FAQ
Features
Yes, U-RENDER supports 360° spherical camera rendering.
Right now the renderer does not support spline rendering. This is something we have on our roadmap and requires further research.
U-RENDER uses OpenGL, so it is GPU based. It uses rasterization - like game engines - to achieve render times within milliseconds.
Both AMD and NVIDIA cards are supported.
Particles are not planned for the initial version as we want to focus on getting all the basics right. We are planning about supporting particles in a later version though. We want to support popular and powerful plugins like X-Particles as well then.
No, U-RENDER integrates as third party renderer into Cinema 4D. It is not a replacement for the viewport. You can render your scenes using your familiar workflows.
Light and Shadows
We have soft shadow maps right now and are continuously researching high quality shadow algorithms to provide high quality results.
Volumetric rendering is something we have on our roadmap for future version. For a start we a busy enough to get all the expected features right and integrate them into a familiar Cinema 4D workflow.
Materials and Shaders
U-RENDER is using physically based rendering. We have implemented both specular/glossiness and metallic/roughness workflow as well as a hybrid handling of reflectance. Choose whatever fits your need on a per-material basis.
U-RENDER requires it’s own materials as it is realtime renderer. Cinema 4D’s shaders are all CPU based an need certain information at render time.
U-RENDER can automatically bake Cinema 4D’s shader into textures and transfers them to the real-time renderer. Effects that require render time information from the ray-tracer will be lost.
There is a converter for Cinema 4D standard materials so that all common parameters are transfered to U-RENDER materials.
Requirements and Platforms
Yes! U-RENDER uses the OpenGL standard so all cards that support modern versions of OpenGL will be supported. We are actively testing the renderer against modern AMD and NVIDIA cards.
Cinema 4D R16 and newer is supported.
U-RENDER is currently developed and optimized for Windows 10 using industry standard APIs like OpenGL.
Right now we focus on developing the Cinema 4D version. Other applications will be supported in the future. Please let us know what tools you use!