Render Revit Model with new Twilight Render Engine

[FletchMT]

Revit's render engine limits my 8 core machine to 2 threads :| Looks great, but... :?:

I made this little tutorial, thought it may be helpful to all the talented Revit folks here...
****
Revit to SketchUp to Twilight Render in 5 Steps (http://twilightrender.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=376&p=2541&hilit=revit#p2541)
****

There's a NEW RENDER PLUGIN FOR SKETCHUP called "Twilight Render" (http://twilightrender.com) that for $59 intro price will render on ALL PROCESSORS in your machine - for no extra charge.

High quality, very fast, simple to learn...(in comparison to learning how to build a family properly in Revit for instance ;) )

Tons of Material Templates, IES lights, HDR lighting, DOF, Auto-Clay Rendering, many Render Setting Presets, - pretty much all the advanced features you could want if you are an advanced render guru... + Biased AND 3 UnBiased Progressive render methods! :shock:

Intermediate users of SketchUp can learn to use it in 30mins or less with free video tutorials (http://twilightrender.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=6&Itemid=56).

My favorite part is that you can use ALL THE PROCESSORS you bought when you paid for your computer. A Corei7 (8 threads) machine can be bought at NewEgg for $970 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229072) in the States! But Revit will limit its use to 2...

Here's a rendering I made with Twilight Render Plugin for SketchUp of a 1920s school auditorium renovation... (they wanted black back-painted glass)
http://www.twilightrender.com/users/Fletch/Images/TwilightRenderAnnouncement/Auditorium-TwilightRender-web.jpg

Hope you can find this useful for one of your projects.

[truevis]

...Here's a rendering I made with Twilight Render Plugin for SketchUp of a 1920s school auditorium renovation... (they wanted black back-painted glass)...

Looks promising. What was the render time & 'puter hardware for that image?

[twiceroadsfool]

Looks promising. What was the render time & 'puter hardware for that image?

Looks like a great image. So thats a Revit model that went through this process? How much post was done in PS afterwards?

[iankids]

Hi Fletch,

Render looks good. I have used the demo version a couple of times now & I must say it is very easy to use (simpler than learning Kerkythea itself), and gives quite good results.

Even though twilight is very inexpensive, I am hanging out until Thea Render is available for demo, as, from what is posted in the forum, it looks like it will be sensational.

Ian

[FletchMT]

Even though twilight is very inexpensive, I am hanging out until Thea Render is available
Ian
:lol:
Thea is a completely different engine (I'm on the Alpha team for Thea), and I have no idea when it will be available for commercial purchase... but can say not likely terribly soon... :(

Twilight is available today, is rock-bottom-cheap for such an incredible program, and is so fun to use that, well... it's up to you. ;) If it were me, I'd buy both for this price... :D Thea will also have a completely different interface.

@True and Twice - it's been many moons since I did that image... it was early beta phase for Twilight Render... so can't really say. It was rendered in an Unbiased mode (progressive) overnight on a quad core at work. That quad cost $6000 three years ago, now I have 8 threads for $1000... great time to get a new machine.

Post processing for image above was just putting 2D people in using a Pshop plugin for RPCs, and some slight tone mapping/glow or something... basically this is straight Twilight output above.

I don't recall if that was a Revit model in the example pic. above, I have one that was certainly a Revit model rendered with Twilight here:
http://twilightrender.com/users/Fletch/Images/TwilightRenderAnnouncement/RevitToTwilight_Alternates.jpg
Only post-pro was some tone mapping / glow

[Scott D Davis]

Couple of things: Revit's Academy Award Winning mental ray rendering engine uses up to four cores, not two.

Secondly, by the time you get done exporting to DWG, importing into Sketchup, and reapplying all materials by layer to a sketchup model that probably won't handle large amounts of geometry as a DWG import without coming to a crawl, I could be done rendering in Revit, where all the materials are already applied and I simply hit the Render button.

