Red Westy

I really didn't have much time to goof around today, but I had to at least try out my new rendering software that can and does work beautifully with my existing 3D application, SketchUp.
This external rendering app is called Kerkythea, and as with the Freeware version of Google/Trimble SketchUp, Kerkythea is freeware as well, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use it. I've had Kerkythea for nearly as long as I have used S.U. however I kept putting off learning how to use it due to life getting in the way, or other art projects taking priority. However having finally installed the app and spending the better half of three hours learning the ropes via youtube and Kerkythea's PDF manuals, I found this program to be plenty damn impressive and not as difficult to learn as some think it is!

Here then is my Westfalia Vanagon in reds this time, and sporting four new round eyes instead of the four squares seen in my previous render.

While on the subject of rendering, the one thing I was not prepared for, was the lengthily time it takes to render an image from raw polygons. Within SketchUp, rendering is pretty speedy taking this model no longer than say 15 to 20 seconds to export into a jpeg or PNG to my desktop, however Kerkythea being a much more powerful rendering engine, actually calculates things such as reflections like those in the shiny steel wheels, and this render took the better half of 7 minutes to export. Additionally I changed some of the reflection and speculative for the reds of the body, so unlike SketchUp's flat cartoon shader, Kerkythea gave me a semi glossy paint job that also added to the long number crunching... I think that if I had made the rubber for the bumpers and tires glossy as well, rendering probably for my old computer might have taken a half hour for this single component model bus.

Still I'm plenty impressed with how this looks, and in my following image after this one, I experiment with lighting and darkness... Something which SketchUp's default cartoon shader does not offer. And with lighting and darkness under my full control, I can finally make some nearly professional looking stuff to match my modeling skills!

Thanks Goog and Trimble for SketchUp!  It's a wonderful app and all, but having tasted forbidden fruit of external rendering engines, I'm not willing to think about cartoon shading for a good long while.

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SketchUp can be found and attained at www.sketchup.com/
Kerkythea the freeware external rendering engine (at) www.kerkythea.net/

Bus by Volkswagen

Art by moi