renderers for Sketchup

[Ken Henson]

Let's talk about this. I want to download a free one that yields good print size res. Who's used what and what do they think?

Joeparis gave a link for IDX Renditioner. Looking at their site, my understanding is that the free version only yields screen size results. Anyone know more about this?

Anyone tried Kerkythea?

Any other experiences?

[Gaieus]

Hi Ken,

Yes,Kerkythea could be a good choice. Another one could be Indigo (http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/),which is also free.

Both have exporter plugins for sketchup so you can use it with the free version of SU as well. I know Kerky a bit though I'd not say I'm an "expert" at it.

[Tyson]

I've seen people using Blender as well. I don't know much of anything about this, but if you are a Blender fan, would be worth looking into as another free alternative.

I'll also plug Kerkythea, it works pretty well with SketchUp and has a lot of active development. Don't use it often, but in my experience the learning curve isn't bad.

[liquidash]

I've tried all sorts of renderers with sketchup, but have found that none of them work as well and fast as Artlantis. I know it's expensive and to figure out how translate efficiently and optimally from sketchup to artlantis is a little confusing at first, but once figured out there's nothing as optimal. I say optimal because I'm weighing the time taken to render v/s the rendering quality. If you're looking for quick workable renders that is. There are some great hidden gems in artlantis which are not apparent at first.
If you're looking for truly photorealistic renders, then probably something else like mantelray etc...