They do look nice, but so do Revit's rendered images and I never have to leave my application.

[truevis]

..Secondly, by the time you get done exporting to DWG, importing into Sketchup, and reapplying all materials by layer to a sketchup model that probably won't handle large amounts of geometry as a DWG import without coming to a crawl, I could be done rendering in Revit, where all the materials are already applied and I simply hit the Render button...
I kind-of agree with you. But just as Adesk has a $5k solution for getting to the next step in rendering, this $.06k method might be useful for some.

BTW, these features wouldn't hurt to have inside Revit's renderer:


• Continue Working in/Saving Models While Rendering
• Multiple Render Methods

• Biased (multiple) (non-progressive)
• Unbiased (3) (progressive)
• Multithread to Unlimited Number of Processors.
(1,2,4,8, or 16 cores in your machine? No problem. No extra charge!)
• Alpha Mask for Selected Object(s)
• Render Selected Object(s)
• Parallel, Spherical, or Physical Cameras
• Physically accurate materials, Fresnel reflections, Blurry Metal Reflections, Sub Surface Scattering, Volumetrics and more.


• Depth of Field (DOF)
• Image Based Lighting (HDR), Use an HDR to light your scene, or Render your own spherical HDR images
• Interactive Tonemapping = Real Time Interactive Exposure Adjustment
• Render to Pass (works with selected object too!) such as Alpha Mask, Depth Render, Diffuse Pass,Specular Pass
• Render fly-thru animations and more with little fuss
• Render Animated Lights, Sun&Sky, or Objects Object animations created with SketchyPhysics or ProperAnimation for SketchUp are supported. (these plugins are available separately from their authors.)
• Render Quick Concept Images or get as Photo-Realistic as you want to make it.
• Render Edges of Faces and you keep full control of the edge thickness

[truevis]

Does post-Accurender Revit still add material definitions in extended entity data in its DWG exports? There was an AutoLISP function that was in the AccuRender for AutoCAD demo version that would return the AR material name associated with an object. How might that be accomplished in the current Revit version's DWG exports?

The materials are much more useful than just the objects' layers.

(If I find it, I'll report back.)

[aaronrumple]

Does post-Accurender Revit still add material definitions in extended entity data in its DWG exports?

Yes and no. When going from Revit 2010 to Max 2010 using dwg, there seems to be an issue with real world mapping scale. It is easily fixed, but a pita. I haven't had a chance to see if there is an official resolution. The materials do come over and same with FBX.

[Steven Jensen]

Twilight Rocks!

I just downloaded the trial version and installed it. I ran it on a Revit 2009 or 2010 model that had previously been imported into SketchUp so I could do Photo Matching. All of the Revit materials came over with the import and rendered fine as you can see in the attachement. I don't like the green siding, I'm going to try and see if I can modify the material.

This will be very handy to our designers that want to show the revit model in an easy photo match rendering.

Steve

[Scott D Davis]

So bascially you want Max, for free, inside of Revit. That would be nice!


I kind-of agree with you. But just as Adesk has a $5k solution for getting to the next step in rendering, this $.06k method might be useful for some.

BTW, these features wouldn't hurt to have inside Revit's renderer:


• Continue Working in/Saving Models While Rendering
• Multiple Render Methods

• Biased (multiple) (non-progressive)
• Unbiased (3) (progressive)
• Multithread to Unlimited Number of Processors.
(1,2,4,8, or 16 cores in your machine? No problem. No extra charge!)
• Alpha Mask for Selected Object(s)
• Render Selected Object(s)
• Parallel, Spherical, or Physical Cameras
• Physically accurate materials, Fresnel reflections, Blurry Metal Reflections, Sub Surface Scattering, Volumetrics and more.


