Podium Walker v1.3.1 is available for Windows and the Mac
March 2016- Cadalog, Inc., the maker of SU Podium V2.5 Plus and Podium Browser, both SketchUp plug-ins, has released, Podium Walker version 1.3.1, a photo-realistic animation plug-in for SketchUp. Currently, V1.3.1 works on Windows 7,8 and 10 and on the Mac OS 10.x and above.
What is Podium Walker?
- It is a photo-realistic, real-time, animation plug-in for SketchUp that allows for fast visualization and video animations.
- It uses ray tracing and ambient occlusion to create keyframe, photo-real renderings and animations.
- It works directly with SU Podium V2.5 Plus and/or Podium Browser. It reads SU Podium's reflections, blurred reflections, refractions, bump maps, omni lights, LEM lights and translates SketchUp sun position to create it's own sun and sky light.
- Supports SketchUp 2016, 2015, 2014 and 8 on Mac Yosemite and El Capitan and Windows, and can export to video formats such as .mp4, .mov, .m2t and .avi.
- Introduction price - $99.00 (USD) for commercial licenses, $59.00 (USD) for student/ teacher licenses.
What's new in Podium Walker v1.3.1?
Podium Walker v1.3.1 now uses lightmaps to speed up scene rendering and make your design process a whole lot faster. It also has an option to use the sky color for ambient light.
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Lightmaps: With the release of v1.3.1, Podium Walker now makes use of light-maps as part of the rendering process. Lightmaps are a form of pre-rendering, in which lighting information is calculated and "baked" into the materials.
Freedom to iterate: While this does not eliminate the need for Podium Walker to carry out ray-tracing calculations, the calculations can now be done earlier in the design process giving users far more leeway to make iterative design decisions. Light-maps make last minute changes to an animation far less time-intensive.
Make changes without re-calculating lighting: Previously, changing your animation and re-rendering a video meant that Podium Walker had to complete the entire ray-tracing process again. With lightmaps, once Podium Walker has completed ray-tracing your scene, you are free to make changes to camera paths and keyframes.
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Re-render in a fraction of the time: Once your changes have been made Podium Walker, will be able to re-export your video in a fraction of the time it would have taken without lightmaps because the scene has already been ray-traced.
Podium Walker 1.3.1 has introduced using sky color for ambient light.
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With this new version, an option to match ambient light with the exterior the sky color has been introduced.
This new feature can make night scenes
look much more realistic than previous versions. See the difference below.
Click above to watch a short video of a scene that supports sky color for ambient light. Click here if your browser doesn't support embedded video.
Click above to watch a short video of of ambient light with sky color OFF. Click here if your browser doesn't support embedded video.
Download and Install Podium Walker v1.3.1
Download Podium Walker v1. Windows for SU 2015 / 2014
Current Podium Walker version is 1.3.1 for both Windows/ Mac for SU 2016/ 2015. Both are trial versions which will expire in 30 days after installing.