Keyshot Plugin

[sambirchenough]

Although its use would be greatly improved with tessellation control, I would still like the Fusion 360 Keyshot export plugin on my new Mac. The .dmg won't open though..

https://www.keyshot.com/resources/downloads/plugins/

Any ideas? Or better yet, will this plugin be updated any time soon?

[cekuhnen]

@sambirchenough Thea Render - cheaper and better 😉

[sambirchenough]

@cekuhnen

Played with Thea a year ago but didn't learn the UI well enough to achieve satisfying results. Maybe I'll revisit.

*maybe you just want me to throw more money at my Mac Pro in the way of GPUs..

[cekuhnen]

@sambirchenough

If you need a good intro here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBigPHsLZcw&t=3995s

Few things I love about Thea:

1. Very easy to use and powerful material system made for designers and lighting tools a pro needs

2. Multiple render engines for interior exterior unbiased and biased

3. GPU and CPU usage at the same time

4. SPEED - just the SPEED ...

5. Easy setup render farm - you get 3 render slaves in addition with a license

5. Included photo dark room after rendering and while working in Thea

6. Design change in Fusion can be streamed to Thea and replace the mesh of the changed object

[sambirchenough]

@cekuhnen

That's the video I watched last time I tried Thea!

All very valid points. Going to give it another try, thanks.

[sambirchenough]

@cekuhnen

Also checking out some of your Blender videos. Coming from a Pro-E / Solidworks / Inventor background and then mostly to Fusion 360 a few years ago, I'd like to add Blender to the bag. Really appreciate you taking the time to put all those videos up!

[cekuhnen]

@sambirchenough Blender Fusion is a great combo for modeling because blender can deliver many surfacing structures cad normally does not yet Fusion can use the data and turn it into nurbs.

[sambirchenough]

@cekuhnen Thoughts on Cycles vs Thea?

[cekuhnen]

@sambirchenough

Thea

Pro:

Fast render engine with CPU and GPU usage at the same time (good for interior and exterior scenes)

Easy and great material system

Pretty effective UI

Render slaves

Con:

Just a studio renderer - cannot create geometry

Limited usability for animation

Cycles:

Pro:

Amazing node based material system

Great for modeling additional assets and modifiers from Blender

Powerful animation tools

Can use local render slaves or online render farms (I use render.st)

Con:

It can do a lot more thus the learning curve is a lot higher

Without decent GPUs the path tracer can be rather slow

Weak in interior spaces

No Fusion exporter (need to use stl which is ok - or use MOI3d to make perfect render meshes from STEP exports)

Thea is a render studio application

Cycles is the render engine in Blender which is a complete 3D authoring (modeling texturing animation special effects).

So another way to see this is:

How much time do you have to learn Easy Thea vs More Complex Blender.

In the end you can set up scenes so that working in Cycles and importing meshes from Fusion is as fast as in Thea.

If you don't do renderings often - Thea

If you want more power and do renderings a lot - Cycles

For examples decals I model in Blender as mesh UV texture them and then shrinkwrap project the mesh onto the object 

this way the decal is not flush with object but slightly above the body.

[sambirchenough]

@cekuhnen Thanks mate.

The node based material system, ability to quickly model in basic geometry for lighting, and bumped decals and such, are all things I've gotten used to & really like in Keyshot.

The modeling in Blender however, is completely foreign to me. I think that is what will take the most time to learn as its so different from engineering CAD. Contrarily, the material creation in Thea is something I still need to learn.

I suppose I'll just put in the hours when I can as I need to be able to efficiently create the best results possible for a range of product design facets...

Really appreciate your time & insight Claas!

[cekuhnen]

@sambirchenough

I like to nerd out (also have studied animation and CG) so Blender and Cycles for me is a better fit.

But for product designers that rather want a great render engine - I think Thea or Keyshot are more ideal.

Because I model in both Fusion and Blender I am constantly remaining fluid at the apps thus

I am blazing fast in Blender.

Soon the modifier system has also nodes that Blender becomes more like Hudini