Introducing Luxrender & POV-Ray - two different Rendering Systems (Freeware)

[Theo Gottwald]

Do you like Computer-Graphics?
Do you like 3D pictures?

The i have 2 tipps:

1. Luxrender
Luxrender is a "Designer based" Renderer.
Take a look on the picture of this egyptian statue. Its done with Luxrender.
Before you can start with Luxrender you need to start with "Blender" because thats the way it is used.
1. Step: Download and Install Blender
2. Step: Download and install Luxrender
At this place you have to decide wether to take the OpenCL-Version or not.
Why does it use "OpenCL" ? Thats for the GPGPU-Rendering.
Rule: If you have a good grpahics card use the OpenCL version, if your graphics card is old, use the CPU version.
If you don't know, take the OpenCL version, as it can do both modes of rendering.
In the worst (if your graphics card can not do any OpenCL) then you will need to install an Intel OpenCL driver first. In this case the CPU is used as OpenCL device.
2. Step. Learn how to use Blender"
If you have questions, there is an active community that will help you:
Luxrender-Forum
Thats all .. Soon you can make your first pictures :-).

Blender is a bit like a "Design Tool", like a CAD or Painting program ... if you do not like such programms too much,
then there is another way to go:

POV-Ray - the script based Renderer
The second picture is made with POV-Ray.

Installation is very simple. Only download and install POV-Ray.

Usage is "script based". It a bit like a Computer-Program.
Many people think that usage is easier then the "Painting style" with "Blender".
Also you can program algorhytmic graphics ... for example a "Terraform generator".
It really exist ... see here: Jaimies POV-Ray Arts und Examples
You can even download it for free. You need help?
There is an active small community here POV-Ray Newsgroups

And of course there is also an complete introduction vide available ... on YouTube:
Tutorial in 7-Steps "How to use POV-Ray".

POV-Ray is technically a bit behind Luxrender, it does not support GPU-Rendering.
But it is very stable. It does not crash or bring strange errors, like you get them in Luxrender or Blender.

Also you can make a "Generator" that will automatically generate scenes in the POV-Ray script format, then automatically have them render.

No matter if its  Blender (Yes - there is also an POV-Ray exporter available for Blender),
or a Terraformer, or just the results of your computation for a 3D-Graph.