Vray for SketchUp vs Lumion – Which is right for you_

V-Ray or Lumion. They can both help you create stunning renderings, but their features and how you integrate them into your SketchUp workflow are vastly different, which is why it's so hard to compare them head to head. I always tell people that the important thing is not trying to figure out which one is the best, but rather which one is the best for you. So how do you do that? I've come up with a list of the seven key things you need to consider when deciding between the two programs and split those into three categories. Rendering performance, key differences, and integrating V-Ray and Lumion into your workflow. Okay, time to figure out whether V-Ray or Lumion is the right program for you. And at the end of this video, I'll also show you a third option you might not be aware of, but maybe a good fit for your situation. Let's start with number one, speed. Let's say you've already created your 3D model in SketchUp, and now it's time to render. Now, imagine you have two identical computers, one for rendering with V-Ray and one for rendering with Lumion. Of course, there are a ton of things you need to get right in each program to achieve a beautiful rendering, from lighting, to materials, to render settings. And we'll talk about all that in a bit. But for this example, let's just say that the work is done and you're ready to hit the render button in both V-Ray and Lumion. So how did they do? Well, the first thing you'll notice, and it's Lumion's big selling point versus V-Ray, is that Lumion renders the final image much faster than V-Ray. How much faster? Well, it depends on several factors that we'll get into later in the video. But generally, we're talking between 10 to 20 times faster. So why is Lumion so much faster? The reason is that V-Ray and Lumion approach rendering in two different ways, which brings us to our next key thing to consider when choosing between V-Ray and Lumion. Number two, photorealism. Behind the curtain, the way V-Ray and Lumion actually render the same model is fundamentally different. And that has an effect on not only the speed of the rendering, but also the photorealism of the end result. So what is that difference? In tech lingo, V-Ray's what's called a ray tracer, and Lumion's what's called a rasterized renderer. But what does that mean to you? Well, when you click on the render button in a ray tracer like V-Ray, the software is actually calculating the trajectory of every ray of light in the scene and how it bounces around your model. It's an intensive calculation that can take a while for your machine to compute. But ray tracing allows you to achieve the highest quality or most photorealistic result because it's in effect mimicking real world lighting, which means you get fully accurate shadows, reflections, and refracted light in your final rendering. A rasterized renderer like Lumion is able to produce faster results by taking some shortcuts, meaning it's approximating what many elements in the rendering should look like, but isn't accurately computing things like shadows, bounced light, or reflections. Often the result is pretty realistic looking and maybe good enough for the types of renderings you're looking to produce. But in other situations, it will be apparent that the quality and realism just isn't what you can get from a ray tracer. A few quick side notes. First, there are things you can do to get your renderings done faster in V-Ray. We cover a lot of the essentials in our getting started in V-Ray video, but another thing to know is that there's a rendering service from the makers of V-Ray called Chaos Cloud, which can render your scene for you more quickly than you could do on your own computer, and then send you back the final result. The service isn't free, but as we'll discuss later in this video, the cost may be worth considering depending on your particular workflow or project. Second, in V-Ray 5, there's a new feature called V-Ray Vision, which shows you a real-time render view of your scene as you're working on it in SketchUp. The quality may be similar to what you get in Lumion in some scenarios, not as good in others, and definitely not as good as V-Ray's ray traced result, but it's nice to have the option if you do choose V-Ray for this quicker type of rendering. Lastly, the makers of V-Ray are making progress on real-time ray tracing through a product called Chaos Vantage, which aims to create real-time or instant results like V-Ray Vision, but with true ray tracing photo realism. We're keeping a close eye on this because it could be a real game changer. If you wanna be sure not to miss the scoop on new features like this, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel right now. Okay, so as a quick recap, the two key considerations when comparing rendering performance in V-Ray versus Lumion is weighing the trade-off between the speed you get from a rasterized renderer, Lumion, and the photo realism you get out of a ray tracer, V-Ray. The next things you'll wanna consider when deciding which of the two programs will best fit your needs are the key differences between the two when it comes to actually setting up your renderings and building out your model. Starting with number three, the objects in