Does anyone have an opinion as to which software does the best renders - Poser, Lightwave, Max3DS, Shader etc? I have just started on Poser and would like to know if I can get better renders by exporting to another package just for rendering.

"Does anyone have an opinion as to which software does the best renders"

Yes. It's the one with the best artist using it. ;-)

Seriously though. There's no way you're going to get an acurate and unbiased answer. You asked for opinions, and frankly, that's all anyone will ever give on this subject. You are bound to receive some extremely biased opinions, based on the experiences of people who may have only used one or two renderers in their entire life, or people who have seen an image done by an expert with a particular app, and they just assume that the image they admired looks the way it does because of the software used, when in fact it's 99% because of the artist behind that software.

Honestly, all the programs you mentioned, and even most you did not (Maya, Lightwave, 3dsMax, SoftimageXSI, and yes even Poser itself) are perfectly capable of producing incredible works through their respective renderers. Some may be "easier" to use than others, and still some may have more extensive features than others, but at their core, all renderers can do basically the same thing. I've seen Poser 5 renders that look as if they were done in 3dsMax, and vice-versa. It's all very subjective, and depends on how willing you are to learn all you can about the tools you use.

Can you get better renders by exporting to another package just for rendering? Possibly. Some would say definitely, depending heavily on your rendering needs. However, one ultimate question still remains... can you get better renders from the package you are CURRENTLY using? IMHO, that's the key question you really need to find out first.

Happy Holidays!
;-)
Message edited on: 12/25/2004 03:15

Obviously everyone is going to be biased in some way. I personally would say Mental Ray (which comes with Maya and I think Softimage XSI) unless of course you can afford 'Renderman' (which I can't :P) But just rendering with a better bit of software won't necesarily improve an image dramatically - you need to know how to take full advantage of the extra features.

Mental Ray comes pre-packaged with Softimage XSI, Maya, and 3dsMax v6 and up.