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Photo Realistic Render Plug in – A Gate to Realism

The best part of SketchUp software is that it allows the plug ins or add-ons to enhance its functionality. Where we get only the hand drawn effect in SketchUp modeling a more photo realistic effect can be obtained with various rendering plug ins. There are many rendering plug ins are available to fill up the void of 3D graphic effect and photo realistic effect. Like all other functionalities of SketchUp, it is very easy to add the render plug ins with it. Namely they are, IDX Renditioner, Indigo Renderer, IRender nXt, LightUp for SketchUp, Podium, Shaderlight, Twilight Render, VRay, 3DPaintBrush, Artlantis, Maxwell Render, Karkythea, Vue, TrueSpace, Blender and many more.

With the help of renderer plug ins you can create high definition rendering with no size limitation. You can use existing SketchUp parameters and add new ones. Creating photo realistic project environment like water, sand and grass with 3D sky and clouds make possible with these plug ins. You can also create artificial light source to add more realism on your 3D model. Some renderer plug ins give you the opportunity to have real time walk through. The high quality end result will definitely satisfy you. Those various rendering plug ins help in movie making and Video game making procedures. The most impressive attribute of many of these renderer plug ins are that you don’t need to be a renderer genius to get expert like rendering image. All you need is the software and you will get photo realistic 3D image.

There are two types of rendering plug ins which are available to enhance the functionalities of SketchUp. The first one work in SketchUp and the other category works out side of SketchUp. You can avail the free version for amateur use and pro for more features. IDX REnditioner, Indigo Renderer, IRender nXt, LightUp for SketchUp, Podium, Shaderlight, Twilight Render and VRay work all inside the SketchUp window. That means, those plug ins use the materials, texture, sun position, shadow, ground and background, camera position and project location as well. The natural lighting effect gives the 3D models an advantage in visualization in regards to other 3D images. As per say, lighting is the factor which sets the mood of the image. That’s why different types of lighting situations are available by which you can simulate sun and sky lighting, night and day lighting, create 3D lighting object and smooth shadow.

The other kind of render plug ins are work with another plug in. These plug ins can import SketchUp model into the scene and add as well as modify the components, sky with rendering. The popular renderer plug ins of this category are 3DPaintBrush, Artlantis, Maxwell Render, Karkythea and many more. Many rendering plug ins have inbuilt integration with Google 3D Warehouse for that importing 3D models has become much easy and time saving for the designer. You can apply material, light, background, sky real time shadow and animation in drag and drop way. You can also manipulate material properties like shininess, color, transparency as well as texture rotation, scale etc. with various rendering plug ins.

In this way, you can have more realistic image in SketchUp with the help of rendering plug ins. Your friend or client may get surprise if they come to know that the images are not camera image but computer generated 3D image. Render plug ins work in tandem with SketchUp and remove the barrier between the virtual world and real world. These rendering plug ins can produce 3D image with such realism for which you can not distinguish it with photograph.

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