D5 Render 2.3: An Amazing Update to a Great Engine!
Slow 3D rendering has always been the bottleneck that slowed your workflow as a 3D Artist. Not with D5! This rendering engine keeps up with every thought and modification to immerse you in a seamless workflow. You can fully dive into the creative moment, sculpt with light, and indeed play in the worlds you create!
Click here to get D5 Render 2.3 now!
Intro
D5 or Dimension 5 Tech released its latest version, v2.3 mid-August 2022, and so far, it has proven to be a significant update to one of the best real-time rendering engines for 3D projects around the globe. With this new update, 3D Artists can now quickly; Round edges in the model, Limit color bleeding, Manually Control DOF effect, and control the level of detail!
I'll highlight some of the new features that individually excite me: the new Fog Optimization, Interior Parallax Assets (my favorite), AO Ambient occlusion mode, Adjustable sun disk radius in Geo and Sky, New high-quality static vegetation assets, and new Cloud Optimization to name a few!
Every other new feature can be found in the official D5 Render 2.3 Release post, which is available here.
So, let's begin with the highlights of this new v2.3 update. Here is a video of the new features.
Round Corner
In the real world, all objects have a degree of roundness at their edge. With the new round corner feature, artists can now control the radius of such roundness, enhancing each object and the overall photo realism of any 3D project they work on!
Limit Color Bleeding
Now you can turn on Limit Material Color Bleeding. When some brightly colored materials are in the scene, bleeding of color may be too intense in the GI. With this option turned on, the material's color in GI reflection will be calculated as gray, with the same brightness value.
Outline Mode
You can use the new Outline mode to emphasize the outline of models in the scene. It supports adjusting the line color, transparency, changing width by distance, and the background color. This feature is unique as it allows you to generate a lot of cool render effects and styles with just a few clicks!
Optimized Cloud Effect
You can now customize the cloud effect. The optimized cloud is divided into two levels: high-level cloud and low-level cloud, with three new parameters: thickness, density, and height. These can be adjusted to your liking to change the cloud shape.
Interior Parallax assets
Parallax is a new method that uses a single polygon to show an entire room. With this new power, it is now possible to create realistic fake interiors, saving you tons of time in the process! About 40 plus Interior parallax assets were added, including commercial and residential types, with adjustable parameters like lighting, light intensity, and position of elements. Awesome!
Optimized Grass material
Perhaps one of the most critical objects in exterior 3D projects, the grass material has been fully optimized in this new update. To improve the grass material, they adjusted the grass model size and increased the model quality of leaves. New grassland templates and all new height, density, and trim parameters were added.
Fog Optimization
The all-new fog optimization allows for greater control of fog application in every scene. The following parameters can now be controlled:
Height: controls the generation position of fog in the vertical direction.
Falloff: controls the attenuation speed of fog in the vertical direction. The higher the value, the faster the falloff. The lower the value, the softer the transition of fog in the vertical direction.
Start distance: the generated distance from the fog to the position of the current viewing angle lens.
AO (Ambient Occlusion) Mode
AO mode rendering, which supports customized AO Radius value. AO mode can either be directly rendered or output as the AO channel of images.
Adjustable Sun Disk Radius
This update allows you to take advantage of the new adjustable sun disk radius! Sun disk radius is now adjustable in Geo and Sky, and to a certain extent, it also affects the softness of shadows. Meanwhile, the sunlight intensity stays the same.
This is most helpful when combined with the new AO (Ambient Occlusion) mode to create the desired ambient lighting in every scene!
Level of Detail (LOD) Switch
This new switch affects the level of detail of models as seen by the camera in every scene. Turn it on, and the model details will decrease as the distance from the camera increases. In this way, rendering efficiency is dramatically improved!
Manual focus for DOF effect
You can now manually place Bokeh Effects! Under Camera settings, turn on Depth of Field and set a focus, then the Follow Focus option will be enabled by default. If it is disabled, you can manually enter the focus distance value instead.
Intel Arc GPU Support
D5 Render also becomes one of the first applications to officially support Intel's new Arc GPUs (link) and XeSS, its render upscaling system... Amazing!
Other new features Include:
· Optimized vehicle path- The vehicle path has some new parameters, including random colors for cars and car lights on/off for all the vehicles on the path.
· Support importing material maps in .tif /.tiff /.tga
· Support Flip Horizontal for HDRI - A horizontal flip feature was added for HDRI. Besides, we fixed the problem that the imported HDRI was auto-flipped.
· Show estimated time remaining when rendering - Now we can know the estimated time remaining when rendering.
· Optimized Scene Statistics Tool – You can now check the resources usage and scene statistics
· Optimized support for Alembic .abc models - The compatibility and speed of .abc file support are improved
· Improved User Interface - The materials and textures interface is now faster for a smoother experience.
· Support opening the file path of maps - When editing maps of materials, we can right-click on them > "File Location" to open the file path and find the map.
Conclusion
Seeing all these exciting new features, I can say D5 render v2.3 looks to be a massive step in the right direction in all aspects of 3D visualization. I can't wait to see what they include in future updates!
About Ikechukwu Ihegwuagu
Ikechukwu Ihegwuagu is an eclectic designer passionate about 3D Arch viz. He works part-time with an Architectural firm in Nigeria and also carries out freelance jobs. When he's not working on projects, he loves to practice his skills, write 3D-related content, as well as share what he knows about Arch viz on his YouTube Channel