What's the preferred renderer to use with Wings3D these days?

[ekolis]

So I know we have plugins for Povray and Kerkythea and maybe Yafaray, but which one is the best supported with the most features? Povray won't render transparent backgrounds, and Kerkythea doesn't seem to have that much in the way of options for materials, and I don't even know if Yafaray is available outside of a Blender plugin these days...

[oort]

Ekolis,
I guess it depends on who answers you...

Some prefer Pov-Ray.

Some prefer Kerkythea. In order to have access to more of Kerkythea's materials and rendering options simply export the file as a kerkythea file and do the rendering in Kerkythea instead of Wings3D.

I prefer YafaRay/TheBounty. You can get the latest plug-in on my Wings3D page... Wings3d YafaRay/The Bounty. The things you want are at the bottom of the page.

In order to have access to SSS you will need to get TheBounty Renderer (YafaRay Fork by Povmaniac). My plugin will work with both at this time...
TheBounty Renderer

Let me know if you have trouble with YafaRay/The Bounty and I will try to help.

It is important to note that Wings3D comes with a plugin for the old obsolete not to be used YafRay 0.0.9. When you configure YafaRay/TheBounty make sure you are configuring that and not old YafRay.

oort

[ggaliens]

Please don't take offense ... especially if you are a champion of one or the other independent open source render projects ... but ...

I much prefer any trial-ware demo-ware ... or even cheap-enough commercial Apps ... built in rendering component.

The open source solutions all seem slow and clunky to me.

I'd use Blender, 3DCoat, Bryce ... and for sure I'd use Maxwell Studio. I think the learning curve is easier for these ... and the prices can be more righteous than you imagine.

I'd say use the cheap Maxwell solution for about 100 bucks. Git er done.

[oort]

ggaliens,
No offense taken. I am not even willing to buy Microsoft office (Using OpenOffice instead). Yes, low cost commercial rendering software probably beats open source render options.

oort

[micheus]

To render simple scenes I still prefer to use POV-Ray or Kerkythea. They are fast!

ekolis, to explore Kerkythea you should use its own IDE. So, export your scene from Wings3D, start the Kerkythea application and load your scene. You will be able to set many parameters to your materials. Also, there are a lot of material presets you can add to its library (check the material resources for download). If you have a 64bits system, install the Kerkythea Echo Boost.

... and yes, POV-Ray can generate transparent background. Unfortunately not using the W3D plugin (not yet). Export your scene, open it in the POV-Ray IDE. Find the background declaration and add the alpha component. Then, in the text edit box (right to the AA list box) enter the command line parameter Output_Alpha=true. (check here for more options).

By using other apps between W3d - Render
An option is DAZ3D (free) which you can import an .obj file and use 3DLight render (that is a faster render). The current DAZ3D also offers the iRay by NVidia - good if you have NVidia videocards, otherwise it uses the CPU. DAZ users are getting excellent renders with it. If you like LuxRender (free) the cheaper way to use it (I found) is buying the Reality 4 plugin for DAZ3D ($29.95). Both, IRay and LuxRender are photorealistic renders and they can take hours give you a acceptable image.

[ekolis]

Thanks everyone

I'm trying to run TheBounty, since it integrates into Wings, and having to export then load into another program is annoying. But when I go to render I get these errors in the log:

INFO: TheBounty 0.1.6
INFO: The plugin path is: C:/devs/gitrepos/builds/bountyrc3/thebounty/bin/plugins
INFO: Environment: Loading plugins ...
ERROR: Environment: There is no image handlers registered
ERROR: Couldn't find any valid image format, image handlers missing?

I assume the problem is that the path in question doesn't actually exist on my system, but how do I tell it to look in the right place?

[oort]

ekolis,
Did you completely configure the Yafaray/TheBounty plugin?

Edit > Plug-in Preferences > YafaRay.

Browse to the executable yafaray-xml.exe
Options -pp c:/thebounty/bin/plugins (-pp and your plugins path)

I assume you are running on Windows???

I need to add a note in the help (?) saying that this is required.

Hope this helps,
oort

[micheus]

Maybe it is related to that problem with no register info. Check this post and the post #32 in the same thread - maybe some info could drive you to check and fix it.

[ekolis]

Thanks! I figured out I had to enter the path to the executable, but I didn't realize I had to set the options as well

[oort]

Ekolis,

You are not the first person to get caught by the plugins path. I have now added "Plugins Path" as a separate setting under "YafaRay Options". Hopefully this will help new users of the plugin to get it working. Please download and test. You will have to manually type your path if it does not match the default. It is not possible to add browse to a folder in the current version of Wings3D.

I have also made a few other changes listed here...

In Material Properties, I have renamed "Modulator" to "Texture".

In "Texture" (formerly "Modulator"), I have added "SSS" to the list of materials which can use the "Diffuse" shader.

I have updated the Help (?) information under "YafaRay Options".

oort