What is a rendering? This is the final step of 3D visualization production when designers are finalizing their project and transferring a project from a 3D program into an easily displayable form – by mobile phone, TV, or laptop screen. All of these screens are 2-dimensional. This is the need for rendering is a must. This is the workflow of producing 2D images out of 3D data.
In this post, we are discovering the subject of real-time 3D rendering. We’ll elaborate on its key aspects, benefits, use cases, and the best software options.
Offline or pre-rendering is a common design rendering type in which a sequence of images is shown at a later time: Your 3D images are designed as detailed (texture, realism) as you want them to be. Once your design is completed, the CPU/GPU starts processing it into a 2D design for an easy display on mobile phone or laptop screens. The more complex your 3D image is, the more time rendering will take before any image is displayed. Hence, it’s called pre-rendering.
The core benefit of pre-rendering is the fact it allows putting as much effort into producing realistic images as you wish. Yet, it prevents creating interactive visualization since all work is done in advance.
Real-time rendering definition starts the same as a common design rendering type. However, unlike offline rendering, this one is done in a faster timeframe. The image under real-time rendering is produced a lot faster, practically immediately after the information input. To give you an example, the Unity engine renders 30–60 frames per second, processing and displaying 30-60 2D images from the input in a second.
There are several key aspects of an efficient real-time rendering:
Let’s take a closer look at every aspect in more detail.
Real-time rendering includes geometry processing, shading, rasterization, and other pipeline stages. To achieve the best possible performance, it’s crucial to optimize each of the stages. For instance, geometry processing is about transforming elementary assembly. For this, instancing and caching techniques are used.
Rasterization, in turn, transforms primitives into pixels. It also reduces the consumption of memory via tile-based rendering and conservative rasterization. As for shading, it encompasses measuring surfaces’ appearance employing algorithms (pixel shaders and vertex).
Both lighting and shading should be very realistic. They play a vital role in creating visually appealing scenes. The PBR, Blinn-Phong, and Phong shading technology simulate light-surface interactions and help to design realistic pictures.
Grading techniques are essential as well. Among the most prominent ones in real-time rendering are ambient occlusion, image-based lighting, and subsurface scattering. They add to the rendered scenes’ realism, taking responsibility for material properties and lighting effects.
By forcing parallelism and GPU acceleration, it’s possible to complete real-time rendering tasks more effectively and get high-performing graphics as a result. Graphics API gives low-level GPU hardware access, enabling software engineers to leverage rendering-focused algorithms and make use of parallel processing capabilities more effectively.
One of the focal points of GPU acceleration and parallelism is computed shaders. They speed up tasks over and above traditional animation rendering. The best above-traditional rendering examples are simulations, AI, physics, and procedural generation.
Both material and texture management add to the richness of visualization. Yet, it also enforces performance and memory overload. Efficient management of materials and textures upgrades rendering performance.
The use of special texture streaming techniques helps to load/unload texture information proactively, thus reducing the load times and memory usage. As for the mind-mapping, it allows the production of low-resolution textures and lessens aliasing artifacts.
Rendering in real time entails the transformation of high-complexity scenes. They are scenes with many objects, straining rendering resources. With effective scene management and occlusion culling methods, it’s easier to enhance performance.
What’s occlusion culling? This is the process of identifying obstructed objects and prohibiting them from the rendering flow. At the same time, frame rates are improved, and GPU resources are conserved.
Once there’s a final-rendered image, post-processing effects are utilized. Their task is to add more of the cinematic elegance and improve visual quality. Through this, the desired aesthetics is achieved. For instance, bloom can contribute glowing effects to a picture’s brightest areas. Field depth can simulate light diffusion through the camera’s lens.
Motion blur is winning for fast-moving objects, if any. It helps to induce their blurring and adds a sense of fluidity and speed to computer–animated spots.
The benefits of 3D rendering are multiple. In the paragraphs below, we’ll be focusing on the five core ones, namely:
Visual world exploration and interaction with is what you receive from real-time rendering. Users can look into, move around, and engage with a rendered scene. It is possible to control an object’s motions and change them. For interior and architectural designs, clients zoom in and move around rooms and houses, observing objects from different angles and at various times.
Any changes to scenes can be made quickly and, what’s more important, they will be displayed instantly. This is due to real-time rendering, bringing quick interactions and awesome flexibility. This allows designers to check diverse ideas here and now, as well as see how they look in the setting. Fine-tuning and redesigning are on the fly.
