#160 Better 3D renderering

[Steve]

What about rendering through a "professional" render?

Indigo is one choice. It's easy, powerful and free!

Example of interior renderings: "http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=26&g2_itemId=17"

A basic export can be done with the "virtual tour" view and just adding sun light (from the top) to final scene xml (refer to: "http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,69/id,skylight/").

I did this through blender conversion (img+blendigo) and the results are quite interesting! (one example attached)

A better version (v2) could add interior lights and better manage materials (refer to: "http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/component/option,com_matdb/Itemid,107/"). It would probably be not much effort and the results would be EXCEPTIONALS!!

[Steve]

Sample rendered image ("basic")

[Emmanuel Puybaret]

Thank you for your suggestion and your tests.
How long did Indigo take to render the image you posted ?
Indigo looks very nice, but I won't use it in a close future for the following reasons:

• It's not open source, and I'm not sure it's free for commercial use (see licensing at http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/content/view/66/100/ )
• It's not available for Mac OS X yet
• It doesn't seem to be a Java library
• Finally, I successfully started to use SunFlow, an other rendering engine programmed in Java.

If you want to test the SunFlow rendering with the current version of Sweet Home 3D, follow the next steps:

1. Install Sweet Home 3D with one of its installers available at http://sweethome3d.eu/download.html#SweetHome3DInstaller (don't use the Java Web Start version, it can't work for security reasons),
2. Download the plug-in file http://www.sweethome3d.eu/plugins/CreatePhoto-0.2.sh3p
3. Under Windows and Mac OS X, double-click on the CreatePhoto-0.2.sh3p file to copy it in the plug-ins folder of Sweet Home 3D. Under Linux, copy it in the plug-ins folder of Sweet Home 3D which is the folder ~/.eteks/sweethome3d/plugins.
4. Relaunch Sweet Home 3D, and you'll see a new button with a camera in the tools bar along the new menu item "3D view > Create photo...". When you choose this option, a dialog appears that will render the current 3D view with SunFlow. As Sweet Home 3D is unable to manage any object as a light yet, I programmed a default sky light and a light at top at top of each room.
   See attached files SunFlowRenderingAerialView.png, SunFlowRenderingVirtualVisit.png and SunFlowRenderingWithMirror.png for tests.

To uninstall the plugin, remove the CreatePhoto-0.2.sh3p file from the plug-ins folder of Sweet Home 3D:

• under Windows, remove it from the subfolder C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\eTeks\Sweet Home 3D\plugins,
• under Mac OS X, remove it from the subfolder Library/Application Support/eTeks/Sweet Home 3D/plugins in your user folder,
• under Linux, remove it from the subfolder ~/.eteks/sweethome3d/plugins.

[Emmanuel Puybaret]

Rendering of an aerial view with SunFlow

[Emmanuel Puybaret]

Rendering of a virtual visit with SunFlow

[Emmanuel Puybaret]

Rendering of a mirror effect with SunFlow

[Steve]

Sure the render took few hours to go, but it is a reasonable price for a quality image!

I didn't know sunflow nor the plugin but they are wonderful enough!!!!!!
(as can be seen on few sample for sunflow:
"http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/gallery/v0060/livingroom.png"
"http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/gallery/v005/balls.blend.png"
"http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/gallery/v002/cornell-box05.png")

Attached is my new sample with the plugin...

So "just" the last step has to be done to be really EXCEPTIONAL... it means: material and lights management!! (I don't know if internal lights can be tricked also as "specific material")

So, objects should have instead of a "simple" color property a more articulated "material" property: color attribute will remain and will be added few more attributes!...

In reality since every Sweet Home object is composed, it should have a list of materials!...
(this list should be anyway also for "simple" colors...)

Does it make sense?

The final goal should be something like...
"http://www.blender-tutorial.com/gallery/libraryroom.jpg"
or "http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=33090&g2_serialNumber=3&g2_GALLERYSID=5d1e5e4e5566460435b35d838847bf9f"

Looking forward!!...

:-)))

[Steve]

Sample rendered image with plugin

[Steve]

File Added: photo.jpg

[Emmanuel Puybaret]

SunFlow rendering was integrated in version 2.0