The catch line for Bunkspeed’s Hypershot 3D architectural rendering application is “Render Them Speechless… in minutes,… not hours.” My first reaction was, “Too good to be true and good marketing team”, but can they live up to their promises? The only way to find out is to download the 15 days trial, and I conclude – it’s amazing!
Science based and patent-pending, HyperShot equips you to simply load your models and environments, then see high-tech automation in action, or scale up and customize completely. Designs are rendered on the fly. What used to require daunting effort, time and expertise can now be done by anyone on your team. In minutes, not hours, or days. – Cnet.com
The user interface is a little old school, now you can train a monkey as a 3d artist for peanuts!
Albeit the horrible and unfriendly user interface, I have to admit that Bunkspeed’s Hypershot is fast, unlike other 3d model rendering applications such as AutoDesk 3d max, Artlantis R, and SketchUp Vray where one have to spend precious time adjusting the settings, Hypershot does this on the fly with its default pre-optimized settings to produce good results quickly (believe me, it is fast). What used to require daunting effort, time and expertise can now be done by anyone on your team. In minutes, not hours, or days.
The only drawback is the lack of control, but the beauty of it is the ability to produce fairly good results without much effort and time, after all, we are architects, not 3d artist. Overall HyperShot is a very good 3d rendering application, 3d computer rendering has never been so easy.
The million dollar question, did Bunkspeed managed to convert me into one of their user? No, Artlantis R will be my rendering tool for many more years to come though the rendering engine is not as good as max or vray. The old saying goes: “Master of all trade, jack of none.” Better stick to one 3d rendering software than to have a little bit of knowledge in every 3d rendering applications available in the market.
For Google SketchUp user, good news. Bunkspeed wrote a plugin that integrates SketchUp and HyperShot by putting the “HyperShot” button directly into the menu of SketchUp. After installing SketchUp and HyperShot, simply install the plugin. The installer will take care of putting all the files into the right places.
Key features and requirement:
- Directly access HyperShot from within Sketchup
- All geometry and textures are being transferred
- Hypershot 1.5 or later
- Sketchup 6.0 or prior
- Windows XP/Vista 32/64 bit
- Mac OSX 10.5
I used it for Rhino, the renderings are pretty nice, on the fly is excellent but the finished renderings usually take about the same time once you get to the higher resolutions. Also interior shots are impossible to do, but the HDRI backgrounds are a nice touch and it is easier to set up perspectives with real images. Overall cool idea but the lack of textures and poor lighting makes it a very second place renderer compared with v-ray.
hi. great review. however, i think the saying goes “jack of all trades. master of none.” i may be wrong but that makes more sense to me.