I have never used Rhino for anything other than modeling. But, I am at a position where I need to choose which rendering package I use for some of my regular client work.
Currently, I receive a lot of Solidworks models from my client and I generally import them into Rhino, make any required changes, and then export for rendering in Cinema 4D with Chaos Corona Render. I have decided not to renew my Cinema 4D license, as I rarely use it and can use Blender for the majority of those tasks.
Iām curious if V-Ray for Rhino has a large learning curve and whether I should consider it as my product rendering suite for this client. In most cases, the materials relatively simple, but I like the ease of use with Corona and control over my lighting. Plus a few additional functions.
What is intuitive for you might not be for me and vice versa. The best you can do is download their free trial.
Since you already have rendering experience Iām sure youāll get up and running quickly. I would also make sure to choose a renderer based on the features that you need.
I would also consider the Thea render plugin (if you have a powerful graphics card, for example) and definitely Bella render, which in my comparison offers excellent image quality and, although it currently only works on the CPU, is very fast. Bella is my main renderer and offers perpetual licenses and not a subscription model like v-ray.
Indeed Vray is currently not supported on Mac. If the types of renderings are all similar to the one you posted (free standing product shots) basically any render will do, including Rhinoās built-in renderer.
If you are on Rhino 8, definitely give the internal Cycles render a go. Itās really very good now. It can be a bit of effort to set a scene nicely.
Otherwise, Bella Rendererā¦ and done. CPU only for now, but I suspect this is exactly what it will be fantastic for. Itās incredibly fast for CPU only, and has excellent support.
well currently for several months the bump is not working correct and noone is in a rush to fix it unfortunately. so if someone uses the current version it might not come out as intended.
Iād suggest even further. Bump map requiring users to to adjust advanced settings by menu diving, should be also, by default, be classed as dysfunctional.
If you can get past the bump maps, then everything else is pretty good after a bit of work. Though admittedly, Bella works far quicker by the time Iāve specified bump between 0.1 and 10000 by menu diving.
Why not render using blender since you already use it? Blender has two great rendering plugins; Eevee works really fast and is quite capable and cycles does incredible renderings you can shorten the wait in cycles by using a time limit in the options. Blender has rendering, unwrapping, animation, composting all within one program. You can set up a photo studio template there are free ones out there for download. I found I can get wonderful results merely using a high res hdri.
Vray is great but is expensive and used to be slow I think itās faster at rendering now but you donāt get animation with it.
Also I would try Twinmotion from Epic itās free and also does wonderful rendering and links to Rhino for auto updating. For me a rendering engine not only has to support photorealism but should be fast; twin is very fast and so is blender Eevee and cycles (if setup properly).
I really should, but I just donāt have a lot of experience with Blender yet, having used Cinema 4D for nearly 20 years. But, I should try to find some studio setups and give it a shot!
Iāve heard that about Vray, I remember back in the early 2000ās it was all the rage but was so slow. I am not familiar with Twinmotion, but will look into it! I mostly just want to be able to match the materials and lighting I have always done in Cinema 4D. This client probably wouldnāt notice the difference though ha!
I would also like to mention external renderers like Keyshot.
What you should also consider is how fast you can render something in acceptable quality without much tweaking and how good the material library is. The process is the same for most engines, but you should think about how to reduce the work involved for 0815 images.
Another advantage I can think of is the ability to re-tesselate Nurbs surfaces without creating copies/reimports. This allows you to tweak render accuracy on demand. There was a time when I used Vred. It was a specialized renderer engine for automotive, but it made it quite easy to create high-quality and well performing scenes with very little effort. Blender and Vray are not in this category.
absolutely.. but well we are all in good faith that it finally starts working in the next release.. leaving us hmm a couple of years without a reliable render engine that starts getting sudden and entirely obscure hick ups that need a teeny weeny post from a developer somewhere in the center of oblivion to fix it (or not to fix it eventually), if you can find that teeny weeny post at all.
If youāre already comfortable with Corona, youāll feel right at home with V-Ray for Rhino ā both share the same Chaos DNA and deliver a consistent rendering experience. The integration with Rhino is seamless, allowing you to import your Solidworks models, make adjustments, and render everything within one environment. The learning curve is quite manageable, and youāll benefit from additional features such as GPU rendering, procedural materials, and access to Chaos Cosmos assets. For product visualization, V-Ray provides the same realistic lighting and control you enjoy in Corona, with the added advantage of a fully integrated Rhino workflow.
If you are currently working in Cinema 4D and Corona, you will be able to export your previous scenes using the .vrscene file format and continue working in Rhino & V-Ray or even Blender & V-Ray. This way, thereās no need to redo the entire project or scene from scratch ā you can continue from where you left off.
Please note, as some members have already mentioned, V-Ray for Rhino is not available on macOS
