Right from the beginning we dedicated a lot of time into an advanced standalone studio that is tightly integrated around the render engines. But we were not satisfied with a simple Open/Render interface and we went much much further. The Studio that comes with Thea Render is a vital part of the product; we paid great attention into a non-modal and ergonomic design that is at the same time aesthetically superior. |
Download for Windows System Requirements: Windows Vista/7/8/10 - 32bit/64bit. For Presto GPU: Nvidia CUDA graphics card (CUDA 6.5, Compute Capability 2.0 or higher) | Download Resources |
Download for MacOSX System Requirements: MacOSX 10.6 and above, Intel/AMD CPU, 64bit. For Presto GPU: Nvidia CUDA graphics card (CUDA 6.5, Compute Capability 2.0 or higher) | |
Download for Linux System Requirements: OpenGL, GTK2, SSE2 CPU, 64bit. For Presto GPU: Nvidia CUDA graphics card (CUDA 6.5, Compute Capability 2.0 or higher) |
Unique FeaturesIn every work involving visualization, the natural way of lighting and physically correct materials play the most important role. Thea Render light simulation and our unique material system ensure that all your images will take advantage of these essential qualities. No matter whether you render a simple interior design or a detailed product presentation with complex materials the image will tell a whole story for itself. You can focus on your artistic expression while Thea will take care of the final result. |
Thea Studio product is currently sold bundled with plugin(s). For more details visit our eshop or contact us. Thea Render is Developed and Manufactured by Solid Iris Technologies. Thea Render is Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies. |
Troy Homenchuk, based out of Michigan, runs his own design studio called Inside Out Viz. Troy has a background in architecture, urbanism and design. His design studio builds 3D digital models, produces renderings, photo manipulation, and consults with professionals, who want to bring their in-house rendering workflow to the next level. Here Troy shares with us his workflow on how to get SketchUp models into Thea for a quick render.
For those of you who use SketchUp and want to get serious about producing high quality renderings, I suggest Thea for SketchUp. There are many good rendering engines that integrate well with SketchUp, but I like the big three – Maxwell, V-Ray for SketchUp, and Thea. For ease of use, speed, and quality, I find Thea to be my top choice. V-Ray offers the greatest variety of shaders, and Maxwell has a rich library of pre-made materials. Really, you can’t go wrong with any of these three. But if you’re interested in getting your SketchUp models into Thea for a quick render, I’m sharing this little tutorial that takes you through my workflow. It’s not perfect but it works for me. So enjoy and feel free to ask questions if you have any. The design is by Ethan McMorrow Design and modeled by Robert Scott Residential Designs.
Step 1
First check the model in Monochrome mode, as all faces must be facing out. By doing this you will be able to see immediately what your face orientation is like.
Step 2
After checking your faces, enable Shadows and adjust your daylight as desired.
Select Shadows
Step 3
Start the Thea Tool window and select your aspect ratio. In this particular case I used SketchUp Window.
Step 4
In the Thea Tool window select the Tools tab and Save Thea scene to your computer (you should get a message saying your scene has been saved successfully).
Save Scene
Step 5
Open Thea Studio and find your saved file and open your scene.
Step 6
Click on the Interactive Render button in the Active Render toolbar and find Sun in the Tree View (you may have to scroll down). If your sun is not enabled, the scene will be dark. Refer to step 9 if there is no sun at all.
Step 7
Make sure the correct scene is selected. With the little camera tab under Properties selected (Properties>Current View Properties), check to see the size (Resolution) you want and that it is correctly entered.
Correct Scene and Size
Step 8
Select the materials you want to edit if you wish (a warning has appeared in my model, some bitmaps are missing, so click the button on the left for details’)
TIP: If this should happen, you can render regardless, but if you want to recover them, click on the Textures tab where you see the warning symbols.
They indicate that there are some missing bitmap files. Right click on the symbol.
Then click Missing Bitmaps, and you will get a list of files you need to track down if you wish.
Step 9
In Settings, click on Environment>Sky and make sure you have enabled Physical Sky.
