V-ray for rhino and rhino variations

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello Orchid CADsmiths,

After putting it off for far too long I’ve been working on my
rendering skills. At this point I use Flamingo and Penguin 2.0. A
client of mine just sent me some info on V-ray with a note, “wouldn’t
it be great to have renderings like these?” I’m not thrilled about
buying a new program, but rendering is important for me in selling my
custom work.

The question is, how different is V-ray from something like
Flamingo? If I spend a lot of time fine tuning my Flamingo
capability, will it be wasted when I move to V-ray, should I make the
move, sooner than later? Is anything coming that will make V-ray
obsolete within a year? I don’t want to spend all that money just to
have it replaced by something better in 6 mo. Money is just too
tight.

Another question has to do with the difference between Rhinojewel
and Rhinogold. I have been using Techgems for about 2 years and
really liked it. My dongle was damaged and they recommended that I
upgrade to Rhinojewel, however, Rhinogold is another possibility.
Again, I’m looking for something that will hold me over for a couple
of years and not be obsolete in a short period of time.

Also, if I’m going to be spending all this money, I’d like to get
some opinions on T-splines for Rhino. It looks great, but a lot of
these programs have no training manual and lots of on-line tutorials,
which doesn’t do me a lot of good. I like the tutorials, but need
more documentation. Anyone have any ratings on T-splines?

Thanks much,
Larry

2

You might ask this question of Heath Satow - publicsculpture.com as
he uses Rhino A LOT and may be able to give you some pointers. His
works are large but he knows Rhino inside and out.

He is on a different metal site but I am sure he would be happy to
help you out.

John Dach

3

I have both RhinoGold and RhinoJewel I find that they are both
similar There are some minor differences. They both have some bugs
but RhinoJewel is basically an upgrade to TechGems and the more
mature product so it is more fully functional. You can probably
stick with the one you are more familiar with and not miss out on
anything in their current versions.

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

4

Hi Larry,

I use only the basic rhino to build my models I find the builders
like rhinojewel and rhinogold much too cumbersome,

But I do use v-ray to render my models, it’s the best program i have
found if you want to just take it out of the box and render,(v-ray
express that is) it has a ground plane and good textures, diamonds
are not perfect but if you tweak them a bit you can get a really good
result.

Also one thing that I have found very useful for rendering, if you
go to the rhino website there is a plug-in called
_ExtractSoftenedEdgeMesh this creates an stl of your model then
rounds all the edges .05mm, so as not to give the sterile flat hard
edges that look unrealistic in your renderings.

Hope this helps
Brad

5

Hi Larry,

In answer to your question about transferring your rendering skills
from Flamingo to V-Ray, the rendering tools of Flamingo aren’t
similar to V-Ray’s, but you’ll be able to take away a general
understanding of 3d rendering principles from Flamingo.

Compared to what else is available right now, V-Ray produces some of
the best jewelry renderings I’ve seen to date. Maxwell is also good,
but the rendering times are compartively very slow.

So, it’s doubtful anything will surpass V-Ray in the near future. If
you’re ready to take the leap, I guess now’s as good a time as any.

Having said that, there are some other rendering apps to consider.

If you’re concerned about a learning curve (which V-Ray will
present), take a look at Hypershot.

http://tinyurl.com/5am98h

The “web version” is inexpensive and if you know Flamingo, you’ll be
up and running in Hypershot in about ten minutes. It’s great for
emailing works-in-progress to customers since it’s so fast and easy
to use.

If cost is a major concern and you don’t mind longer rendering
times, you might try Indigo. Like Maxwell it’s aphysically based,
unbiased renderer.

The best thing about Indigo is that it’s free and produces good
quality renderings but the downside is that you must first export an
obj to Blender, since no one has developed a Rhino-to-Indigo exporter
for Rhino 4.0.

http://tinyurl.com/5pgl5v

Another one to keep your eye open for is nXt for Rhino. A release of
a beta version has been promised but a date has not yet been
announced.

Here are a few renderings I’ve done with the alpha version.

http://tinyurl.com/6zcm76
http://tinyurl.com/6jvqwl
http://tinyurl.com/5tt96p

Like Hypershot, it’s fast and simple to use, and if they can develop
discrete rendering environments for it has the potential
to rival V-Ray.

I’m also curious about Kerkythea. I don’t know of any CAD jewelers
using it and the renderings I’ve seen of close-up shiny objects tend
to be noisy looking.

http://tinyurl.com/258jbq

Shoot me an email off -list if you want to discuss rendering… it’s
one of my favorite subjects! :slight_smile:

Regards,
Jesse
http://jdkjewelry3d.ganoksin.com/blogs/