Saturday, January 30, 2010

IRender nXt Review


sketchuppluginreviews.com has posted a review of IRender nXt:

"The nXt Renderer by IRender is a rendering plugin that integrates really well with SketchUp. The learning curve on this plugin is very small and you can start rendering almost immediately after installing the plugin. The render quality is pretty good..."


Read more: Review

Friday, January 22, 2010

Rendering workshop - Whiskey Glass S

We have a started a new Rendering workshop on SketchUcation to render a Whiskey Glass

Take a look and give it a try. Rendering workshop - Whiskey Glass




Wednesday, January 20, 2010

New Version - JA22 - New Plant and Material Libraries





The new  Version - JA22 - contains new libraries for Plants and Materials.
The Libraries contain:
  1. AR3 materials converted to nXT .ArMaterial file format.
    (Many of these materials have been completely recreated for nXt.)
  2. New .ArMaterial files created for nXt.
  3. AR3 Trees and Plants
    (These still work well with nXt.)
  4. New nXt Trees
    (Created with RpTreeMaker)
  5. Additional HDRi skies for use with IRender nXt.
To download the latest version, visit: Downloads


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

3D Artist - Featured Artist of the Week



One of our IRender nXt users, Elijah Bell, Jr. - a Designer in Pennsylvania,  was recently the featured artist of the week in issue #9 of the UK magazine “3dArtist”. He has been kind enough to post some of his images in the IRender nXt Gallery, and also to mention IRender nXt, and post several IRender nXt images on his 3D Artist Gallery Page.

Keep up the good work Elijah!

Take a look!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

iPhone Rendering

There have been a number of Rendering Challenges on SketchUcation lately, and recently Richcat entered one and created this nice rendering of an iPhone:




The concept of this challenge was to get the illumination from the iphone buttons to look good.

That and the ambience of the room lighting and countertop make this a good rendering.


Monday, January 4, 2010

PixPlant

I just gave PixPlant a try.

Here is a brick wall image I grabbed from the Web (at random)



I then loaded it into PixPlant which magically adds 3D effects.
(No work or settings by me)



Then I used PixPlant to generate Displacement and Specular maps for rendering.
(One click to load all maps into IRender nXt - ready to render)



Pretty Next - I think

Friday, January 1, 2010

New Plant and Material libraries for IRender nXt

We have made a new library for IRender nXt users.

These new libraries contain all the older AccuRender 3 plants and materials, as well as new nXt plants and materials, and some HDRI skies (backgrounds) for use with IRender nXt.








Download the latest Beta Test version, IL31, and download the new material libraries from IRender nXt Libraries

Arroway Textures

I have been spending time this week working with Arroway textures. Here is a simple room with 3 Arroway textures on the walls and floor.




Arroway provides diffuse (normal color), bump, specular and opacity images which can be combined while rendering. They provide medium-res, free, versions of each of their textures in the hopes that you will like them well enough to purchase the hi-res versions.

We have created a new Wizard in IRender nXt to make it easier to select all Image Maps in an Arroway group, and create an IRender nXt and SketchUp material from the Image Maps. See Texture Set