2016 Architectural Visualization Rendering Engine Survey

[Alex_M]

A very interesting survey has been made by CG Architect about the usage of render engines in 2016 and the future trends. The full survey with nice colorful charts can be found here.


Here are some excerpts:

- 55% of V-Ray users are experimenting with another rendering engine: Corona (44.7%), Unreal (31.9%), FStorm (23.6%), Octane (15.2%), V-Ray RT (14.5%), Arnold (9.7%), Lumion (8.8%), Maxwell Render (5.9%), Redshift (5.9%). Of these users, 26% plan to replace V-Ray as their primary rendering engine, the reminder (64%) will supplement V-Ray.

- Of V-Ray users currently experimenting with Corona, 26% intend to replace their existing production renderer, 63% intend to supplement their existing rendering engine.

- Of V-Ray users currently experimenting with FStorm, 29% intend to replace their existing production renderer, 65% intend to supplement their existing rendering engine.

- 58% of mental ray users are experimenting with another renndering engine: Corona (32.8%), Unreal (27.6%), V-Ray Adv (24.1%), V-Ray RT (24.1%), Iray (15.5%), Arnold (13.8%), Octane (12.1%), FStorm (12.1%), Lumion (10.3%)

- 52% of Corona users are experimenting with another rendering engine: FStorm (42.9%), Unreal (29.4%), Octane (20.6%), V-Ray (10.6%) Arnold (8.8%), V-Ray RT (8.2%), Lumion (7.6%), Redshift (7.1%), Iray (6.5%)

[vlado]

Which of these groups do you fall into?

Best regards,
Vlado

[theedge]

I find it odd that Unreal is listed as a render engine.

[AlexP]

We're experimenting with other engines to supplement Vray

Cant imagine replacing Vray in production at the moment.

Dreaming of nice integration with a game engine at some point.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

55% of vray users is experimenting with another render engine with a possible prospects of jumping onto a different bandwagon....
i find this number alarmingly high :-/

how do you feel about this survey Vlado?

I have seen some video on Evermotion where Peter Guthrie was basically taken in by Corona....no matter how tendential this video looked to me (almost liek a Corona commercial in the end)....it actually got me to download Corona and do a little testdrive.

Its a little heartbraking for me to see some of the big names changing the teams...

but perhaps i am just a little sensitive these days )))

[vlado]

55% of vray users is experimenting with another render engine with a possible prospects of jumping onto a different bandwagon.... i find this number alarmingly high :-/ how do you feel about this survey Vlado?

<shrug> The survey is voluntary and filled only by 1000 or so people; it's anyone's guess what the actual data looks like. In any case, it's normal for people to experiment with new things, even if only because they offer a fresh perspective on their everyday work. And it's not like we don't have things to improve in V-Ray either. On the whole, it could have been a lot worse

I have seen some video on Evermotion where Peter Guthrie was basically taken in by Corona....no matter how tendential this video looked to me (almost liek a Corona commercial in the end)....it actually got me to download Corona and do a little testdrive. Its a little heartbraking for me to see some of the big names changing the teams...

Corona is not a bad engine; for many people it probably makes more sense than V-Ray.

Best regards,
Vlado

[cheerioboy]

We're experimenting with other engines to supplement Vray

Cant imagine replacing Vray in production at the moment.

Dreaming of nice integration with a game engine at some point.

Yas, I need an easier workflow to go between prerendered content to realtime viz. Right now I use Vray and Unity3d. I've been faithful Vlado, haven't touched any of the other renders.

[Vizioen]

I tried Corona for my last project. Needless to say I liked the gimmicks it provides (lens effects, filmic stuff, real time rendering etc) but it proved entirely not up to my standards and it crashed a lot, I had to do a last minute scene convert back to vray to finish the project. It just wouldn't have been possible with Corona. Vray I feel is a lot more mature/stable has a ton more features (that I need). Although I like to see a few of the things corona has to offer implemented (but those have been discussed lengthy so no need to go into detail). As soon as those are implemented in Vray I have no reason at all to look at something else.

[Alex_M]

I'm currently heavily experimenting with Vray RT. I'm also playing with Corona and Fstorm when I have some free time. I don't plan replacing Vray as my main production renderer in the near future (1-2 years).