Step 10
Head down to the Biased tab and click on General tab. Under Main>Engine Core select Adaptive (BSD). Then under Channels tab select the following: Alpha, Object ID, Material ID, AO, Reflection and Refraction.
Settings
Step 11
Under the Render tab select Biased RT and enable Ambient Occlusion.
Step 12
Now look under the Biased GI tab. If you have something that uses caustics (water for example) you can adjust this under the Caustics tab. Small Estimation Photon number will produce sharper caustics and reduced render time. Larger numbers do the opposite.
Step 13
Next we head to the Dark Room situated between Viewport and Console.
Thea Studios Santorini
Darkroom
Click on the start button.
Step 14
The Start Render window will pop up. This gives you the opportunity to make sure you have the right scene and resolution. Click the ‘tick’ button to start your render.
Start Render
Raw render output.
Final render after post production.
Final Render
Thanks for reading
Troy Homenchuk
Troy’s website, where you can contact him and see more of his work: IO Viz
Thea Studio
Solid Iris (the folks behind freeware renderer Kerkythea and Thea Render Studio) have been busying themselves over the past few months, having successfully updated their latest render plugin, Thea for SketchUp. With an updated UI and and many new features it has certainly got tongues wagging. Previously the SketchUp plugin served as a platform to access their already highly popular Thea Render. Now its fully integrated and the latest version takes away the need to export your scenes from SketchUp by introducing a new rendering window within SketchUp. With a great support network (hugely important with new software) which you can access over at their Thea Render Forum and a 20% discount during the beta period, currently it seems we have a win win situation here. Just after Christmas, we managed to have a chat with the folks behind it and learned a bit more about what all the fuss is about.
Many people have known Kerkythea the powerful, standalone, free render engine for a number of years now and of course Thea, which uses the same top quality engine (as do Podium and Twilight Render), what has prompted the Solid Iris team to develop this latest new plug-in for SketchUp?
Let us answer by telling the whole story then. Back in 2008, when we published Kerkythea Echo version, the feedback especially from SketchUp community was very enthusiastic – and still is! At that moment, the idea of a new commercial – sister – product (Thea Render) was born and it took nearly 2 years of research and development, shaping the new product almost from scratch. As a commercial application, Thea Render is superior in many ways to Kerkythea. At the end, it was the enthusiasm of the SketchUp community that made us invest in this modeling application and prioritize it.
Who are the team behind Thea for SketchUp’s development and its creation?
Tomasz Marek, as an architect and developer, is working on the connection, Ioannis Pantazopoulos is working on the core engine and studio interface, Patrick Nieborg is working on the content, Pentti Lahdenperä leads the forum technical support and Christina Psarrou is working on the website and documentation. This is the core team for the SketchUp plugin, so to speak, but there are many community members giving great help, like Kim Frederik Blom Semelin and Nige Copeland.
Garden Summer by David Hennessy
SketchUp already has many popular rendering plug-ins, why develop another?
With so much positive feedback from SketchUp community, there could be no other decision.
Do you need Thea Studio to use this plug-in?
Yes and no. The plugin at this phase still uses some elements that come with the studio, for example, the material editor. The studio is also needed if someone wants to make use of some features that are available only there (for example, Relight animation) or perform 64-bit rendering without RAM limitations. Even with respect to material setup, if someone wants to edit Thea materials, it is better to do that in the studio, which is more optimized in that aspect. Still, with the plugin, you will do most of your work without leaving SketchUp and we are currently working on making it as autonomous as possible.
Can you give us an overview of the core technology behind Thea for SketchUp, or more simply …what’s under the hood, what makes it so different?
The major difference you will see is the multiple engine support. Thea’s unbiased core is probably the best unbiased engine one can get, but we were not purists staying there. Thea has a biased also engine, using the “traditional” techniques of photon mapping and final gathering, which has received now a tremendous boost. A new engine running on the GPU will be available in the upcoming edition v1.2. And switching from one engine to another is just a selection away. In short, with Thea Render, our users get three different technologies in the price of one.
Are we going to be banging our heads off the wall now, or put more simply….how hard is it to use and learn this new plug-in?
