News

ArtVPS announces Shaderlight for Google SketchUp

9 June 2010

Rendering solutions provider ArtVPS has announced plans to launch Shaderlight for SketchUp, an interactive rendering plug-in that will enable users to easily create photorealistic images from Google SketchUp and SketchUp Pro. A beta version of the software has been released today and is available as a free download.

With an emphasis on creating high quality images from the SketchUp material and lighting environment, this first release of Shaderlight for SketchUp lets users see their image “develop” as they work, interactively updating every time a change is made to any SketchUp scene. The full release of Shaderlight for SketchUp will be launched later this year, and will introduce advanced lighting features and support ArtVPS’s trademark MELT functionality, the ability to make interactive changes to materials, environments, lights or textures at any stage in the rendering process without having to restart the render.

An early user of Shaderlight for SketchUp has been Angela Dickson and her course of interior design students at Clydebank University. “Overall, we are very impressed and looking forward to testing Shaderlight further. The students are particularly enjoying the concept of live rendering whilst modelling without having to go through the whole process of re-rendering or exporting updated models whenever they make any changes to their design. I think the whole experience will make us rethink our current workflows." 

Commenting on the announcement, ArtVPS Marketing Director Kate Marshall said: “From the start, we have involved SketchUp users in the development of Shaderlight and will continue to build this community.  The simple tools and interactive workflow fits perfectly with the SketchUp philosophy and we want more users will get involved and tell us what they think of this early release.”

Shaderlight for SketchUp is the second product in the Shaderlight family after Shaderlight for 3ds Max, which launched in December 2009.