What do you think of it and is it better than KeyShot? I have a trial version of Keyshot and its not bad, but overly simplistic (that’s a good thing, but it’s also limiting, maybe?). I am new to rendering engines, so not sure what to think. It’s too early to make comparisions. I am now checking out the trial version of Brazil to compare to Keyshot. Any feedback would be appreciated from Brazil users.
Thanks guys.
Brazil and Vray (both standalones available for Rhino) will definately have more capabilities at the cost of time and learning curve.
The only concern I would have though is all of the product shots they have in the gallery for the Rhino plugin all seem very poor compared to what they have in their regular 3D Studio max plugin.
I’m not sure if thats just because the user groups are different and they don’t have as much high end stuff coming out of Rhino, or if there are features omitted from Rhino. I have a feeling a lot of the texturing abilities you get with a traditional package like Max are lost if you’re rendering straight out of Rhino.
Might be worth taking a look at Maxwell or Vray too since they have a Rhino plugin.
Cyberdemon,
I know what you mean. A friend of mine who does Motion Graphics and also uses rendering engines told me last night he felt the same way about Brazil’s quality after checking out their gallery photos too, but then I found this and sent it to him: Making materials with Brazil for Rhino 4 on Vimeo
see how the quality improves in this video? The final product is so realistic and jaw-dropping. Unless they altered the final Brazil result in some other program, like PS?
Oh, my friend did mention to me Maxwell (which seems to produce photorealism) and I am currently looking into it. But i have to explain something: The rendering engine that I ultimately consider will definitely have to be one that I can get an educational version of AND most importantly, has a PERPETUAL license and doesn’t expire post graduation. So far, from my research, Keyshot and Bunkspeed Shot both cost 99 dollars, give or take, annually to renew, but ONLY if you are a student. Post graduation, Bunkspeed’s rep told me that you can get a copy of Shot for a discounted price (500 dollars or so), which is still steep for me. Brazil, from what I read on their site, has a perpetual license and they don’t mind if it is used commercially, unlike Maxwell. Maxwell, has an educational version as well, but from their website, it’s not very clear if the license is perpetual or not. I will have to contact them.
At school, we do have KeyShot and Bunkspeed licenses in our lab, so it’s not necessary for me to get one now. I was just thinking of future-wise, so that I have a rendering engine to use post-graduation, to use to improve my portfolio and tweak it. I have a perpetual license of Rhino (THANK YOU RHINO for being the ONLY 3D modeling package to have a perpetual license!!). Not even Solidworks has one. You have to buy a student version every year and post graduation, you have to upgrade to the commercial version. They suck! How do they expect students to learn their software post graduation and to compete in the market? At least Autodesk offers educational versions to download that last 2 years or so!
Anyway, sorry for my off-topic rant. 
Cyber, I will check out Maxwell and Vray and see what their policies are regarding their licenses. I will keep you updated.
CJS
The thing that worries me about that video (I only watched the first few seconds and didn’t get to the end, but I’m assuming they’re just recreating that image at the intro) is that it looks nice, but frankly isn’t really an “ID” image.
Looking at the image theres things that worry me, such as how textures are placed, what control you have over the texture maps, and more importantly what the images look like when you just want to do a typical product shot (white background, nice highlights, etc).
I know technically the engine is capable of it - if you look at the Brazil main page they have stuff like this which is great:
I just wonder if the Rhino plugin has all of the same features.
As far as the licensing goes: I was under the impression that any software purchased under an educational license (even if it extended past your education itself) was for non-commercial work.
My bigger concern would be if you plan on using it professionally, and then get picked up as an in house designer you’ll probably need to switch to whatever their program of choice is anyways. My thought is that Brazil is probably pretty low on that list so it may be able to get you images for cheap, but might not be very useful down the line.
Maybe not, but just something to consider.
Hi Cyberdemon
I was just thinking of further down the road when I graduate, I am sure I’d need some rendering engine to tweak some of my projects in order to find work or internship, etc. I can’t travel back to the labs on campus to use their labs, so I would think I’d need to invest in a rendering engine to use. Post school, my uses would be still “educational”, I assume, as long as I am not selling my work or doing freelance. My sole purpose would be strictly to nab a job.
Cyber, I looked into Maxwell and it does look impressive and it looks like a perpetual license. I would have to renew to a commercial license when there is an upgrade.
By the way, I will take into consideration that wherever I end up working, I might be using a totally different render program, but just to be clear: I am investing in one just to work on my portfolio. Hence why I am looking more into the perpetualness of the software post grad, versus others that expire or have time limits. Brazil and Maxwell are perpetual licenses, so i might just invest in one of those. Keyshot and Bunkspeed are not. You have to then spend 600 bucks for their commericial (discounted price for post grads) version just to spruce up a few images in one’s portfolio? I think not!
Thanks for the feedback, as always.