• Depth of Field (DOF)
• Image Based Lighting (HDR), Use an HDR to light your scene, or Render your own spherical HDR images
• Interactive Tonemapping = Real Time Interactive Exposure Adjustment
• Render to Pass (works with selected object too!) such as Alpha Mask, Depth Render, Diffuse Pass,Specular Pass
• Render fly-thru animations and more with little fuss
• Render Animated Lights, Sun&Sky, or Objects Object animations created with SketchyPhysics or ProperAnimation for SketchUp are supported. (these plugins are available separately from their authors.)
• Render Quick Concept Images or get as Photo-Realistic as you want to make it.
• Render Edges of Faces and you keep full control of the edge thickness

[dhurtubise]

Well you can always get the new package that includes max in the suite while marketing thinks about it but .... i wouldn'thold my breath ;-)

[FletchMT]

You're right SketchUp (free) + Twilight ($59 introductory offer) = great deal. It's an affordable and easy-to-learn tool, and takes almost no space on your hard drive... very light programs.

No one is suggesting that Twilight could replace Mray for Revit, but it's always nice to have an extra tool when it's needed. You can use Revit to render some things, but when needed, have Twilight in your 'back pocket'. ;) Twilight does not save an extra scene file, so all you have to share around the office is the same small .skp model... simple.

Exporting a model from Revit to SketchUp is normal work flow for many architects... it's just easier and looks nicer to walk a client thru a SketchUp model on a laptop than it is to do this in Revit. The textures of the materials show up and everything. :) The workflow is not much different than exporting to FBX and Max.

I have 8 threads in my machine... and Twilight renders amazingly fast with all 8 of them. New 16 cores are not that expensive, either.

Thank you Truevis and Aise for your wisdom, talents, and vision. Truevis, this is actually a very interesting idea you have, a .dwg exporter that keeps the mat. def. would be great for everyone... I am wondering why it wouldn't do so already? I believe, actually, there is a 'for pay' .fbx reader for SketchUp somewhere... I can get back to you about this. I think I saw something about a .fbx to .3ds converter somewhere as well... but man, that's a lot of exporting/converting... kinda loses the fun. :D

[twiceroadsfool]

So bascially you want Max, for free, inside of Revit. That would be nice!

I think a lot of us would settle just for the unlimited Core support. Even without Renderfarming, it would be an improvement. Max IS great, but for a lot of projects its an unnecessary step, process/render time notwithstanding.

[Steven Jensen]

Here's what I got out of the Revit into SketchUP rendered with Twilight, fixed in photo editor.

This was very quick and easy to learn. I had to get a license of Twilight Render to get rid of the watermarks. For the image here I didn't have to remap any of the materials at all, they came right out of Revit into SketchUP Pro. I changed the siding to a natural tan color instead of the green, but that was actually by editing the mat image saturation.

This is a great solution for when we don't want to take up the only 3ds license in the office for a bit of quick work. Twilight is easy to learn and the price can't be beat! I do applaud the rework done for the 3ds materials too, no more Bling, zfw, and spleens to worry about unless I want to.

Steve

[truevis]

Here's my first effort, which I combined with learning to use SketchUp a little. It's a wine cellar that I put outdoors for the rendering -- yeah, silly.:beer:

I really like having my spherical skies back.

[mthurnauer]

Scott,
Sure it is fine to not offer every single rendering feature of Max inside of revit, but there are a couple of items that seem to be stripped out that are just ridiculous. Almost every major rendering application has the ability to batch render or render farm. The fact that you cannot queue up a bunch of views and have Revit render and save them costs me a lot of money. I have to use someone to basically watch paint dry at a cost of $100 an hour to load views, render, and save them.

[twiceroadsfool]

mth-

There is a batch render app floating around that basically gives you a GUI to set up what you are after. I have it downloaded here, but havent had a chance to try it out. But its on the forums somewhere, cuz i found it here.

I also agree with your statement. I dont need EVERY facet of max, but limiting some things just stinks. ANd yes, i know its not always intentional, and it has to do with licensing (with MR) and on and on.

