Dear members,
At least one member of this forum is very frustrated about the fact that Keyshot or any other rendering program is very poorly supported in ZW3D.
Officially, at this moment, Key-shot is the only rendering plugin that connects to ZW3D via a soft-key license provided bij ZWsoft.
However, the license only supports up to V8 or 9 basic version (currently V 11 is out) and is unavailable for users with a dongle on ZW3D.
In my opinion, the ZWsoft company should, either support the newest versions of Keyshot, including the pro versions through a license, if they want to stick to that system, or modify the algorithm for the plugin to recognize a valid Key-shot license on the computer and fire up without questions, like Eureka does.
Of course, I am very curious about the general opinion on this, since ZW3D seems to be on the way to loose some customers to mainstream CAD systems that simply support any valid key-shot on the computer, when present.
Looking forward to your comments.
Hello,
I have make some try with integrated pov-ray and trial version of keyshot.
For now i do not have the necessity to make rendering so maybe i’m not the right person who will give the best answer…
If a plugin is something sponsored so it should be well implemented and constantly updated.
I think also that ZW3D should implement something more integrated than pov-ray on its default rendering system, maybe like solidworks or other company do, like a better integrated rendering material library and this library should be shared with either programs (for example between zw3d and keyshot).
I completely agree. Generally ZW3D needs to step up their game in the rendering/visualization department if they don’t want to loose customers that need to visualize their designs?
POVray is an outdated dinosaur and there are vastly improved free/open source render engines available, e.g LuxCore render or the Cycles and Eevee renderers within Blender.
Hi Liangfen,
Indeed a great workaround that works like a charm!
However, there is a snag to this solution.
For one time rendering of a scene, it woks perfectly but when rendering larger CAD projects that are subject to changes during the design process, there is no link with the CAD files, which is required to preserve all material and rendering settings in Keyshot.
So, that connection between the CAD parts and Keyshot projects is also a fundamental demand.
Personally, I am not an expert on this, I have some doubts if the ZW3D soft-key version for Keyshot does have this link anyway.
Hello everyone.
I have seen that ZW3D has direct communication with SimLab and SimLab has a section for rendering, personally I have not explored it but I think it could work.
It would be nice to know if any forum member has used it.
From ZW sales, I got the message that Simlab is officially no longer supported as plugin.
However, there may be a chance that the option is not blocked in the software.
But if Simlab was also licensed by ZWsoft like keyshot, there is a chance that it will work the same as the 3D printer option, showed by Mr Zhang.
So, also no associativity with the CAD projects.
Yes, it seems to me that during the 2022 version there was no communication but after they released the SimLab plugin, LiangFen already pasted the link in the comments below (Thanks LiangFen). And ZW3D is compatible with the latest version of SimLab Composer, be careful not to confuse it with SimLab VR Studio.
Maverick Studio has a direct import button for ZW3d files in their latest build. I would also consider it a better quality render engine than Keyshot. It’s goes back to Arion render and before that Fry Render.
Hi Tanuki,
I didn’t know Maverick Studio and visited the website. Looks very nice, the price also It’s worth to try.
I hope that support gives a solution for keyshot because allready bought a pro license and doesn’t work with zw3d with a dongle.
If ZWSoft has provided a plug in and charged for it, it is reasonable to expect that it continues to work for that version on Keyshot for all subsequent ZW3D versions for at least 3 or 4 years.
If not then the trust worthiness of ZWSoft supporting external plug ins is questionable.
There should also be a notification to users that bought the plug in to keep them up todate.
Whilst we have a nice What’s New document each version we also need a What’s changed, dropped, being done differently, located in a different place etc document.
Especially if Help is often not comprehensively updated. Even if Help is updated a document covering changes is still needed.
Trustworthiness in the marketplace is hard-earned and easily lost.
I’m not sure that is fully appreciated.
Cheers -Paul
It’s got a zw3d import button in the latest build. I tried to import a native zw3d file but it didn’t work. I contacted their development team, and they said it only reads and imports .step files exported from Zw3d for now.
you can watch a video of the process here:
It’s worth to try.