Intuitive software for Lighting and Rendering

chiefraven

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good software that's not only top notch, but also has a intuitive workflow when it comes to lighting and rendering.

I know there's a lot of industry professionals who work on Hollywood films and naturally the intricacies and complexity of their software reflect on this need for all those subtle yet important details.

I don't really work with complex architectural type stuff or any big industry projects for that matter. My pursuit in this field is purely a personal one for self enjoyment - however, like any cg enthusiast, i'm always striving to improve and looking for anything that might help take my work to the next level.

I usually use Poser for models (thinking of trying out zbrush in the future perhaps to try my hands on modeling) with the addition of some props, backdrops to create 3d graphics, but the lighting and rendering in Poser is abysmal and really limits the quality of your product.

What software has great lighting and rendering for 3d character type work? Does anyone have any recommendations?

I am a computer science major from a top university in the u.s. so learning a technical software shouldn't be a problem- though, at the same time, I would love to spend most of my time on the character, composition, and the creative aspect of things, so spending years to master lighting/rendering (which I know many of you do in your profession) is probably not what i'm looknig for. Which is why i'm making this inquiry for a more intuitive software when it comes to this area.

I've looked at Modo, and much like zbrush for modeling/sculting, it seems to have a more intuitive interface and workflow, would this be a good choice for me? Aside from it being intuitive, how is the quality of its lighting and rendering?

Is maya an overkill and a waste of time & effort for the things i want to do?

I know a lot of you probably frowned when you heard the word Poser, but hopefully you will be able to keep an open mind

Harbinger

I've heard a lot of good things about Keyshot if you want to do offline rendering.
https://www.keyshot.com

For real-time rendering, you can't go wrong with Marmoset Toolbag 2.
http://www.marmoset.co/

Modo has a fantastic renderer. Maya's out of the box implementation of Mental Ray is crap, don't bother.

Eric Chadwick

Another vote for Toolbag. The tutorials on the Marmoset website are great too.

Sinking

Try unbiased renders like Octane and Arion or Maxwell, too. GPU renders have a lot of advantages over old renders like Vray and Mental Ray. Maya is great software, but a lot of artists prefer Modo for its interface and abilites. I prefer Maya, even though it is nice to support an underdog!

Toolbag is kinda the solution for people who cannot render; which is totally fine, I don't like rendering much, either. But if I have to, I use GPU solutions. Toolbag will be faster and easier to use than Octane and it's cool for previewing game-textures quickly. But if you look for realistic lighting and rendering nothing beats unbiased rendering.

Keyshot looks good, but man it's expensive! I prefer Octane's affordability and great updates.

chiefraven

how's modo or houdini ?

does anyone have experience with these two?

Nox

What kind of characters you want to render? Photoreal? Cartoony? It's important coz some render engines like Octane/Keyshot don't support hair at all, Modo's hair is a joke and so on.

For realtime or cartoony characters Modo should be great.

Don't bother with Houdini, it's not artist friendly.

good software that's not only top notch, but also has a intuitive workflow when it comes to lighting and rendering

Softimage has best rendering workflow of any app and Arnold delivers great skin and hair shaders. Just look: http://www.solidangle.com/gallery/

Not sure if that is what you looking for.

chiefraven

ya mostly photorealistic characters with some simple props and backdrops.

what do you mean by some rendering engines not supporting hair though? as in, it doesn't render hair well?

so, given my needs and the type of stuff i work on, would you say softimage is better? modo? arnold?

only using it for lighting and rendering, but need to be intuitive and has a nice workflow for an artist.

by the way, does keyshot have good rendering/lighting capabilities? someone suggested me this as well.

Nox

as in, it doesn't render hair well?

Depending on how you create hair, you may need render engine to support hair system in DCC app. Of course, if you create hair as image planes or render it as polygons you can use any render.

Softimage is indeed top notch software with intuitive workflow, but I'm not sure it will suit your needs. Also, it's hair tools are kinda outdated. Maya has more options for hair creation but I can't call it intuitive. I guess there is no magic solution.

Probably you should try Keyshot first, it's dead simple, has SSS shaders and you can get away with hair as image planes.