Redshift3D - first fully GPU-accelerated biased renderer

Maybe I misunderstood, but it looks like there’s no standalone version?

Keep Working While You Render
Because Redshift runs on the GPU with minimal CPU usage, your machine remains responsive while you render.

This looks to be a lie. In my experience, GPU rendering locks up the display more than CPU rendering does, which makes working in the meantime- particularly in a 3D app- nearly impossible. Can anyone verify?

That’s only an issue when you are rendering on the same card that runs your display. Maybe that’s what they mean.

That’s only an issue when you are rendering on the same card that runs your display. Maybe that’s what they mean.

It still seems disingenuous when you consider that only very high-end workstations have a graphics card dedicated to GPU rendering. Working while rendering is more often enjoyed when employing CPU rendering rather than GPU, as most CPUs these days are multi-core.

Seems cool! A little mixed on the gallery that they show. Some images look pretty good and others a bit dated. Still not the most realistic I have ever seen but how fast it is seems to be the best part of it. Only issue is that it is a bit pricey for me. But it’s not the most expensive or anything. Looks like it would make some really good cartooning stuff though.

It is well worth its price, support is great, renders are incredibly fast. If you’re a freelancer, you’ll pay it back very quickly. I just hope that we will get a blender version soon.

And about realistic renders, it’s all about what the artist does with it :slight_smile:

Hi, Panos from Redshift here.

Our claim that the machine remains responsive while rendering is because Redshift typically leaves enough ‘breathing room’ for the GPU to update the display. So the overall desktop experience is not as affected as with some other GPU renderers.

We often work with single GPUs here and are able to do stuff like compiling a new version (very CPU intensive), responding to forum posts, emailing etc while an animation is rendering on the background. And without the whole experience being horrible and jittery! :slight_smile: Of course, other GPU-intensive 3D apps could be affected while rendering as the Redshift scene could be using up significant GPU resources (in both memory and computational terms). In that specific case, yes, using multiple GPUs would be the solution.

-Panos

Great to hear from you Panos! And I’m happy to see you in this world too! I love Redshift, and still use SI for my main projects, so… hearing you show interest to get to the Blender community is great! Would be swell to play with Redshift in Blender! I loved trying out the Alpha. Glad to hear you have worked more on the multi-core, SSS and gpu multitasking. I will have to try out the beta again soon! It has been a while, but just let me say… YES, make an addon for Blender!!!

Hmmm, I think your problem might have something to do with your hardware.

I run a nvidia 770 and an intel i7 960 (both consumer gear, nothing professional) and when rendering with cycles or Redshift my computer runs absolutely fine. I don’t notice the gpu usage at all.

I keep kicking myself not picking it up at beta stage. $100 was such a bargain for probably the best renderer for freelance/small studio work. If they come out with Blender and/or Houdini bridges I will be getting it at $500 as its now. The reason I didn’t buy it in beta was such a silly one, I tried it out on a running production and it was excellent with only problem being the lights casting shadows of them selves, and the forums stating it wasn’t an easy fix. And now at 1.x its fixed…

Hi, Panos from Redshift here.

Our claim that the machine remains responsive while rendering is because Redshift typically leaves enough ‘breathing room’ for the GPU to update the display. So the overall desktop experience is not as affected as with some other GPU renderers.

We often work with single GPUs here and are able to do stuff like compiling a new version (very CPU intensive), responding to forum posts, emailing etc while an animation is rendering on the background. And without the whole experience being horrible and jittery! :slight_smile: Of course, other GPU-intensive 3D apps could be affected while rendering as the Redshift scene could be using up significant GPU resources (in both memory and computational terms). In that specific case, yes, using multiple GPUs would be the solution.

-Panos

Thank you for responding, Panos! My concerns are allayed.

The product looks terrific and I think Blender users would be strongly interested in it. A biased GPU rendering solution for Blender would compliment the more unbiased method of Cycles rather nicely. If it integrated with Blender, I’d buy it.

Yes indeed, Blender integration would make this s must-have in my toolset.

Oh I know, but from what I’ve seen I didn’t find anything that fooled me for a second. It probably can do better, I just haven’t seen anything that proves it. I’ll be keeping an eye on it. At the moment I’m just a lowly student so maybe once I start freelancing a bit I will look at buying it.

It’s interesting to see how many people in this thread seem to think Redshift is yet another GPU-based unbiased pathtracer. It’s actually a biased raytracer, but on the GPU, hence the insane speed compared with other CPU-bound raytracers like V-Ray :). From my own personal experiments it seems to be very similar to V-Ray, but 20x faster (on my system, with a 3770k and a GTX670) :smiley:

I seriously can’t wait for a Blender plugin, be it from the devs of this dream renderer or someone in the Blender community, this is the engine that I expect the hobbyists and freelancers have been waiting for!

Looks very promising, at that speed it should be absolutely amazing for animation rendering. Even considering the price it should still save a lot of money when rendering thousands of frames. Would be really great to see it integrated with Blender.

Is OpenCL supported yet?

haha, no standalone version

It is pretty freaking fast.
With a small personal render farm or multi GPU system, you could even render entire animations with little hassle