LuxRender is a completely free, open source, physically based renderer with many contributors led by Jean-Philippe Grimaldi. I believe it is one of the best renderers out there for Blender, 3Ds Max and Maya. The author of the Hotel Lobby scene is Peter Sandbacka.<\/p>\n
Some of the main benefits of using LuxRender are the following:
\n– it supports a multitude of material models,
\n– with light groups, you can adjust the influence of light sources on your scene without needing to rerender your image,
\n– a great thing about LuxRender is that is supports network rendering. With a neat trick, this is possible even without a network!
\n– it has sophisticated rendering algorithms like Metropolis Light Transport to render notoriously difficult scenes,
\n– different film brands and models have different color profiles, which means that they react to the same, for instance, red light differently. LuxRender is able to simulate this effect,
\n– it supports GPU rendering,
\n– it is cross-platform, it works on Windows, Linux and OSX as well, and it also works with a huge number of modeling software out there like Blender, 3Ds Max, Maya and many more.<\/p>\n
Official website: http:\/\/www.luxrender.net\/
\nOfficial forums: http:\/\/www.luxrender.net\/forum
\nOfficial gallery: http:\/\/www.luxrender.net\/gallery
\nInfographics: https:\/\/www.cg.tuwien.ac.at\/~zsolnai\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/luxrender-infographics.jpg
\nReddit: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/luxrender\/
\nLuxMerger: http:\/\/www.luxrender.net\/wiki\/LuxMerger<\/p>\n
An amazing slow motion shatter test video rendered on the GPU, it took 25 seconds per HD-frame:<\/p>\n