Using AutoCAD 2008 to render - good idea or bad?

[gbelous]

I am in the process of convincing my office to use Autocad as the primary program for renderings instead of Viz or another similar program. Does anyone feel this is a good idea? We will be upgrading to 2008 in the next few months and with its new features I think rendering with it will be very convienent.

Does anyone have any examples of final presentation rendering work only done in autocad that they can share so I can compare our office work to and see if I am heading in the right direction? I know there are some attachments of work done by users, but is this office work or free time stuff? I would love to get some great samples to show my bosses to prove that Autocad can be very accurate and detailed when it comes to interior and exterior rendering.

Also, does anyone know of any books that can help give tips or advice or how-to's on rendering in Autocad?

Thanks!

[ronie_ernanto]

Some of my attachments is used for presentation, but so far only one I made from A2008, other I made from A2007.
I never use Viz or other, so I can't compare those with AutoCAD, but A2008 have a photometric light feature that I think that's a good upgrade from previous release that will make AutoCAD become a powerful render software.

[gbelous]

How do I access your attachments?

[ronie_ernanto]

How do I access your attachments?

I already post some of my drawing through this forum, you could open my posts and click on the attachment thumbnail.

or with an easy way just click this or this

[gbelous]

Thanks, I came across that cafe the other day, looks incredible, those photometric lights make a huge difference. I shall definitely use that rendering as an example of what can be done. Thank you!

[Opie]

Please note I have *moved* this thread from the AutoCAD Gallery Forum to this one as I feel this particular Forum is a more appropriate place for such a topic.

Thanks,

Richard
AutoCAD Gallery Manager

[cadtag]

Well, Acad is better than nothing, and Acad 2008 is mostly better than earlier versions when it comes to rendering. But.....

The reality is that a dedicated graphics rendering package will do a better job of presentation output than an drafting design package. It's a matter of focusing on a specific area and specializing in graphical presentation instead of adding rendering onto an already complex product. If you want high quality renderings from within AutoCAD, try looking at Accurender from McNeel

If your organization can afford the cost of Viz, it is a better rendering tool than plain-jane Acad. It does more in that arena. It's probably also worthwhile looking at other players in that space, from Maya to Lightwave. For that matter, look at Impression for non-photorealistic presentations. Often an 'art' style presentation graphic will communicate better than a photograph can.