Rendering engines comparison

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Revision as of 21:58, 30 April 2007 by Eon (Talk | contribs) (Mental Ray)

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Blender could be used with many external renderers.

The aim of this webpage is to show which rendrerers suit your needs with pro and cons.


NAME__________ HOMEPAGE____________________________________ RAYTRACING__ G.I._____ OPENSOURCE__ EXPORTER__________ PLATEFORM
Blender Internal http://blender.org yes sort of yes :-)
Yafray http://yafray.org yes yes yes integrated
Povray http://povray.org yes yes yes Blender mod or script
Sunflow http://sunflow.sourceforge.net/ yes yes yes Script Java
Winosi http://www.winosi.onlinehome.de/ yes yes yes Script
Aqsis http://www.aqsis.org/xoops/modules/news/ yes yes yes Script Windows, Linux, OSX
Kerkythea http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/ yes yes no Blender mod or script Linux, Windows
Indigo http://www.indigorenderer.com/ yes yes no Script
Renderman http://renderman.pixar.com/ yes yes no ?
Mental Ray http://www.autodesk.com/mentalray yes yes no Blender mod


Blender Internal

Pro

Fully integrated. All the power of Blender material panel

Cons

No GI (only Ambiant Occlusion). Slow antialiasing.


Yafray

Pro

Full GI. Nice realistic rendering. Integrated

Cons

Texture alpha channel is ignored for shadow casting... :-(

Transparent material casts solid dark shadow... :-(

Povray

You could use either the Povanim script or the custom Blender build with Povray mod.

Pro

Full GI. Nice realistic rendering. Fast

Cons

Doesn't use yet all functions of Blender like Orco mapping, background picture, skies...

Indigo

Pro

Full GI. Accurate lighting

Cons

Very slow Closed source

Kerkythea

Blender mod and script http://cobalt3d.free.fr/images_3dblender/kerkythea/documentation/Blender2Kerkythea_en.htm

Pro

Full GI. Accurate lighting. Fast. Lot of tweaks.

Cons

Closed source. Only available on Windows and Linux x86.

Mental Ray

Blender mod http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=74765

Aqsis

Blender mod http://wiki.aqsis.org/guide/blender_plugin?s=blender