But as mentioned, batch rendering (and using more cores) in my VERY humble opinion, should be available in Native Revit. Those two features alone are not going to strip people from using Max. Or, expanding on that. If Revit MR cant use more cores, let the application use a pop out window for the rendering, while the user goes back to something else on their other screen. That would be amazing.

Back on topic (and im NOT ragging on anyones work here), many of the images that have popped up look at or lesser than the MR images we get out of Revit. I know amazing things are possible with Twilight, but i know amazing things are possible with MR as well. The OP's first couple of images are great, but before i PERSONALLY was really convinced, id want to know Model Specs, Computer Specs, Render times, EXACT process, including ANY tweaks in Sketchup, etc.

Otherwise, the workflow to Sketchup to 3rd party isnt all that appealing to me... But thats only my crummy-recession-two-cents. :)

[TroyGates]

Here is the batch render tool mentioned.

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2009/08/revit-batch-renderer-beta-20.html

[grayzb681]

Looks interesting, but how many people render in Revit. Don't most export it to 3D Studio Max to get a good quality rendering at half the time Revit takes to render it using Mental Ray? I agree that this package might be a quick solution, especially when you meet with clients and need to adjust something on the fly.

[twiceroadsfool]

Looks interesting, but how many people render in Revit. Don't most export it to 3D Studio Max to get a good quality rendering at half the time Revit takes to render it using Mental Ray? I agree that this package might be a quick solution, especially when you meet with clients and need to adjust something on the fly.


Tons of people render in Revit, my entire office included. Because there is high end, and then there is very-close-to-high-end-that-can-render-in-an-hour-or-two.

Were often tweaking stuff til the LAST SECOND in Revit, as were working on design charettes. Then we hit the render button. Heck, sometimes, we even hit the cancel button (or have a discussion about it) based on how far the rendering is, if we think of something we want to change and rerender before the meeting.

Sometimes faster rendering is a non-issue, if the export/import/fiddle session takes longer than the rendering. NOT EVERY rendering takes 8+ hours. revit puts out a fairly respectable image in short order, with MR.


Off topic, im also finding it suspect that so many "brand new users" are suddenly here preachign about this. I really mean no disrepect, and i hope no one finds this offensive, but i cant help but wonder if Twilights Marketing department registered here.

Again, i dont ask to be deconstructive, but if were arguing the pro's and con's or viability of something as an alternative solution (a conversation i think we all enjoy), its a much different conversation if were doing it with people who are out to sell a product. Just my two cents.

[TroyGates]

If you have a system with 8 cores, you probably run 64bit and have lots of memory. Start up 2 sessions of Revit, 1 for rendering and 1 for continued working.

[truevis]

Does post-Accurender Revit still add material definitions in extended entity data in its DWG exports? ...(If I find it, I'll report back.)

Yes, material information gets exported in DXF (and presumably DWG). It's in Xdata. Here is a snippet:


300
<Material id="RevitMaterialDefinition1000" app="REVIT" Background="0" Backlight="1" Sample="0" Tiling="0">^J<LinearUnits unitType="foot" unitScale="1.0"/>^J<ArchitecturalMaterial name="Concrete - Cast-in-Place Lightweight Concrete">^J<ArchTemplateParameters
300
name="Concrete - Cast-in-Place Lightweight Concrete" classid_A="2008828122" classid_B="14503598">^J</ArchTemplateParameters>^J<ArchMatParameters>^J<ArchDiffuseColor>^J<RGBf r="0.7451" g="0.7451" b="0.7451"/>^J</ArchDiffuseColor>^J<ArchIndexOfRefraction>2.0000</
300
ArchIndexOfRefraction>^J<ArchTransparency>0.0000</ArchTransparency>^J<ArchLuminance>0.0000</ArchLuminance>^J</ArchMatParameters>^J</ArchitecturalMaterial>^J</Material>^J

Thus, the data are there for someone to translate when importing into another rendering system via DWG/DXF.

