News and information about Twilight Render

Twilight Render for OSX Released!

We are officially releasing Twilight Render 1.5 for OSX. You can download it from here and read more about the release on our user forum.

Version 1.5 Released!

We are releasing 1.5 with some great new features! Download the latest today!

Top Ten 2011 - People's Choice Awards

The votes are in! The top rendered images for 2011 created with the Twilight Render SketchUp* Plugin have been chosen.

Many stunning images were nominated as "unforgettable" by the forum members of Twilight Render. A few "All Star Artists" emerged in the voting.

Does Expensive Wine Taste Better?

You've been duped. We all have. We pick the expensive product figuring "It's got to be better." There's hard evidence according to economists and other scientific studies that expensive wines actually...

Wine Glasses "Balance" - by Massimo

taste worse! However, it is BECAUSE we have paid the higher price that we will make ourselves actually BELIEVE it tastes better.

But can we stay rational enough to think critically about the facts?

So, isn't this the case with most products? Is it true also, say, for render engine software?

Is a render engine that costs $200 twice as good as one that costs $100? And if it costs $800, it's got to be 8x as good... right? Right? Right? Yeah, right.

It's fairly easy to tell the quality of the product when looking at render engines, simply:

Ignore the "buy" page and jump straight to the galleries and features pages.

Now each engine will have a few artists that are exceptional, and a few that are ~ehem~ not so exceptional. So, it's important to "ignore" the best of the best and the worst of the worst images you see done by any engine's users.

What are people saying about Twilight Render plugin for Trimble SketchUp?

What are people saying who bought Twilight Render for only $99? (Students for much less!)

"First of all I want to shout THANK YOU to everyone who gave life to Twilight - this software is pretty much what I had in mind for rendering inside SketchUp, I am amazed!"

~Shura, Stage and club lighting designer, Germany

"For those of you "wandering about" looking for a render program, doing comparisons let me tell you this: We've used them all from the "money is no object" equipment at PIXAR, to 3DS, and V-ray, and all the way down the line.

TWILIGHT by far and away is more bang for the buck than you could ever imagine...you can't beat Twilight...

~Kalli, Leach Industries - Architecture and Planning, USA

"Im a very happy customer indeed!"

Jerome Zaavy, Furniture Designer, Quebec, Canada

"I really enjoy the Twilight material editor and especially the templates, they make the job faster and tweaking them after applying gives good results for my custom made textures."

~Unclebim, Architectural Designer, Bulgaria

"Brilliant - saves a lot of time! Really enjoying the product."

~AndyW

"It really has made my design procedure more enjoyable having some control over the final look."

~sainty

"I searched high and low and TwilightRender was the only plug-in I could find that renders photorealistic animations, so thank you for developing this product and keeping the price nice! I've got some ideas of animations that I want to do, and this software really makes it easy."

~Mary, Graphic and Web designer

"Great product by the way, coming from blender/yafaray I'm really enjoying SketchUp+Twilight"

~pdwyer

"I have a lot to learn about lighting and texturing but Twilight is really easy to use and I'm enjoying my self paced training."

~NVizion

"I am using SU8 with Twilight and have really been enjoying it."

~JHArch

What are people saying about Tech Support for Twilight Render plugin for Trimble SketchUp?

What are people who bought Twilight Render for only $99 saying about Twilight Render Tech Support?

"Wow, fantastic, A1, amazing technical support. Thanks very, very much"

~Charles,from LGM3D, Colorado, USA

"...just want to say support for Twilight is very good. Thorough and competent. Thanks."

~Kix, 3D artist

"Thank you , thank you, thank you! All your suggestions were spot on... and it worked like a charm."

~Timothy Eckmair, Design Principal, HDR ONE COMPANY, Charlotte, NC

"Thanks for the quick help!" & "I absolutely love Twilight Render and use it all the time"

~Dean (a.k.a. Bytor)

A Day at the Natural History Museum

Our favorite scene so far this year was quite a while in the making. As far as we are aware, this is the first time this model has been rendered NATIVELY from WITHIN SKETCHUP! The original scene was created and shared by Alvaro Luna Bautista and Joel Anderson.

Twilight Render Portuguese (BR)

We are pleased to announce that Twilight Render is now available in Portuguese! (BR)
You may download it here.

A huge thank you from Twilight Render to Alex Monteiro, (Lexmonteiro) for his contribution and hard work!

Did you know that with Twilight Render you can also choose from 8 languages?
In addition to English you can choose from...

Magnifying Glass Scene

Someone asked, "If Twilight Render is physically accurate, then you should be able to render something like a magnifying glass...right?"
So we have. And you can download the scene from the Freebies Section of our forum.

Creating the Top 10 Image Award Winner - Where Are We? The Glass Forest

Interview with Twilight Render 3D Artist Oliver Shea

Oliver Shea (known around the forums as Olishea) is the creator of Where Are We? The Glass Forest? an imaginative 3D scene designed with SketchUp and rendered with Twilight Render. We recently had the honor of interviewing him regarding the process of creating this image. Oli had multiple winning images in the Twilight Render First Year Anniversary Celebration Top 10 People's Choice Awards. The winning images and honorable mentions may be seen in the monoslideshow album on Twilight Render Plugin for Google SketchUp's Home Page or in this gallery on our Facebook page.

Creating the Electric Chair - Top 10 Image Award Winner

Interview with Twilight Render 3D Artist Eric Lay

Twilight Render of Electric Chair by Eric Lay

Eric Lay (known around the forums as Boofredlay) is the creator of the Electric Chair image designed as a visual pun with SketchUp and rendered with Twilight Render. We recently had the honor of interviewing him regarding the process of creating this image. Eric had multiple winning images in the Twilight Render First Year Anniversary Celebration Top 10 People's Choice Awards. The winning images and honorable mentions may be seen in the album on Twilight Render Plugin for Google SketchUp's Home Page or in this gallery on our Facebook page.

Rendering SketchUp Sideboard by Dan Stronge - Top 10 Image Award Winner

Interview with Twilight Render 3D Artist Dan Stronge

Render-SketchUp-Sideboard-Stronge-Twilight

Dan Stronge (known around the forums as Dan_ddd) is the creator of this Sideboard model he designed and built in Google SketchUp and rendered with Twilight Render. We recently had the honor of interviewing him regarding the process of creating this image. Dan has created several incredible kitchens and renderings which may be found in the Twilight Render Showcase Gallery.

If you would like to see the other 9 award winning images, refer to this Twilight Render 2011 Top 10 Images article.