Works properly with Sketchup 8

When SketchUp releases a new version, you will need to reinstall your Render Plus Applications to use the new version. (Or you can copy some files from the old SketchUp plugins folder to the new folder.

SketchUp 8 incorporated a new version of Ruby which requires that you will need to install new versions of most Render Plus applications.

Integrated Lighting Channels

Lighting Channels is an important new feature of IRender nXt which lets you quickly adjust light sources.

By assigning channels to sun, sky, and groups of lights, you can quickly adjust the intensity of each channel with a slidebar and immediately see the effect on the final rendering.

You can quickly adjust the intensity of each channel with a slide bar and immediately see the effect on the final rendering. This will saves time both in determining the relative intensities to use for light sources and in fine tuning the final image before publication.

In Version 3.5, Lighting Channels are integrated into the Batch Renderer, as well as used separately with the nXt Image Editor.

Material Channels

Material Channels are used to adjust the color or luminance of pixels rendered from a material after rendering.

Planar HDRi Backgrounds

You can use a (non panoramic) HDRi image as a background.

If you use a Planar HDRi background with the Path Tracer , you can adjust its brightness as an additional lighting channel after rendering. (This is not working with the standard renderer yet)

Path Tracer

nXt Path Tracer is a new rendering engine for IRender nXt.

You can enable the Path Tracer rendering engine on the Render Setup Tab

Comparison to nXt Packet Mode: nXt Packet Mode processes packets of rays, while nXt Path Tracer processes individual light paths.

Because of some shortcuts, such as Daylight Portals, and other aspects of the rendering process, nXt Packet Mode create a usable image in fewer passes. nXt Path Tracer often requires more passes before the image gets smooth.

nXt Material Library

More than 5,000 materials in library.

Some of these materials are Solid Materials - such as the solid wood materials - which don't repeat and work better with sculpted surfaces.

nXt Plant Libraries

About 30 new RpTreeMaker plants.

The are in addition to the more than 500 plants in the old AR3/AR4 plants which also work with IRender nXt.

These are 'fractal' plants - meaning that detail is relative to the resolution of your image. Each plant is generated differently which automatically creates a realistic effect when using multiple instances of the same plant.

Create SketchUp components to represent IRender nXt plants. These are then automatically rendered as 'fractal' plants.

These plants are also available from the 3D Warehouse: IRender Plants

Arroway Textures

Arroway Textures is a manufacturer of high-res textures, which are used in many areas of digital visualization, e.g. architecture, design and art.

Arroway has made about 100 low-res versions of their textures available to IRender nXt users.

Material Wizard

The IRender Material Wizard makes it easy to create and edit materials.

Most common rendering settings for materials can be made quickly in the Material Wizard.

Advanced Settings: Sets multiple settings for a single material - such a setting both transparency and index of refraction for glass materials.

nXt Image Editor

The nXt Image Editor is used for Post-Processing images after the rendering has been completed.

Real Time Haze, Depth Blur , Lighting Channels , save as Piranesi format, save as HDRi..

Panoramic Views

A Panoramic image is created by rotation the camera while rendering to create a full 360 x 360 degree image.

Clients can view the flash movie made from the Panoramic image.

Visible Light Paths

View spot light beams as if shining in a hazy room.

Depth of Field and Depth Blur

Depth of Field and Focal Distance settings create renderings with areas in sharp focus and areas out of focus.

Depth Blur can also be defined as a Post-Processing technique in the nXt Image Editor .

Real Time Haze

Real Time Haze adds haze and fog effects, after rendering, in a post process.

Resume Rendering

Resume Rendering lets you continue a rendering which has been completed - either because the number of passes or rendering time limit has been exceeded, or because you clicked the Stop Rendering button.

You can enter more passes, or more time to let it render longer. (Enter 0 for no limit)

Advanced Reflection Properties

IRender nXt allows additional reflection settings - such as allowing you to set both the reflection and sharpness of the reflection.

Animation

Animation or your IRender nXt image is created by rendering scenes, moving the camera, and rendering the next frame.

Auto Reflection

Auto Reflection makes materials with words like metal or plastic in them reflective.

Batch Rendering

Batch Rendering is a rendering mode which exports the model to a file, and then renders the file in a separate process.

It has 3 main uses and benefits.

1. Large Models - Models which are too large to render directly from SketchUp can be rendered in batch mode.
2. Animation - Batch mode is used for animation, because animations need to load and reload the model when there are layer changes, and because animations typically take a long time to render.
3. Network Rendering - The entire folder containing the rendering information and files can be accessed across a network, or copied to a thumb drive or another machine and used to render the model.

