I’m getting ready to do a final render of my first model. I like ZBrush’s render, but it seems to be lacking somethings that I like, like AO and SSS. Is there a renderer out there that I can use that doesn’t come attached to an ultra-expensive modeling package, and is fairly easy for a poor “n00b” to figure out and use?
You guys are the best, thanks in advance!
Prepare yourself for 45 thousand different opinions on that topic, but I’d personally wait for version 3 of Zbrush before going with anything (or just fake SSS and AO in Zbrush right now). If you can’t wait that long, you can always go with a newbie rendering option like Poser, or something with a little more control like Carrara 5.
Thanks, Reactor. I do have Poser6, but I thought Poser messed up textures when you bring them in from ZBrush?
List of some renderers:)
Except the commercial, all are no cost 
And for the easy use, until today any renderer is easy to use :rolleyes:
Interesting. I haven’t heard of that happening (not sure why it would) but then I only have version 5. Have you done a test to confirm this?
Wow, thanks, Pilou! Apart from the commercial renderers, have you tried any of the others? I used Blender…oh, many years ago and found it’s interface to be somewhat difficult. Other than that, is it very hard to get a model to transfer to a render engine with all it’s textures in tact?
Reactor: I haven’t tried it, but I’ve read of problems others have had, something that Poser uses bad UVs or something. I don’t really understand the jargon.
Can I suggest now might be a good time to learn some of that jargon? Rendering is a complex thing, and even though it’s possible to tip-toe around understanding both it and many other aspects of 3D, they’ll catch up with you eventually.
Well, I know what UV maps are, though I don’t know exactly how they work. I know also that some renderers seem to require you to be a math genius, which I certainly am not. I’m familiar with the Firefly renderer that Poser uses, but that seems to be pretty limited in what it can do, I’m just wondering if there’s something out there that has a friedly UI like that though that will produce better results. I find ZBrush’s UI to be very friendly and easy to use and understand, but it doesn’t seem to render real great results either, unless it can do more than I’m understanding, but from what I’ve seen around here most of you seem to use Maya, or Lightwave or some other package for your rendering.
I second that what Reactor wrote. Better read up on rendering in general or you will not be able to achieve any result with any render engine. Unfortunately there is no engine out there which allows you to use it like a point and shoot camera. Which is the dream of so many people. Besides that, your assumptions regarding the Poser render engine are all wrong. Poser does not mess textures up and there is no such thing as “bad UV’s”. Maybe you should try and make a sphere, paint it like an ester egg and export it from ZBrush and import it in Poser and render it. That’s about as easy as it get’s and a nice exercise. It will also introduce you to the material room in Poser which is a comparably friendly place for experimentation. The Poser engine can produce results and before you get any results out of that engine, don’t invest in another one. Expect way more complexity from other engines and what you can learn from the Poser engine applies to all of them.
Lemo
I’m familiar with Poser (and the material room, though I don’t play with the nodes ~too much, since they again, require maths), but I think I’ve pulled all the performance I can out of the Firefly engine without buying any of the python scripts that do the complex maths for you. I will try importing something textured into Poser, though, to see what kind of results I can get with it that way and just to play with taking things out of ZBrush and into something else.
Here is a link to a cool usergroup of a render engine Maya, Max and XSI are using. So you can see what’s up with that:
http://www.lamrug.org/
Lemo
Ooh! Thanks, Lemo, I’ll check it out for sure!
While I’m thinking of it, is there a gallery (or a thread) of images done 100% in Zbrush? That is to say, modeled, textured and rendered final all within Zbrush. Maybe if I can see some really great examples of pure Zbrush renders, I can figure out how to make it work for me.