your model. The objects you place in your model are an essential part of breathing life into your scenes, and the higher the quality of the objects you use, the more realism you can achieve with your final renderings. One of the big draws of Lumion is that it comes with a content library of over 6,000 render-ready objects that you can quickly add to your model, including realistic trees and plants, objects and furniture, people and animals, vehicles, and more, all with the right materials and settings to render beautifully. Previous to V-Ray 5, there wasn't a content library included with V-Ray that could compare. It was up to you to download objects from the 3D Warehouse or other similar websites to use in your SketchUp model or build the objects yourself. Then use V-Ray to configure the material settings so that they render nicely. But with the latest version of V-Ray 5, you now have access to Cosmos, a curated 3D library of high-quality render-ready models. Similar to Lumion, with just a few clicks, you can now add trees, plants, furniture, people, and more directly into your SketchUp model. They'll import displaying a low amount of detail to keep your polygon count down and your SketchUp model lean, but they'll render with a full level of detail and realistic materials. So if you're comparing the latest versions of both programs, why is the content library a key difference? Cosmos is an amazing addition to the V-Ray platform that shouldn't be understated, but there are a few things you should know about that really set Lumion's content library apart. First, the Lumion content library is several times larger than the Cosmos library and includes a far more extensive tree and vegetation collection. What's more, with just a few clicks, you can create variations, randomized placement, and even change their look to match a particular season. Now, don't get me wrong. It's definitely possible to achieve similar results using V-Ray. You just might need to familiarize yourself with some more advanced techniques, as well as some SketchUp extensions. And lastly, it's worth noting that many of Lumion's objects come pre-programmed with properties for animation, such as moving leaves on trees or people walking. We'll talk more about animations later in the video. Of course, you can, and probably will, also use objects from the 3D warehouse when building out your SketchUp model, no matter which rendering tool you choose. For example, when you need a particular product from a particular brand, or you need an object that isn't included in either content library, just know that you'll have to edit the material settings in either program to get them to render nicely. Okay, moving on to the next key difference, number four, how you build your environment. Chances are, most of your renderings won't be in a white void. So you'll want to consider how you plan to build out the world and terrain around your model. With Lumion, you've got a host of tools that allow you to quickly add mountains, lakes, oceans, and more. But it's important to note that these tools are just for the Lumion environment. They won't work on any terrain that you imported from SketchUp. So any particular site elements or exact topography you need, you'll need to model in SketchUp before importing into Lumion. Also, remember that the elements you create only exist in Lumion. So they won't show up in any plans, elevations, or perspectives you need to show back in SketchUp. But what about building out your environment when it comes to using V-Ray? Since V-Ray runs within SketchUp, you'll need to use SketchUp sandbox tools or an extension like Artisan to build out everything in your scene. Of course, adjusting materials as you go so they render nicely in the end. As with objects, it is possible to achieve great results for the same types of terrain in V-Ray as you would get from Lumion's world building tools. Just know that depending on what you're going for, it can take a ton of time and effort to get it right. And for certain scenery, Lumion's tools are a total game changer in terms of time savings and realism. And don't forget, you also have the sky to consider. In both V-Ray and Lumion, you'll be able to achieve a much more realistic backdrop for your rendering than the default SketchUp sky. Let's talk about how. In Lumion, you pick your sky from their existing library. You also have the ability to add and position your own sun, moon, clouds, contrails, and more. Plus, you can even add weather elements such as rain and snow. In V-Ray, you have the option of using their default sky or replacing with a more realistic HDR image. We don't have the time to cover all the details for how to do that right now, but just know that if you're using V-Ray 5, there are some available to you in the Cosmos library. Or you can find and download a sky that fits with your scene, import it into SketchUp, and adjust the settings so that it works seamlessly in your rendering. You won't have the option for adding contrails or weather elements in V-Ray, so you'd need to add things like that later in a program like Photoshop. I've added some tips and links to resources for HDR images in the notes for this video, which you can use to review everything we're covering today. And you can find a link