Blender

I use Blender for rendering and the creation of animated assets for Unity. Blender is free and the community around this software is very active and collaborative. This is one of the top most reasons why I have learnt Blender. I have bought 16 hours lessons from beginner to advance rendering, and I am still learning. But I really enjoy this software, the fluidity of the models and the quality of the rendering.

I use "render farms" for my rendering. They compile the power of several computers to accelerate the rendering. While a normal rendering may take several days, a "render farms" can do it within minutes. The quality is good enough for a first glance at the model and to select the final quality of rendering.

I particularly appreciate Blender for rendering glass and gemstones, even if the community of Unity is more up to date with gemstone rendering. I don't make any animation with Blender, even if I know how to make it. I never had the opportunity to work on an animation project and the only time I have considered to animate was when I found Unity 3D.

...

Before I use Blender, I build my models with Sketchup them I import the 3D models into Blender. Sketchup brings more precision with very easy tools to manipulate but Sketchup cannot offer the level of precision to render materials. I create my materials with Blender then I export to Unity. I can also create materials with Unity, but it depends of the mood, the kind of references I find on the web and the dynamics of the community. To create a material, we sometimes have to write some scripts which I compile from existing example found on the internet.