Fast, lightning-fast – that’s what they call real-time rendering. The interaction of objects’ geometry, materials, and lights is easily and quickly explored during real-time changes. Previously, users had to wait for renders to complete. Now, they are enabled to produce animations, visual effects, and images at once.
They call it photorealistic quality thanks to the ray tracing technique. This technique can stimulate light’s physical properties and deliver pictures of a very high photorealistic quality. Being rendered, a virtual world produces a high immersion effect on a viewer.
Real-time rendering streamlines inter-team collaboration to refine a design. It’s possible to share designs and projects both with colleagues and clients, reducing feedback communication. Moreover, presentations are enhanced as well, especially when clients want to take a look at a house from a certain perspective at a particular hour. With real-time rendering, this takes a couple of clicks.
According to LinkedIn, there are some disadvantages of rendering in real-time. Among them, a certain rules and standards a user has to follow to have control over lighting, shading, or post-processing. According to the article, these options aren’t as flexible as a user would like them to be. Nevertheless, things depend on the software one is using.
Here’s the list of main areas and domains, where real-time rendering is applied the most:
This is probably the top popular example of a real-time rendering application. This technology enables video game creators to design excellent and engaging worlds and environments that instantly reflect players’ actions and movements. In video game development, rendering makes it possible to render 3D models of any complexity, adding dynamic settings, and very realistic designs.
This case is similar to the one with video games. Here, the rendering technology makes it possible to produce realistic settings and easily interact with their virtual objects. Real-time rendering creates VR environments and experiences that users want to repeat over and over again. Additionally, 3D rendering in VR is a must-have for delivering high-resolution image rendering for a comfortable user experience.
Most AR apps can’t do without real-time rendering. The technique is used in this domain to coat any real-world content in real-time right from a user’s device. This is how, it is feasible to produce functional solutions useful in e-commerce, for instance.
Working in a design agency or architecture company in the 2020s is about creative realistic and highly interactive visualization to make sure a client sees and feels the atmosphere of their future home, shopping mall, office, etc. Gone is the time of sketches, drawings, and diagrams in the construction business. What’s more, this helps architects and designers as well, since they make informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes.
And even though in this domain, CGI and CGI animation are the core computer graphics options. Real-time rendering works not only for film title design but also in the post-production stage. With this technology, filmmakers create realistic film settings and visual effects, minimizing their post-production work. Via real-time rendering, they create the setting that contributes to the cinematic experience. Now, rendering is a must-have part of filmmaking if a higher film score is at stake.
Since online shopping on web pages and via mobile apps is getting more popular, retailers are investing in effective marketing campaigns. Real-time rendering is transforming the way a company showcases its offering. This technology allows customers to see products in realistic detail, interact with them, zoom in/out, check them from different angles, or change their color. Retailers, thus, become more successful in their sales.
Finally, real-time rendering is essential for education and training for delivering the most realistic training purpose simulations (those in the medical field or aviation). Thanks to it, students can practice their skills and practice more complex procedures in a safe environment.
Alongside looking for the best animation and video production services, people are also checking the lists of best rendering software to quickly produce 2D images out of 3D data. The table we’re providing below showcases the top 10 3D rendering software options and their basic characteristics.
| Name | Pros | Cons | Pricing (Annually) | Use Area |
| Enscape | VR options, high-speed rendering, enhanced collaboration, easy UI | Poor customer support, functional constraints | $1,007 | Construction, architecture, and visualization experts |
| 3D Studio Max | Highly realistic, high level of details | Pricing, hardware requirements | $2,407 | Photorealism, 3D studios |
| Revit | Parametric modeling, Building Information Modeling integration | Pricing, features constraints, plugins requirements | $3,616 | Architects, engineers |
| Lumion | Friendly UI, enhanced visualization | Customization constraints, hardware requirements | up to $1,620 | Advanced designers |
| Maxwell Render | Friendly UI, high lighting quality | Time-consuming server-side rendering | $813 | Interior designers and architects |
| Corona Renderer | Pricing, limited learning period | Availability constraints, CPU dependency | $457 | Designers |
| KeyShot | Friendly UI, photorealistic results | Pricing, wide view constraints | $1,296 | Product descriptions |
| V-Ray | Realism, pricing | Numerous tutorials and dependence on them | $689 | Architects |
| Unreal Engine | Free, VR experience | Limited use cases | Free | Designers, architects |
| Octane Render | High level of quality, use of GPU | tailored blender version | $261 | Blender users |
Even knowing all the ins and outs and choosing the most suitable software, most businesses face a huge challenge: they need the support of creative professionals, masters of art, and animation. If you are one of them, let’s talk about your project and figure out how we can fulfill your needs.
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