Sneak peek: new GPU renderer U-Render for Maya
U-Render Visual Technology has released a sneak peek at U-Render for Maya, the long-awaited Maya edition of its ‘really real-time’ renderer.
The demo, recorded on a system with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, shows lights and materials being edited in real time on a scene with ambient occlusion and screen space global illumination enabled.
Genuine real-time rendering for both viewport previews and final-quality output
Designed more like a game engine than a conventional offline renderer, U-Render promises genuine real-time rendering, for both viewport previews and final-quality output.
The software has been available for Cinema 4D since 2018, with U-Render announcing a Maya edition as far back as 2020, at which point it was due in beta by the end of the year.
The new teaser suggests that the Maya edition is finally moving closer to a release, and shows a fairly complex scene running on mid-to-high-end consumer GPU: a previous-gen GeForce RTX 2080.
Changes to lights and materials – including displacement settings – are displayed interactively in the viewport, and character animations scrub through at a workable rate.
The demo doesn’t show any more complex effects like particles or fluid simulation – neither of which is yet supported in the Cinema 4D edition – but U-Render says that it will continue to add features.
Pricing, release date and system requirements
U-Render for Maya will be released in alpha “soon”. U-Render hasn’t announced pricing yet.
The software will initially be Windows-only, with a macOS edition to follow after U-Render adds macOS support to the Cinema 4D edition, “probably at the beginning of next year”.
U-Render for Cinema 4D is compatible with Cinema 4D R20-S26, running on Windows 10+. The software is rental-only, with subscriptions priced at $275/year.