


VRay is a bigger and more expensive beast but those who know how to use it can produce some awesome results. Podium looks to be neatly integrated with SU and is appears to have a relatively gentle learning curve. The two I have been looking at most recently are Podium and VRay. I am just about to replace my late 2012 iMac with something close to what you have so that I can sensibly consider using a render program. Raylectron v4 is available for free evaluation.I am in a similar pre-purchase phase to you. It works entirely inside Sketchup, and the rendering process free Sketchup so you can continue working on your model.* GPU Acceleration.Instancing of components and groups allow you to duplicate any component or group without increasing the poly count and memory usage.Support HDR maps and can save the rendered image as an HDR, it can also save in jpg, png and many other formats.Save as transparent background so you can use the images on any background you like, including on web sites.The sun, the sky, environment maps and any materials set as a light source (emitter) with settings for the power and coverage angle. There are also four types of light source.Rotate, pan, zoom, modify the materials and lights right from Raylectron.Ability to stop the render, save it, reopen it later and resume the render.