Going through every element and changing its Layer to ArchitecturalMaterial name from its Xdata wouldn't be too hard in AutoLISP.

[truevis]

...Were often tweaking stuff til the LAST SECOND in Revit, as were working on design charettes. Then we hit the render button. Heck, sometimes, we even hit the cancel button (or have a discussion about it) based on how far the rendering is, if we think of something we want to change and rerender before the meeting...

And that's the best argument for knowing how to render well inside Revit. Practically every time I see a rendering of something I want to change something about it.

A few more features turned on (even ones that were in pre-2009*) would really help. Too bad having a more full-featured renderer in Revit conflicts with sales of other Autodesk products.

* Background images, spherical rendering,...

[trombe]

Tons of people render in Revit, my entire office included. Because there is high end, and then there is very-close-to-high-end-that-can-render-in-an-hour-or-two.

Were often tweaking stuff til the LAST SECOND in Revit, as were working on design charettes. Then we hit the render button. Heck, sometimes, we even hit the cancel button (or have a discussion about it) based on how far the rendering is, if we think of something we want to change and rerender before the meeting.

Sometimes faster rendering is a non-issue, if the export/import/fiddle session takes longer than the rendering. NOT EVERY rendering takes 8+ hours. revit puts out a fairly respectable image in short order, with MR.


Off topic, im also finding it suspect that so many "brand new users" are suddenly here preachign about this. I really mean no disrepect, and i hope no one finds this offensive, but i cant help but wonder if Twilights Marketing department registered here.

Again, i dont ask to be deconstructive, but if were arguing the pro's and con's or viability of something as an alternative solution (a conversation i think we all enjoy), its a much different conversation if were doing it with people who are out to sell a product. Just my two cents.

Yeah, ....
while I am very happy to see new rendering players with Revit plug-ins come onto the market, (Artlantis, nxt Render etc.) Twilight does not look better than Artlantis nor nxt and without meaning to sound derogatory, from these images is a way off MR and its best feature would seem to be the price.

If Fryrender, VRay and Maxwell come on to the Revit plug-in market for instance, the Revit rendering landscape, might look quite different and with real time technologies coming on stream, there has to be pressure on to improve all offerings including MR.
Twilight seems to have an interesting techno offering but I am unconvinced y the galleries as yet.

regards
trombe.

[dmoodydesign]

Tons of people render in Revit, my entire office included. Because there is high end, and then there is very-close-to-high-end-that-can-render-in-an-hour-or-two.

Were often tweaking stuff til the LAST SECOND in Revit, as were working on design charettes. Then we hit the render button. Heck, sometimes, we even hit the cancel button (or have a discussion about it) based on how far the rendering is, if we think of something we want to change and rerender before the meeting.

Sometimes faster rendering is a non-issue, if the export/import/fiddle session takes longer than the rendering. NOT EVERY rendering takes 8+ hours. revit puts out a fairly respectable image in short order, with MR.


Off topic, im also finding it suspect that so many "brand new users" are suddenly here preachign about this. I really mean no disrepect, and i hope no one finds this offensive, but i cant help but wonder if Twilights Marketing department registered here.

Again, i dont ask to be deconstructive, but if were arguing the pro's and con's or viability of something as an alternative solution (a conversation i think we all enjoy), its a much different conversation if were doing it with people who are out to sell a product. Just my two cents.

I have to agree. This whole post reeks of company involvement.

The user posted renders aren't winning me over either. I have produced better ones with one or two materials spec'd in a design development project in just about an hour. For that matter, new users to Revit have done much better in less than a day with rendering in 2010. The only time that I have seen Max used to render instead of Revit was for a competition my last office did. They needed the high quality animation it could produce, but otherwise we never used anything other then Revit. Having the ability to immediately render what we are working on and subsequently change it are a bigger benefit than anything.

[truevis]

I have to agree. This whole post reeks of company involvement.

The user posted renders aren't winning me over either. I have produced better ones with one or two materials spec'd in a design development project in just about an hour...

