Tested in Crossover 10 Pro running on Fedora 11
Test System Intel Core2 Quad, 8GB RAM
Also tested on Windows XP guest on VirtualBox VM, for comparison
Pros:
Can use several cores and all the RAM for rendering. Linux is good enough at multitasking I can do everything else I normally would while the picture renders without any noticeable slow-down. It runs much faster than the 32-bit windows setup, with one core and 4GB max. Have not tested on native Win XP. I have had Indigo running on XP in the VM, rendering one image while I ran Indigo and Sketchup on Crossover, rendering another image, and drawing yet another model, while still being able to surf the web, use OpenOffice, listen to music, etc. with no slow-down.
Cons:
Materials sometimes get lost exporting from Sketchup. This seems to be a Sketchup issue, not Indigo or Crossover.
Skindigo Exporter plugin for Sketchup works somewhat under Crossover. It will export the scene for rendering, but I could not modify any settings, edit materials, or start Indigo from the exporter, even when installed in the same Bottle. Any attempt was instant death for Sketchup. Save the exported file, start Indigo manually, load and render.
Free version is limited to 1000 x 700 (0.7MPx), and renders are not for commercial use. From the Indigo FAQ (http://www.indigorenderer.com/faq):
[i]Early (pre 2.0) versions of Indigo were available for free. Indigo became a commercial product in February 2009 and has sold several hundred commercial licences since then.
We still offer a free version of the current version of Indigo - but it has these limitations:
- Maximum resolution of 0.7 Megapixels – e.g. 1000 pixels by 700 pixels.
- Indigo logo in the bottom right of the image
- May not be used for commercial work.
- No support (beyond that given in our forums)
You can download the trial and get a feel for Indigo, then purchase a licence from our store and unlock Indigo instantly.[/i]
There is a native Linux version of Indigo, but I was unable to get it running. Admittedly, I abandoned the attempt after only a little work on it, because I needed renders I could use commercially. The Indigo licence seemed not to allow this, so I changed to Kerkythea, which takes a lot more fiddling to set up a render, but does not have licensing issues, and can do much larger images for free.