Outdoor Kitchen Rendering

[FOKitchens]

I have been using Sketchup for a few years now to design custom outdoor kitchens for my clients. I only started to use Twilight render a few days ago, and I have attached some photos of my first render project. I have recreated my client's patio space, and then added in my outdoor kitchen design. I have definitely found Twilight to be very intuitive and I'm enjoying the results as I'm sure my clients will as well. I am curious though as to the ideal computer setup to run twilight most efficiently. It definitely takes quite a while for my computer to produce a solid rendering and as I have already been thinking that it's about time to get a new computer I'm interested in any suggestions some more experienced users might have. And, of course, any suggestions to improve my use of Twilight are more than welcome as well.

[Fletch]

You can see other computers and compare their render speed to yours here using Twilight Render Benchmark scene: Subject: V2 How Fast Are You - Official Twilight Benchmark Scene - Bauhaus Lamp

Your example rendering above looks like Easy 08 is the best choice.

Keeping camera FOV at between 70 to 55 is best for this type of rendering, IMHO. Check out other outdoor kitchen photos online that you like, and try to match their camera angles when you take your shots.

The plaster material appears too light, I would darken it a bit to look more realistic.

Make sure curved surfaces are smoothed properly in SU and make sure they are inside of a group or component. Loose geometry of curved surfaces is not reported by SU properly and is not rendered as smooth.

For polished granite try Polished Stone template set shininess even up to 2000 (default is 600), or even try Ceramic template.

For glass block material: Subject: Glass Block / Glass Brick