We tried to keep things simple with the plugin. We avoided going too far with settings but instead hided most of the complexity. For users that want to dive deeper, there is always the studio. ?
Who would you say this render plug-in best suited for, the pro, hobbyist or both?
We are using Thea Render professionally ourselves, in architecture and 3D graphics and we understand very well the requirements of the diverse SketchUp community. We definitely address both groups.
Living in Hanoi by Nomer Adona
The one question most people will want asked….what are processing times like, based on a relatively basic computer setup?
There is no easy answer for that. Thea Render, being in the category of photorealistic rendering software, does not give real time response. Instead, it is intended for high quality rendering, simulating the light scattering in space. From our comparisons, Thea has now the fastest true unbiased engine and one can still go with the biased engine and get a great result in a short time. With the addition of the GPU engine the interactivity is also maximized. Speaking about processing times in an absolute manner is not possible as this is very dependent on the scene and material complexity, machine power and efficiency, settings and engine used.
How positive has the reaction been so far with this Beta release?
The reaction has been very positive. We were somehow expecting that but we are always happy to see the warm feedback of the users.
What will make me run out and buy (metaphorically speaking) Thea for SketchUp….what has it to offer in comparison to other similar Plug-ins?
It offers pretty much everything. Thea for SketchUp is a complete solution with multiple render engines, exclusive materials and it comes with a studio on its own. On top of that, I want to add something not easily seen; long term upgrades and support. Right now, we are close to three years of published upgrades and we are still before major improvements in v1.2. All updates in v1.x series are free of charge for our users which means years of development without additional fees. Compare that to other rendering software upgrade cycle.
Shell Chair by Massimo Siracusa
Impressive features of Endnote x7: • It organizes references in an easy manner. • Categorize your records on various sections. • Add and Transfer File Attachments to the Web. • Create comprehensive records of research materials. In the new entry, you can add input several details about that entry such as reference type, Journal Article, Book, Patent, Web Page, Thesis, Report, etc.
One final question…what’s next from you guys?
Our next milestone is publishing v1.2 edition which will be soon out. We have various great ideas about the (near) future but we would like to keep them as a surprise. ?
We now have Thea inside SketchUp! ….what next?
For Software, Tutorials, Gallery and Forums visit the Thea Render website.
At this section, you can find some Thea Studio scenes to download and experiment with several features. Use the Download button below each scene to download the corresponding pack.thea file. Use Thea Studio to open it and render it. Copyrights of the original scenes belong to users that designed them. Used under permission. In case you have scenes you would like to share with us and other users, you can contact us. |
BenchMark ScenesA set of 4 nice benchmark scenes, specifically modeled and setup for Presto (GPU+CPU) benchmarking. Presto (MC) is the chosen engine, rendering for 5 minutes, with the target resolution at 1280x720. CUDA capable graphics card with 1Gb memory is needed for running the benchmark on graphics device. The render information containing the benchmark results can be found in the Console log after render is finished. Scenes created by Patrick Nieborg. |
Laser LabThis scene of a laser lab, shows the optical refraction and dispersion, in full spectral resolution, of white light as it passes through a prism. It combines both volumetrics (global medium is enabled) and dispersion and is a good example for lighting study. |
ZipperAt this scene of a leather briefcase with zipper, two main Thea Render features are used: the leather material is created by the use of many layers (advanced and innovating Layering System) and Displacement mapping (Geometric Modifier) is also used to create the zipper area. |
Logo and CoinsA Thea logo and two coins compose this example scene. Both silver and gold materials use the corresponding IOR files (spectral index of refraction and extinction coefficient) to have accurate reproduction of the corresponding materials. |
Living Room - IES LightsPart of a classic living room. The lighting of the room is achieved with the help of IES files, which can create different and accurate light effects. |
Villa HouseA modern Villa House to experiment with exterior shots and different camera views. Please Note: One or more textures in this 3D model have been created with images from CGTextures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default, please visit CGTextures.com for more information. |
Download Thea Studio
Please select the version corresponding to your operating system by clicking on the appropriate link below. By downloading and installing the software, you agree to the license agreement. Developed by Solid Iris Technologies.
Check out Changes Log here. |