Cycles Renderer Alternatives
Cycles Renderer
Cycles is Blender’s ray-trace based production render engine and in development since 2011. It was originally developed by Brecht van Lommel, and is maintained by an active team of developers today. Since its release as Apache 2.0 (permissive open source), it’s also in use by other 3D tools, such as Poser and Rhino.
Features
CORE SPECIFICATIONS
Unidirectional path tracing with multiple importance sampling
Branched path tracing
Multi-core CPU Rendering with SIMD acceleration
GPU rendering with NVidia CUDA & AMD OpenCL
Multi-GPU support
Unified kernel code for CPU and GPU
INTERACTIVITY
Designed for interactive updates
Fast object, shader, light changes
Tiled and progressive rendering
LAYERS & PASSES
Render layers for decomposing the scene
Render passes for geometry and lighting
Holdout mattes
GEOMETRY
Instancing
Hair curves
Volumes
Multi-core BVH build
CAMERA
Perspective and orthographic cameras
Panoramic and fisheye cameras
Stereoscopic rendering
Depth of field
MOTION BLUR
Cameras
Object transforms
Meshes and curves
SHADING
Physically based
Node based shaders and lights
Production tricks
Open Shading Language (CPU only)
VOLUMES
Absorption
Scattering and emission
Smoke and fire
Subsurface scattering
LIGHTING
Global illumination
Point, Sun, Spot and Area lights
Mesh lights
World background
Sky model
Light portals for indoor scenes
TEXTURES
Image textures
Environment maps
Procedural textures (noise, voronoi, checker…)
Bump and normal maps
Best Cycles Renderer Alternatives
Are you still using Cycles Renderer? Let's compare it to the best other options below. Maybe one of these Cycles Renderer alternatives will work on your device, too.
LuxCoreRender
FreeOpen SourceMacWindowsLinuxLuxCoreRender is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Based on state of the art algorithms, LuxCoreRender simulates the flow of light according to physical...
Mitsuba
FreeMacWindowsLinuxPhysically based renderer. Mitsuba is an extensible rendering framework written in portable C++. It implements unbiased as well as biased techniques and contains...
Adobe Dimension
CommercialMacWindowsAdobe Creative CloudCreate high-quality, photorealistic images with the 3D tool made for graphic designers.
Features:
- 3D modelling
- HD-Rendering
RenderMan
Free PersonalMacWindowsLinuxPhotoRealistic RenderMan, or PRMan for short, is a proprietary photorealistic RenderMan-compliant renderer. It primarily uses the REYES algorithm but is also fully...
Features:
- 3d renderer
- High-resolution images
V-Ray
CommercialMacWindowsLinuxRhinocerosAutodesk 3ds MaxAutodesk RevitSketchupV-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max is a complete rendering solution, which combines the power of the well-known V-Ray award-winning production rendering engine with the flexibility...
Octane Render
CommercialMacWindowsLinuxOctane Render is the world's first GPU based, un-biased, physically based renderer. What does that mean? It uses the video card in your computer to render...
Thea Render
CommercialMacWindowsLinuxAutodesk 3ds MaxSketchupAutodesk SoftimageBlenderThea Render is a state-of-the-art biased/unbiased renderer with a rich set of innovative features, a powerful material system and its own advanced studio, all-in-one....
Maxwell
CommercialMacWindowsLinux3D rendering software for architects and designers. Maxwell is legendary for its quality and realism, and delivers great results via a simple set-up, which lets you...
OctaneBench®
FreeMacWindowsLinuxOctaneBench® allows you to benchmark your GPU using OctaneRender. This provides a level playing field by making sure that everybody uses the same version and the...
Features:
- Import CSV data
- Export to CSV
Upvote Comparison
Interest Trends
Cycles Renderer Reviews
Add your reviews & share your experience when using Cycles Renderer to the world. Your opinion will be useful to others who are looking for the best Cycles Renderer alternatives.