Hey, I am a beginner with that renderer. It's fun to learn something new.

Reeking of company involvement? Which company? Do you smell a vast conspiracy of $59 renderers?

I think everyone agrees it's better to be able to render inside Revit. If there's a feature that we need but isn't there, we have to do something differently.

Attached is a scene I did last night with an HDR sky probe plus sun. Notice the depth-of-field effect in the foreground.

[mthurnauer]

I like the workflow of rendering inside revit, because if begins to merge rendering for presentation with the production of construction documents. I like the ability to create a material and assign a material tag to it and a keynote. The documents of the design and the renderings will match. The batch rendering issue is big and I will have to give the plug-in a try. The other item with MR that would be a big improvement is greater global control of material properties for rendering. With the increase in computing power, it is possible to create materials that have incredibly accurate properties, such as bi-directional radiance distribution, sub-surface scattering, etc. This may make glossy and semi-gloss surfaces that are fantastic, but you really need to render at very high quality=major time to get pleasing results. Usually these effects do not add much value to a rendering. For example, Lightscape could produce great renderings by having accurate light distribution, but it had none of these complex algorithms. I would like to have global control to turn off these types of effects for all glossy and semi-gloss materials.

[dmoodydesign]

Hey, I am a beginner with that renderer. It's fun to learn something new.

Reeking of company involvement? Which company? Do you smell a vast conspiracy of $59 renderers?

I think everyone agrees it's better to be able to render inside Revit. If there's a feature that we need but isn't there, we have to do something differently.

Attached is a scene I did last night with an HDR sky probe plus sun. Notice the depth-of-field effect in the foreground.

I didn't say conspiracy, but FletchMT sure is pushing hard with his sales pitch. What company would I be talking about anyway?

Plus, in his own words the glory shot isn't even Revit.


I don't recall if that was a Revit model in the example pic.

trombe and twiceroadsfool said the same thing as me and you didn't take offense, so let's not get into it.

[aaronrumple]

And that's the best argument for knowing how to render well inside Revit. Practically every time I see a rendering of something I want to change something about it.


And that's why I render outside Revit. I can incremental region render in 3DS and not have to follow up with photoshop compositing. So when I need to fix a small area - I just update the model and region render over the last image - patches right in. A very big time saver. Not to mention I can often re-use the same irradiance map and light cache. Cuts rendering time more than half not having to reprocess lights.

Sending an update from Revit to 3DS is only a minute or so exercise. My 3300 px wide renderings run 2 hours on average with 20 cores. So for me - processing is the bottle neck - not setup.

[twiceroadsfool]

Hey, I am a beginner with that renderer. It's fun to learn something new.

Reeking of company involvement? Which company? Do you smell a vast conspiracy of $59 renderers?


First, since i started the criticism, let me say im not calling any of the Renderings lousy. I enjoy exploring new tools as well, and i think its great that we have enough options now that there is plenty to play with. I commend you guys for all trying it out, etc.

Second, since i threw the flag up about sales pitch vs. end users, i did so not to start a flame war, but because i think its necessary to preface WHICH conversation we are having. There is "developer talking to end users baout their new tool and about how it works, what works, what doesnt, etc," and then there is "End users discussing new tools they find, and what they like and what they dont, etc."

Its just like discussions about Revit that include or exclude Factory workers. I admire the Factory and all that they have given us and me for Revit and architecture, but if a conversation/post starts on the Railing tool, and someone comes in from the factory completely praising the existing Railing tool, im going to feverishly discount that opinion is towing the company line. :)

Thats the ONLY reason i mentioned the anomoly for the new members and the coincidental praise of the product. No offense meant. :)

[truevis]

Twilight is threatening to have network rendering in a future release. Meanwhile, there appears to be some workaround that uses Twilight as a front end for Kerkythea (freeware).
"Built in SketchUp Scene set up with Twilight Render plugin for SketchUp (http://twilightrender.com/) then export> Net Rendered with Kerkythea "
Check out the images at http://www.kerkythea.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8295 - wicked! (The have post-production in them, though.)

