Hi Anthony,
You are getting into a topic that might seem practical and objective to you, but for reasons inexplicable to most, the rendering experts treat this shit as religion.
After trying all these tools, and having worked with large studios with people at various skill levels I would tell you that all McNeel rendering solutions (Rhino, Penguin, Flamingo, Flamigo NTX, Brazil, Toucan, Neon, Cycles, maybe more but I can’t even remember) are a waste of time.
There are also esoteric solutions that are completely impractical for everyday use: Maxwell is the best example. Only useful if you live with your parents an you have no deadlines, and you love the slow-rendering movement as much as the slow-food movement.
Octane is really nice for fast accurate result but it’s badly integrated with Rhino. Very cryptic to use too. And have a very small user-base.
I think Vray, but only the new Version 3.0 is fantastic. A lot of nerds and experts are bitching about the changes from Vray 2.0 but that’s because their jobs, lives, and priorities are very different that yours. Now is a lot more intuitive, has a good material library and is acceptably well integrated with Rhino. You can run in in both CPU or GPU (if you don;t know what that meas just ignore it for now, just know that’s flexible in terms of hardware).
Keyshot is also great, a lot easier to use that Vray and 10X-50X better in terms of usability than all the other stuff discussed here. The render engine (actual level of render quality) is not as good as Vray, but it’s close for product stuff. Vray on the other hard is excellent for everything: products, architecture, interiors, complex materials…).
Also Keyshot is NOT integrated with Rhino, it’s a one click export and then you have ways to update your scene as you make modeling changes, but it’s not bulletproof. Pricewise Keyshot (full version) is about 2X of Vray I think, neither are cheap, but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, more expensive than a cheap/free rendered that will suck your time and expect you the user to do all the work. Even making your own materials and dialing all kind of esoteric settings like an animal. That’s what many nerds that make these products or who hang around these forums don’t understand, and I think they never will: this is unacceptable.
In short, if you can afford either: take a look at the new Vray and Keyshot. I cannot even tell you which one is better over the other. I have both and I use both.
I thought I would be using more Octane, but after getting my hands on Vray 3 that changed things for me. That’s because I want more integration with Rhino. Keyshot on the other hand is not integrated with Rhino but it works very well directly with files from any other platform so if you use other modelers like Solidworks, Fusion360, etc. you can also use your Keyshot there.
Another big advantage of Keyshot is SceneSets, ViewSets and animation (animation in full version only). You can see them explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsbAnGhwSBg and deeply explained here: https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=14100.0
Vray for Rhino doesn’t have any scene/variation manager, but it might not heed thsi if a new prototype tool in Rhino V6 called snapshots turns out well: Snapshots plugin prototype in the latest WIP (but there’s a lot of work to do there still, I’m mostly hopeful but not counting on it being done and working well, sorry for my skepticism, but I’ve been around too long to ever count on anything not fully finished)
But if you have simple setups, and have a very static use of materials Octane can be very good too once you get your template scene the way you like it.
I also use a lot straight screenshots from the Rhino viewport so that’s why the ‘slightly better than viewport’ or sometimes even worse by some of the other McNeel products discuss here make absolutely no sense to me. I think the OpenGl quality and different viewmodes are making realtime capture way more useful and frequent than ever before.
I hope this helps,
G