Cheap rendering solution for a student using MAC

[roksraka]

Hello!

I'm a second year architecture student at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). I'm using a Mac and am in a bit of a dilemma regarding which renderer to use. I'm modeling in Rhino for Mac. Things I look for in a renderer are:

- cheap (less than 100$, or torrent-able...i'm guilty, i know)

- preferably unbiased (like maxwell, keyshot....not vray)

- photorealistic (our school has quite high standards regarding presentations)

- unlimited resolution (for big prints... 100x70cm)

 

I know I could use bootcamp and/or virtual machine with windows, but i really hate switching between to operating system during work

 

Any suggestions?

[Francisco Penaloza]

if you stay in Rino you are limiting the possibilities to find a cheaper option to render, the cheapest of the cheapest is Blender, (Free) you'll need to export to Blender and render from there, other option would be using sketchup and free version of Maxwell, small image size, or pay a little and get the tier up license for a year I think, but once in Sketchup you have more rendering options.

 

Since you are a student you also can get access to a cheaper version of VRay or any other rendering software. Try this before torrent, support your programmer and do not feed the hackers

[roksraka]

yes i have considered blender, but since it's an open source software, i find it quite confusing and unorganized. maxwell for sketchup is out of the question as well, since the maximum possible resolution is still only 1080p :/ vray EDU version is only available in north america. at the moment, i'm considering "a fully legal" cinema with vray for mac

[RyderSK]

If you really must stay with MacOs (but you're really lazy by doing so) then Cinema4D or Maya are your only choices, with Cinema being bit more reasonable and easier for Design field. Both have limited access (although Maya has access to some top-tier VFX oriented caste of renderers, but I don't think that's applicable here) to renderers in comparison to 3dsMax,esp. when you're looking for unbiased one with ease of use for Design.

 

3dsMax (or any Autodesk soft) is free for students (and even non-students now I think when self-teaching), and Corona renderer is also free, probably will for next year or two as well, with cheap licence afterwards. But again, you're stuck on Mac OS, so you're pretty limited.

 

We had few macbooks, my partner currently uses macbookProRetina and there isn't even bootcamp (well, as drivers package for what it is actually anyway), just nice, beautiful Windows 8.1 = )

 

Also, regarding "fully legal", it's not like anyone cares but you really could be bit smarter about communicating this publicly, or no ?

 

Blender is aquired taste, it's definitely not confusing due to opensource nature, it just took odd GUI approach, it can be modified, but it will never be as straigh-forward as competitors. Blender has the least acces to renderers because of GNU-PL licence, although there's Octane for GPUs.

 

What kind of Mac do you have ? Because if it's regular (discontinued) white Macbook (not Pro) then you can directly discount unbiased rendering at all (even if you have MacbookPro prior to 2012+ you won't have enough performance to warrant comfortable use of unbiased rendering) You will also melt it with 12 hours of continual use required for unbiased renders ;- ) [seriously]

[roksraka]

Thanks for the help i'm using the brand new late 2013 macbook pro retina 15", and i am considering installing a bootcamp partition

[RyderSK]

Ok that one will be safe, we have the early 2013 one. It's still not rendering horse for unbiased but it's atleast viable. I would still advice against pro-longed periods of rendering, it's Haswell after all in pretty thin chasis and it gets ridicously hot.

There's no reason not to go for Windows partition, you're in Architecture, all the major tools were built on it so you'll really struggle with the poor cousin versions for Mac (AutoCad for Mac is joke). 8.1 upscales correctly, so even the 2880px is not a problem anymore.

 

I asked because I remember the dumbest of the dumbest girls in my early classes buying the low-end white Mac (such a piece of...) for ****ing AutoCad ? It's completely fine in any type of college, but Architecture ? I couldn't even shake my head, it was beyond... any type of thinking.

Now people buy low-end ultrabooks for it...people should really be advised what type of computer you need for Architecture college these days if you don't plan on hand-drawing your way all-though. Aight, I had my rant, feel better.

[roksraka]

i too have realized it can get quite hot and i too know some idiotic people who know nothing about computers... anyway, if i were to install bootcamp, which renderer would your final suggestion? and i'm not giving up modeling in rhino 'cuz i got quite good at it....

[RyderSK]

i too have realized it can get quite hot and i too know some idiotic people who know nothing about computers... anyway, if i were to install bootcamp, which renderer would your final suggestion? and i'm not giving up modeling in rhino 'cuz i got quite good at it....

 

Well then your choice is if you want to render directly within Rhino, which is always the comfortable choice, or whether you are ok with translating your scene to other App (which is not always easy if you also model in nurbs instead of meshes) to render there. Or export to stand-alone renderer directly, which is the least prefered way. Depending on this, your choice can vary from like 3 renderers that are integrated in Rhino (Vray,Maxwell, Arion,...something else maybe?) or depending on application you will export your scene to (if for example 3dsMax, pretty much anything, but I suggest Corona, "biased/unbiased with unbiased workflow", it's free and easy, and quite excellent, I used it alongside Vray for past 8 months.

[hkahk]

Hi there,

 

I'm also modelling in Rhino and I also had to make a choice where to do the renders.

I went for C4d as it has a very handy connection to Rhino via Rhino.IO.

Rhino.IO is a plugin for c4d it let's you open native rhino files in c4d and keep all the layer structure, cameras, etc

So there is no need to export and import stuff.

And if you have to buy the software it is a lot cheaper!

 

I also tried 3dsmax but the connection to Rhino is by far not as good as it is with c4d.

At least I couldn't find a comfortable way of transferring Rhino Files to 3dsmax - Maybe someone here knows?

 

I just like the way c4d works and it is super flexible with it's "tag" organisation.

 

BUT there are limitations:

You always feel beeing a bit of an outsider, not having access to all the great plugins and resources for 3dsmax.

At the moment corona is not an option for c4d. There is Maxwell and Vray. The latter is what I'm using.

Vray4c4d is a bit behind the Max version and the latest release (1.8) has not been super successful to say the least.

So there are still many bugs to fix.

 

In the end there is no wrong/right, better/worse.

Just grab what you like and go for it.

Don't spend too much time looking for the right software - it's by far better spend doing some nice images :-)

Edited February 4, 2014 by hkahk

[Guest calumreid]

vray EDU version is only available in north america.

No its not, i ordered a copy through Bluegfx in the Uk, just have a look around for re-sellers

[jordanp]

Give Lagoa a try? Lagoa.com. It's free to start, and browser based, so your Mac's power has no influence on the time to render; it's all done remotely. Seems like it might fit your bill.

 

If you don't want to go cloud-based but can afford something like C4D, I would suggest modo, especially with the new MeshFusion plugin.

 

EDIT: So I read your requirements again, and honestly I think you should take a look at Lagoa - and not just because I have a personal investment in the product. It's free, it's super realistic, and it won't tie up your computer at all while you're doing renderings (I'm imagining you're using a laptop?), so it would be literally perfect for your use case. You can go with C4D or modo but again - Lagoa fits your bill perfectly (and you can't beat free!).

Edited February 7, 2014 by jordanp