Rendering engines comparison

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.

Pro
Fully integrated. All the power of Blender material panel

Cons
No GI (only Ambiant Occlusion). Slow antialiasing.

Pro
Full GI. Nice realistic rendering. Integrated

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

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

Yafray ignores objects inserted as group.

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...

Pro
Full GI. Very realistic and fast renderings.

Cons
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

V-Ray
Script: http://blender.bevice.ru/

Pro
Very Fast and very good for comercial use.

Cons
None ?