E-Cycles is a fork of Cycles for faster rendering. This is a complete build of Blender, with weekly updates. As it was often requested, I created a new cheaper version. This version is for CPU and OpenCL devices only and is around 10 to 20% faster than official Cycles with the same settings. The output is 100% like master. But thanks to a new feature, you can render at very low sample while keeping a good visual quality.
It is now available for half the price of the CUDA version.
https://gumroad.com/l/bfeaI
It also includes a new denoiser based on the OpenImageDenoise library from Intel and the according node from Stefan Werner. In the images above, you can compare the new denoiser (first image), the official denoiser (second image) and the original noisy image (third one). The new denoiser much better conserves the highlights, lamps and details.
Here are some examples of the 2.78 splash screen by Juri Unt (www.cgstrive.com)
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at 16spp
the original noisy image:
the master denoiser version:
and the new denoiser version:
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at 64spp
the original noisy image:
the master denoiser version:
and the new denoiser version:
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at 256spp
the original noisy image:
the master denoiser version:
and the new denoiser version:
If you want a version for CUDA, which is also 2x faster to render than official version, you can get it here for 2.8 https://gumroad.com/l/tsTuV or here for 2.7 https://gumroad.com/l/SeYhy
You can also see a video of classroom made at 36spp here E-Cycles - The fastest render engine for Blender. 3.2 release available now! - #499 by bliblubli
If you want to learn how to add such functionnality, make rendering faster, add new modifiers and create your own Blender, you are welcome to take part to this course: https://gumroad.com/l/ecycle/kn67150 