Vray for Sketchup Resources: Links to Tutorials and Blogs

Tutorials:

Link to: The Complete V-Ray for Sketchup Rendering Process - From Start to Finish HERE

Link to: How to Use Vray for Sketchup to create an Animation HERE and More Video tutorials from Arzi3d HERE

More tutorial videos visit youtube chanel HERE

Online Blogs on Vray for Sketchup:

Sketchup Vray Resources: HERE

Sketchup Vray Materials: HERE

Groups on Facebook:

Join Vray Sketchup Group HERE for further resources and discuss any issues

Join sketchup-vray artists Group HERE for further resources and discuss any issues

Join Sketchup Texture HERE

Comparison between four SketchUp renderers

In this blog four popular rendering solution for SketchUp will be compared. You need to download & install SketchUp keeping in mind that renderers are accessible from within SketchUp that needs to include an actual plugin. Here we have picked out four renderers, Indigo Renderer, SU Podium, Maxwell and V-ray.

Google offers most common 3D warehouse model is “A house next to water with a boat”. You need to download the model & these plugin, install it and then start doing test renders of the scene.  It’s a simple test and doesn’t include any depth tweaking of materials.

Indigo Renderer

You have to download two components for it to work- IndigoRenderer standalone software and then SketchUp plugin. Once both are installed, you fire up SketchUp & select render from plugin menu.

You make a render of 1374 X 804 pixels resolution and save the image at any location you desire. To start tweaking the result, you can go into the plugin menu and change the setting. You will also find some built in material editor that allows you to modify the SketchUp material. The time you start tweaking, you can gain much better result and you get advance setting depending upon the version you buy. The full software costs €145 or €595.

SU Podium

The next render we used is SU Podium is very old option available for SketchUp. It’s just one plugin and download is even simpler. Once you install it, you can start SketchUp and render right away.

The result of the product is not very impressive and seems to be less option available although it carry its own material. The full version is available for $198.

Maxwell

Maxwell is very famous and standalone render product and now in the recent version it come with plugin. The installation procedure is worse comparing to two older versions. You need to read the “read me” text file to install it. Once it installed go to Plugin menu and select Maxwell Fire to start rendering.

The result seems fairly good from SU Podium. The price of the product is $95.

V-Ray

V-ray is the professional rendering solution and used by many of the SketchUp user around the world. The manufacturer offer trial version for 30 days. Installation is simple but it will slow down SketchUp’s loading time.

With default setting it yields average quality result. V-ray offer most of the options and material features of the four reviewed products allowing very fine modifications. But the price is very high- $800.       

Via Google

How to Render a Section Cut from Sketchup

I've been trying to find a way to render a sectional perspective from Sketchup using Vray for Sketchup rendering engine and finally I have found a way. Here's how to prepare a section cut of your sketchup model for rendering. Unfortunately, this has only worked for me using Google Sketchup 7 rather than the newer version 8. But this may work for you using version 8.

Firstly, Make a backup of your model before you start and save it with a new
name and work on that copy.

Second: Download the two plugins listed below and save the downloaded .rb files in the plugins folder:
C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins

Zorro 2 plugin HERE (You Can also download this plugin from Sketchucation HERE, however you may need to register first)

Section Cut Face 2 HERE ( You Can also download this plugin from Sketchucation HERE, however you may need to register first)

Restart SketchUp, and, if you haven't already, create your section plane.
Select the section plane, right click on it, and select the option Add Section-
Cut Face. As shown below:



Press OK on the following window. Don't worry about settings, just click OK.



With the section plane still selected, right click on it again and this time select
the option Slice Model at Section.



Delete the section plane, making sure your model has been indeed cut. I
hope you made that backup.



Apply any Color or material you like to the section face group.



And render the result with your favorite render plug-in or export the model to 3dsmax for rendering purposes.



The Tutotial was found in the Sketchucation Forums.
Visit the forum and register to find out more tips and tricks. You can also, download the tutorial as a pdf for your ready reference HERE.
Once Again this tutorial may only work for Sketchup Pro 7.