Design Forums - UK Graphic Design & Web Design Forum

Hi everyone, I used to use rhinoceros a fair while back, and havn't really done much rendering since. I was looking to use a 3d rendering program recently and noticed that they have stopped producing new versions of rhinoceros a while back now. Can anyone suggest whats the current hottest rednering program to use, that is relatively easy to pick up?

personally I use Solidworks (it makes adobe seem cheap) and 3ds max but its not the easiest (or cheapest) option out there.
Rhino is still going as far as I know and were in the process of making a mac version.

As to which is best for you I think a little more about what you want to render would be useful as suggesting one program could be the complete wrong way to go when its better to use another option.

3d studio Max or Pro Engineer for me..

The best renders i've ever seen are done with 3dsm with vray.

I'm not too hot with either so I model in autocad and export/import to 3dsm and render, usually with global illumination (spotlight) and light tracer.

Thanks guys really apreciate it, I have used 3ds max before but couldn't use it to do anything too fancy as it is quite complex, but I agree rendering with Vray gives great results. I have not used solidworks before, I mainly intend to use it for furniture, and contemporary interior products, so solid workd might be good? I hear that the latest versions of solidworks are much easier to use then older. I think pro engineer may be too engineering based perhaps. Will experiment in autocad and transfer to 3dsmax thanks! I think I will try get a copy of solidworks for now as have always inteded to try it, think they do a free trial? Thanks again for the input guys!

3ds max is just too complicated to use but the finished projects are always standard.

Solidworks is ok for modelling (more solid than freeform) but its rendering (even with the latest version) is not very good, hence why I use 3ds max for this purpose. Its also more towards the engineering side of design than the creative side if you get what I mean.

One of the benefits of solidworks (probably others too) is that if the renders aren't good enough you can also export them in a format that can be loaded in 3ds max and then used to render a better image. This is a method I've used many times in the past and can give very good results, especially considering some things are just faster in solidworks than 3ds max

As to vray - personally I don't think that its any better (definitely not £600's better) than the built in standard or mental ray renderers in 3ds max, especially if you know how to get the best out of them.

Thanks guys, I think in conclusion to all the good feedback, I will get stuck back into 3dsmax and learn a bit more, making it easier to use, anyone suggest good video tutorial sites, or has everyone learnt from books?

lol, 3ds max from books, (in my opinion) you need a decent course really, tutorials will give you the basics but seriously you do need to be taught them or you will spend ages just getting to grips with the basics.

I'm a fan of 3DS MAX and pro engineer too.
3DS you can just google tut's online but as Levi said you really a training course i think to get the absolute best out of it.

i came across a link recently that someone sent me - Kerkythea is a free plug in for the likes of sketchup that offers photorealistic renders
Kerkythea - Albums

has anyone used that as i know sketchup is very easy to model in?