Goes to show that technical knowledge is the most valuable asset. There are so many tools out there that we only have to know how to use, to do all sorts of things well.

[FletchMT]

I have to agree. This whole post reeks of company involvement.
:|

On this forum I have found and followed other commercial links to other tutorials for Revit where the user is selling a subscription to their site which only sells tutorials for Revit... basically they provided a free tutorial so they could sell me more tutorials. That's fair.


No one is suggesting that Twilight could replace Mray for Revit, but it's always nice to have an extra tool when it's needed. You can use Revit to render some things, but when needed, have Twilight in your 'back pocket'.

So, in all fairness, why does it matter even if I am a member of the development team of Twilight Render in order for me to post a link to a tutorial I made to help Revit Users? There's nothing "sneaky" here. :|

Who is the "FletchMT" person?
I'm a nice guy. :D
I'm an AutoDesk customer (for 15 years)
I'm an advanced AutoCAD user.
I'm a Revit user.
I'm a long-time Viz/Max user.
I'm a Mental Ray user (http://www.vizdepot.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=2082&cat=500&page=2) and have much respect and admiration for it.
I'm a registered architect in Wisconsin.
I'm a designer.
I'm a 3D visualization specialist with 15 years experience
I have experience in 3d modeling in many major commercial packages.
I'm an advanced user of SketchUp (http://forums.sketchucation.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=211).
I'm a member of the development teams for Kerkythea (http://www.kerkythea.net/phpBB2/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=330) and Thea Render (http://www.thearender.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=66&sid=b6b53e6be559e3541ab255a4a30051d3).

Do I have a lot to learn from the talented folks here? Absolutely. :D

"must be rich if you have 8 threads"
...well, this is the common misconception... as I pointed out in the original post, ANY American with $970 can have 8 threads... and when you do have them, you will see how you feel when rendering in Revit on 2 or 4 of them. :|

Some of us had a dream of making the amazing Kerkythea Rendering Engine available as an easy-to-use plugin for SketchUp and making it so that almost anyone in the world can afford it/access this plugin. Is there something to fear from this or us? Clearly not.

If you visit Twilight Render's website (http://twilightrender.com/) you will find an extremely helpful community forum full of good people. You will find free video tutorials to learn the program. You will find links to many legal and hi-res free textures, HDRI, and more.

Anyone starting to learn a program should be given the opportunity to learn it for a while before judging their work.

Here are some other new users of Twilight:
Paul Russam (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=180537#p180537)
EarthMover (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=184586#p184586)
Puck (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=184817#p184817)

[Steve_Stafford]

Since some negativity as appeared in this thread...

For the record...this thread started out, and remains, on the very thinnest of gray lines between self-serving post...or aka advertising and an acceptable post/thread. AUGI doesn't allow advertising in our forums. If you want to advertise then please contact our sales team to buy some ad space and help keep AUGI free for its members.

That said the product is of interest to Revit users and AUGI members and I opted to leave it alone (note that I did move it to the Rendering forum) in the interest of letting the discussion run it course. I could easily tip to the other side of the fence and it would be defensible.

The internet term "astroturfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)" applies to people posing as individuals who share cool information about something without disclosing that they actually have a stake in the cool thing they are plugging. We've seen this in the past with other products where several new members suddenly seem to really care about a product.

The best way to "sell" the product to Revit users is to make it available to them and then let them sing your praises. When a member who loves your product says so here that isn't advertising. When you say so yourself, it is...even if what you say is true.

Last, our R&D forum is intended for new products to air their wares and let members kick their tires prior to a formal release and marketing agenda. Once it is for sale then it begins to cross the line into sales and marketing compared with Research and Development. Bottom line you need the permission of our members to make a sales pitch because under normal circumstances they don't want to hear it. Starting a thread is not permission.