A Quick Glance At Most Popular Renderers

There is a way array of renderers in the market nowadays: Here goes a list to name but a few: 3Delight, Aqsis , Brazil, FinalRender, FPrime, Gelato, Indigo Renderer, Kerkythea, LuxRender, Maxwell Render, Mental Ray, Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan, Pixie, POV-Ray, Sunflow, Turtle, VRay, YafRay, YafaRay.

In this article we are going to take a quick glance at five of them: 3Delight, Aqsis, Brazil, finalRender and Indigo.

3Delight - This is a RenderMan compliant renderer. It is designed for the production of photo-realistic images. It was introduced to the market in 2000 and now it is widely used by the 3D animation community.

3Delight is RenderMan compliant, it features support for RenderMan shading language and geometry, and comes with extensible display drivers and multi-platform support with specific code optimization.

Regarding price, 3Delight first license (two threads) is free, even for commercial use. This license does not entitle you to support, and if you need it you must pay $250 USD. If you need more licenses, price is $2.150 for an unlimited thread license, $450 USD/yr for support, $1.400 (4 threads) with $285 USD/yr for support, or $900 USD (2 threads) with $190 USD/yr support.

Aqsis - This is a free open source 3D renderer which adheres to the RenderMan standard.

Aqsis offers several top-notch features, among them: programmable shading, high level primitive support, sub-pixel displacement, motion blur, depth of field, shadow mapped ambient occlusion, arbitrary output variables, subdivision surfaces, high quality texture mapping, level of detail, high dynamic range, and can be extended through plugins.

Brazil - This renderer is a product from SplutterFish.

Its main features are: speed, materials (glass material, toon material, utility material, and advanced material), 3D motion blur support, texture maps, displacement support, camera and light, photon and shadow maps, and much more.

Brazil System Requirements:

3ds Max (6, 7, 8, 9, 2008, 2009 or 2010), or 3ds Max Design (2009 or 2010) or Autodesk VIZ (2005, 2006, 2007, or 2008) - both 32 and 64 bit versions.

Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Windows ME will not load Brazil / Brazil Rio, Windows NT 4 might, but is not supported!

Intel-compatible processor at 300 MHz minimum - Recommend a fast, modern multi-core machine.

128 MB RAM and 300 MB swap space minimum - Recommend minimum 1GB RAM, 2.5GB swap.

finalRender - This software package comes in two editions, finalRender R3, suitable for the vast majority of users, and finalRender Studio Edition, catering to advanced users and big studios.

finalRender features include finalShaders, interactive rendering, new object types, new materials, material enhancements, new texture maps, new light type, new render effects, render element enhancements, linear workflow enhancements, general enhancements, and the list goes on.

Indigo Renderer - This software caters to all product designers, 3d modelers, architects or artists.

Among its main features it offers accurate light simulation, material creation, realistic camera, physical materials, realistic lights, light layers, sun and sky, accurate metals, motion blur, film control, integrated network rendering, participating media, full spectral rendering, support for complex geometry, advance tone mapping, and much more.