 to buy it anyway. I think I paid £16-something including VAT & conversion costs.

It uses the lighting within SketchUp so you can't add extra lights, nor can you add gloss materials for reflections, but it's OK for basic renders. It takes a lot longer to render 'indoor' scenes than outdoor ones though, due to the lack of light.

Here are a few images of a bedroom I've just quoted for:

On my very basic PC each of these took around 5-6 hours to render, on the 'medium' quality setting. High quality would be in the region of 20-24 hours.

By comparison, the 'outdoor' images below (of a Scalextric layout I drew several years ago) took less than 4 minutes to get to 'medium quality. High quality on these would have been another 10 mins or so.

Not 'stunning' quality images, but pretty good for the price. If you use SketchUp I'd definitely recommend giving it a try with the 7-day trial.

 

[tiralie]

Thanks. I had not seen this.
I will have a go at it.
I am fairly convinced at this point that I will have to go with V-Ray.
Tim

 

[wow]

OK, after having some small success learning SketchUp I downloaded this program. Here's my pretty lame first effort:

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[Anejo]

Thanks. I had not seen this.
I will have a go at it.
I am fairly convinced at this point that I will have to go with V-Ray.
Tim

I use v-ray for our clients and our product visualizations. In fact I know that Ikea uses v-ray for their online and paper back catalog.

I guess it all depends on what your objective is. Do you want a simple rendering to show a client? Or do you want a photo realistic image?

The image below was rendered using v-ray.

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[Carl Prentiss]

It looks like they're ending development for this product and giving it away for free.

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