Feedback from newish, knowledgable user

[lekjaz]

I am a busy architect and designer with almost 30 yrs exp. Since the first public beta, SketchUp has been my go-to tool for figuring out space and form issues before committing them to construction documents or fabrication. I'm two weeks in to Twilight Render (coming from Podium - wtf was I thinking...), and after completing the tutorials and starting to render models, I'm genuinely impressed.

From what I can see, this tool has all the rendering power and stamina of any tool that I've used, and I've literally used the best tools out there. Earlier in my career I did 3D modeling and rendering for major architectural and furniture companies. SketchUp is far more intuitive for modeling than any of those tools, but to date the rendering was totally *meh*, so to find a full fledged radiosity renderer/ray tracer that works inside SketchUp has kind of blown my mind. There are quirky things that could improve the UX, but they seem nit picky compared to the value that this tool delivers.

One bit of feedback that would help my workflow immensely is to offer a legit component, lighting, and material library browser with the Twilight material settings created. I'm already using the Red Carpet section heavily, but downloading random components and materials from a bulletin board could be so much better with a plugin-specific browser. 3D Warehouse is great, but let's face it - you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find good components. Even if you find some gems, they still need their materials fiddled with and that is the least fun part of my workflow. Skatter has a good browser, and so did Podium (which I still use). Just a suggestion.

Thanks for making such a great tool!

[ntxdave]

Even though my laptop died and I have not been able to replace it (yet), I agree that Twilight Render is a great tool and the support staff (Fletch and Chris) are great. I am hoping that I will be able to replace the laptop sometime soon and that we will find a way to recover the files I was working on.

I think TR also has some good tools and I try to recommend it any chance I get.

[Fletch]

I am a busy architect and designer with almost 30 yrs exp. Since the first public beta, SketchUp has been my go-to tool for figuring out space and form issues before committing them to construction documents or fabrication. I'm two weeks in to Twilight Render (coming from Podium - wtf was I thinking...), and after completing the tutorials and starting to render models, I'm genuinely impressed.

From what I can see, this tool has all the rendering power and stamina of any tool that I've used, and I've literally used the best tools out there. Earlier in my career I did 3D modeling and rendering for major architectural and furniture companies. SketchUp is far more intuitive for modeling than any of those tools, but to date the rendering was totally *meh*, so to find a full fledged radiosity renderer/ray tracer that works inside SketchUp has kind of blown my mind. There are quirky things that could improve the UX, but they seem nit picky compared to the value that this tool delivers.

One bit of feedback that would help my workflow immensely is to offer a legit component, lighting, and material library browser with the Twilight material settings created. I'm already using the Red Carpet section heavily, but downloading random components and materials from a bulletin board could be so much better with a plugin-specific browser. 3D Warehouse is great, but let's face it - you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find good components. Even if you find some gems, they still need their materials fiddled with and that is the least fun part of my workflow. Skatter has a good browser, and so did Podium (which I still use). Just a suggestion.

Thanks for making such a great tool!

Thanks for your feedback.

The most recent release of Twilight Render Pro (released same time with SketchUp 22) v2.16.2 offers an auto-download tool. This will give you all the light components, and some other items. We will continue to fill that download with every component Twilight Render has available for Pro users.

Be sure you are using Fastforward Denoise add-on for Twilight Pro V2 to get your Easy 09 renderings faster than Easy 04-07 renderings. (assuming you have a good GPU(>/=4GBVram)/CPU (>/=8 threads)) I see you are on a Mac, and they can be "specific" (being diplomatic) in implementing some features.

Running Twilight Render on an M1 processor in general requires that you run SketchUp using Rosetta.

Assuming you have done so and Twilight Render works, you should be able to run FastForward Denoising in CPU mode. In case you need more info on the Denoiser in CPU mode, you can read about it in our tutorial here: https://www.twilightrender.com/index.ph ... -denoising

The Denoiser will not work in GPU mode. It can only run in real-time GPU mode on Windows with supported NVidia hardware.

[lekjaz]

Thanks Fletch! You're all over the boards with helpful tips and your video series is first class. I can see you are committed to making TW the top SU renderer and supporting it's community of users.

I will definitely try these suggestions. Thanks again!

[ntxdave]

Thanks Fletch! You're all over the boards with helpful tips and your video series is first class. I can see you are committed to making TW the top SU renderer and supporting it's community of users.

I will definitely try these suggestions. Thanks again!