Top 15 Cycles Renderer Alternative and Similar Softwares | Dec 2024

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

1. Visual Designer 3D

Visual Designer 3D Visual Designer is one handy yet efficient tool for 3D real-time photorealistic rendering, on both CPU and GPU (with AMD & NVIDIA GPU support). It is one easy solution to the complicated parameters of the so-called “specialized tools” as it offers an absolutely surprising amalgam of ergonomics and improved workflow.......

2. RenderMan

RenderMan PhotoRealistic RenderMan, or PRMan for short, is a proprietary photorealistic RenderMan-compliant renderer.It primarily uses the REYES algorithm but is also fully capable of doing ray tracing and global illumination.PRMan is produced by Pixar Animation Studios and used to render all of their in-house 3D animated movie productions.Pixar's RenderMan has been......

3. PlantUML

PlantUML PlantUML is an open-source tool that uses simple textual descriptions to draw UML diagrams. The generator can be run anywhere within JVM and integrated with various application such as wiki, text editor, IDE, programming language, documentation generator, and others. Mostly based on Graphviz. Can render various diagram syntax such as......

4. messiahStudio

messiahStudio messiahStudio is a powerful animation & rendering software package specifically designed to handle the most demanding character animation & rendering needs. It has been quietly used in feature films, commercials, games, music videos and print ads for over 10 years; and is now one of the fastest growing CG packages......

5. Kerkythea

Kerkythea Powerful, feature-rich and fast standalone raytracing renderer.Exporters from Blender and Google SketchUp are also available.Allows network rendering of images and animationSupported Features* - Bump Mapping - Normal Mapping - Clip Mapping - Bevel Mapping (an innovative KT feature!) - Edge Outlining - Depth of Field - Absorption/Fog - Isotropic Volume......

6. Artlantis Studio

Artlantis Studio Artlantis Studio is the ideal tool for anyone who wants very high resolution rendering not only for images, but for QuickTime VR Panoramas, Objects and animations as well.Artlantis Studio the fastest stand-alone 3D rendering and animation application designed especially for architects and designers, is a leader in radiosity, also known......

7. owlet

owlet Owlet is a stanadlone, unbiased, physically-based raytracing renderer. It takes your 3D files in many formats, allows you to setup the scene and renders them using a high-quality raytracing renderer.......

8. WorldBuilder

WorldBuilder WorldBuilder, a stand-alone scene builder and renderer with unsurpassed compatibly with Max, Maya, LightWave, and SoftImage, is the premier tool for laying out and rendering 3D outdoor environments.......

9. Coagula

Coagula [Description taken from archived version of Coagula site ( https://web.archive.org/web/20040704082928/http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm )]Coagula is an image synth. It is both a simple image editor, and a program for generating sound from images (using additive synthesis).You can use Coagula to generate rich and complex synth sounds. There are special drawing tools to help......

10. appleseed

appleseed appleseed is a modern, open source, physically-based rendering engine designed to produce photorealistic images, animations and visual effects. It provides individuals and small studios with an efficient, reliable suite of tools built on robust foundations and open technologies.......

11. vSwarm

vSwarm Render your 3D animations fasterUsing Blender or Luxrender and need some serious horsepower for a render, but don’t own a renderfarm? Well good news! vSwarm is attempting to bring the power of tools like Seti@Home and Folding@Home to render farms, allowing users worldwide to install a simple client on their......

12. Electric Image Animation System (EIAS)

Electric Image Animation System (EIAS) The Electric Image Animation System (EIAS) is an eminent 3D animation and rendering package. Available for the Mac and PC, with it, you can texture, animate and render your 3D scenes. Extraordinarily, EIAS includes the ability to network render to an unlimited number of computers across both platforms. EIAS presents......

13. Transana

Transana Transana is software for professional researchers who want to analyze digital video or audio data. Transana lets you analyze and manage your data in very sophisticated ways. Transcribe it, identify analytically interesting clips, assign keywords to clips, arrange and rearrange clips, create complex collections of interrelated clips, explore relationships between......

14. Today's Target

Today's Target The Classroom Progress toolThe aim is to set short term achievable goals in each lesson, giving students a target for each and every coursework session.Register FREE todayFeatures - Manage targets, students and comments from a simple dashboard for each class. It even automatically updates when targets are set. View all......

15. Personal Task Manager

Personal Task Manager PTM is an Open Source time tracking tool hosted by Sourceforge.net.It looks like Windows Task Manager (see screenshots)Have you ever suffer to answer to questions like...# What have you done last week?,# On what kind of things did you spent the time?humm... I used to have no answer... till download......