to those in the cards. All right, that brings us to the last key difference between the two programs. Number five, animation. Walkthrough and flythrough animations in SketchUp are an amazing way for architects and interior designers to showcase their models to clients. And with V-Ray and Lumion, you can take these animations to the next level. But there are a few key differences between V-Ray and Lumion when it comes to animation that you need to know about. First, you'll have to weigh the same two rendering performance considerations that we discussed earlier with still renderings, speed and photorealism. You'll be able to get animations faster out of Lumion, but you can achieve higher levels of photorealism with V-Ray. Keep in mind that with an animation, what you're doing is essentially creating a rendering for every single frame of the video. Meaning that if you're using V-Ray and you have a walkthrough animation that's a few seconds long, you could be talking about your computer having to render out dozens, if not hundreds of images. It can add up fast. This is where a rendering service like Chaos Cloud, which I mentioned earlier, can really come in handy and save you a ton of time. Your future self will definitely thank you. Thanks. If you're not concerned with 100% photorealism, you'll be able to get animations much quicker out of Lumion, since it's much less time intensive to create the renderings for each frame. But realism isn't the biggest difference between the two when it comes to animation. That's because Lumion comes with a host of animation features that really set it apart from V-Ray. The first thing you'll notice with Lumion is that many objects and textures come with pre-programmed ambient animation, such as the subtle rippling of water, leaves and branches swaying on the trees and flickering fires. You also have the ability to quickly and easily program objects to animate, such as people, vehicles, and more. Plus, you can animate effects, such as clouds moving across the sky or weather elements in your scene. And you have the ability to edit multiple animation clips together with titles and sound, all within Lumion. With V-Ray, you'd need to take your animations into another program like Final Cut or Premiere to edit clips together and add titles. All right, let's move on to our final comparison category, integrating V-Ray and Lumion into your SketchUp workflow. And the last two things you need to consider when deciding between V-Ray and Lumion, starting with number six, operating system. Currently, Lumion is a PC-only application, but V-Ray is available for both PC and Mac. But wait, remember the bonus tip I mentioned about a third option besides V-Ray and Lumion that might be worth checking out? If you're a Mac user, but you feel like you're leaning towards Lumion, you should know there's an alternative to Lumion called Twinmotion that works on both Mac and PC. Of course, Twinmotion doesn't have the exact same features as Lumion, but that's a topic for another video. Still, it's definitely a solid option worth checking out. Okay, moving on, number seven, price. The last, but certainly not the least thing to consider between the two options is, of course, price. In addition to all the time and effort you'll need to put into learning a new piece of software, there are also the real dollars and cents you'll need to invest. So let's break down the difference. V-Ray for SketchUp is a $350 a year annual subscription, or Perpetual License is available for $790, with an upgrade cost of $395. Whereas the fully-featured Perpetual License of Lumion Pro costs roughly 3,600 US dollars at the time of publishing this video. Upgrades to the next version run roughly 1,200 US dollars. There's also a non-Pro version of Lumion that's roughly 1,800 for a Perpetual License and around 600 to upgrade to the next version, which comes with a much smaller content library and is missing some key materials like 3D grass and many of Lumion's class presets, as well as a handful of other features. I've added a link to the differences between the two in the notes for this video. It's also worth noting that Twinmotion is $499 for a Perpetual License. You'll also want to consider the costs of expanding what you can do with V-Ray using paid SketchUp extensions to fill the gaps in some of the feature differences that we've gone over in this video, such as Artisan for modeling the terrain around your model, Scatter for placing large amounts of render-ready trees, plants, and other nature objects, Lobwork, a high-end library of render-ready trees and plants, and Chaos Cloud Rendering Services for faster renderings. And there you have it. Now you know the key differences between V-Ray and Lumion. Do me a favor and let me know which one you're leaning towards in the comments below right now. And if you're not sure yet, we'd be happy to help you decide. Head over to this page on our website, tell us about your situation, and we'll tell you which rendering software we think is right for you. Once you've made your choice, I recommend starting by watching one of these two videos. They cover some of the most common things that often trip people up when they're first getting started in either V-Ray or Lumion. Until next time, happy sketching.