The issue I’ve been having is that all the previous rendering software that I’ve tried is that they all are, quite frankly, rubbish unless you pay or subscribe – and if you do not you end up with some ridiculous limitations such as a nonsensical 10 day trial or resolution caps. Today I experimented with importing .dae files from SketchUp to Blender and was pleased to find that colours and materials are preserved, and, to top it all off, the Cycles Render does not look too bad.
Here’s a quick render of the most recent (but not the final) robot chassis design:
It looks like in the future, Blender is the rendering engine of choice for all further models of the robot, which is good because I somewhat know how to use it.