Caustics

Caustics produces focused light and shadow effects from light passing through a transparent object.

Clay Rendering

Clay Rendering is used to show the details of your model without adding colors or textures. This feature renders the SketchUp model in black and white.

Daylight Portals

A special transparent face placed over an exterior opening or window which causes exterior light to be processed better.

The left half image on the left has a normal (non-Daylight Portal) opening. It took hundreds of passes to resolve properly. The right half has openings marked as Daylight Portals. The lighting looked this good after just a few passes.

In IRender nXt, Daylight is a set using the Material Wizard.

Ground Cover

Ground Cover defines Ground Cover for use on the ground or on topiary bushes.

Edge Highlighting

Edge Highlighting displays the edges of faces while rendering . This is especially valuable with scenes which contain cabinets or furniture where edge highlighting is necessary to bring out the detail of the components.

In IRender nXt edge highlighting is turned on in the Advanced Settings dialog.

Indirect Lighting

Indirect Lighting refers to the IRender nXt feature of processing light reflected from mirrors and other surfaces.

This creates a realistic lighting effect which improves with each successive rendering pass. Indirect should be used with most interiors scenes to soften the lighting effects.

Laptop Seat

An additional license for your laptop is included with IRender nXt at no additional charge.

Object Properties

Object Properties set special lighting, transparency and rendering properties of groups, components and faces.

Object Properties can be used to make any face or object act as a light source, or to set other special properties.

Procedural Bump Maps

can be used to give your material (with or without textures) a different appearance.

Rendering Editor

Set options and edit materials directly from the rendering window.

Double click on a material in the rendered image to edit the material.

Reload modified materials back into SketchUp model.

RPC Objects

Place RPC components in your SketchUp model which automatically render as RPC objects.

Section Planes

You can use SketchUp Section Planes to cut sections through your IRender nXt model.

Watermarks

Watermarks are used to place logos, foregrounds images, or texture maps in front of your rendering.

Antiliasing

Images are automatically anti-aliased during multiple rendering passes.

Automatic Bump Maps

AutoBump using SketchUp materials as bump maps as well as color images.

This is not quite correct, but can often create an interesting 3D effect.

IRender nXt allows fine tuning of bump and color intensities.

Background Image

Background Images are special images which you can place behind your model.

External Rendering

External Rendering exports the model to a file, and then renders the file in a separate process.

This allows you to make changes to the SketchUp model wihtout having to wait for the rendering to complete

Foreground Image

Foreground Images are special images which you can place in front of your model. They can be used for logos and pattern masks, as well as stencils placed in front of the rendering.

Fully Integrated into SketchUp

Automatically stores settings in the SketchUp model for re-use with next rendering.

HDRi Skies

HDRi Skies are special images to represent skies which contain extra information about intensities of the colors.

HDRi (high dynamic range imaging)is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRi is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

IRender nXt offers support for HDRi Skies - used as visible skies, as sky reflections and for illumination from the Sky.

IRender Ready Content

Special collection on the Google 3D Warehouse for lights, mirrors and other components which are ready for use with IRender.

Lamps and Light Fixtures

Automatic use of SketchUp light fixture components. In addition there are Lamp Wizards to create new lamps and lamp components.

Lighting Presets Tab

The Presets lets you choose predefined settings for the most common lighting situations.

There are a lot of settings to create special lighting effects. The presets make it easier to get a good rendering without having to make all the setting manually.

Reflections and Mirrors

Make any SketchUp material reflective with right click edit.

RPTreeMaker

Create custom, fractal, trees and plants. The quality of the tree is regenerated when the tree is rendered.

Self Glow

Self Glow illuminates a surface as if it had light shining on it, without actually making it a light.

For objects which you want to appear bright, but which don't need to illuminate other objects, this is much faster than making lights out of them.

SketchUp Components

SketchUp components are automatically scaled and rotated properly in IRender.

SketchUp Materials

SketchUp materials are automatically rendered as materials in IRender nXt.

You can set reflection and other rendering properties by right clicking on a face containing a materiel to set its rendering properties.

Sun and Shadows

Uses sun and shadow settings from SketchUp, plus Advanced Sun Settings from AccuRender dialogs.

Translucency

Allows light to pass through non-transparent materials

Transparency

Uses SketchUp transparency settings. Includes refraction and lighting effects.

Two Point Perspective

Keep vertical lines parallel while panning the view. Perspective views set in SketchUp are retained while rendering.