I'm also investigating the possibility to render some certain projects with Vray RT.

I've used Corona only for 2-3 commercial projects so far (with great visual results). Still haven't had the time to check it out in depth and convert assets for it. I use Corona when absolutely utmost photographic result is needed and nothing less. For such types of jobs I was also considering Maxwell but when I tested it on a commercial job and I saw the render times I was like.
Not saying I couldn't achieve the same photographic result with Vray but Corona seems to be able to do it out of the box with not much messing around. It shows that it's created as an arch-vis render engine from the get-go.

I'm also lately playing with Fstorm and trying to figure out for what types of jobs it's feasable to use for. So far Fstorm seems to be really good with lens effects and I have some jobs where these are absolutely mandatory to look good and it seems that supplementing Vray with Fstorm will benefit me for these job because Vray seem to produce strange artifacts in the glare (described by me here ).

[LudvikKoutny]

I tried Corona for my last project. Needless to say I liked the gimmicks it provides (lens effects, filmic stuff, real time rendering etc) but it proved entirely not up to my standards and it crashed a lot, I had to do a last minute scene convert back to vray to finish the project. It just wouldn't have been possible with Corona. Vray I feel is a lot more mature/stable has a ton more features (that I need). Although I like to see a few of the things corona has to offer implemented (but those have been discussed lengthy so no need to go into detail). As soon as those are implemented in Vray I have no reason at all to look at something else.

I do realize this forum is definitely not a place to mention how great other renderers are, but random bashing of competition is not really helpful either. I suspect you have used some unstable daily build, or did something that crashes in 3ds Max rather than Corona, because from my experience, Corona is at least as stable as V-Ray, if not more

[vlado]

I do realize this forum is definitely not a place to mention how great other renderers are, but random bashing of competition is not really helpful either.

Hm, I can see V-Ray randomly bashed left and right on other forums It seems to be the modern thing to do these days...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Neilg]

cg architect isnt a great sample size, it's an older crowd than most and nearly all forum posts seem to be complaining that rendering in general is far too complicated. i feel like even evermotion would have a different skew - let alone a community that serves vfx & general agencies.

[Vizioen]

I do realize this forum is definitely not a place to mention how great other renderers are, but random bashing of competition is not really helpful either. I suspect you have used some unstable daily build, or did something that crashes in 3ds Max rather than Corona, because from my experience, Corona is at least as stable as V-Ray, if not more

I don't see any bashing here? I gave an honest opinion, I've used it for 2 weeks which is to say enough to form an opinion and I gave it a fair shot. I liked it but it didn't prove reliable enough and I found a very annoying bug after the second day already that slowed my process down, which is:

"When using a corona bitmap, if I change the channel to something else beside 1 the map tiling in the material preview is completely bonkers."

To quote myself in the forum there.

I used a stable build by the way and it worked flawlessly with Vray, nothing wrong with my max. I will probably give it another shot in a year or so but for now it didn't have the things I needed.

[LudvikKoutny]

I don't see any bashing here? I gave an honest opinion, I've used it for 2 weeks which is to say enough to form an opinion and I gave it a fair shot. I liked it but it didn't prove reliable enough and I found a very annoying bug after the second day already that slowed my process down, which is:

"When using a corona bitmap, if I change the channel to something else beside 1 the map tiling in the material preview is completely bonkers."

To quote myself in the forum there.

I used a stable build by the way and it worked flawlessly with Vray, nothing wrong with my max. I will probably give it another shot in a year or so but for now it didn't have the things I needed.

Well, bonkers tiling does not sound like crash to me. I may overreacted a little bit, but as I said, I haven't had that experience and don't know many people who do.

Hm, I can see V-Ray randomly bashed left and right on other forums It seems to be the modern thing to do these days...

Best regards,
Vlado

That's an unfortunate truth. I like to avoid it mostly. When I see some obviously unfair statements, I do not hesitate to jump in defense of V-Ray on Corona forum for example. I guess I am just too temperamental to endure seeing circles of die hard fan users reassuring each other how much is the grass greener on their side

[WilleViz]

I just bought V-Ray for MODO on top of my V-Ray for 3ds Max. None of that Corona nonsense for me!

But! I'm really surprised that RedShift isn't more widespread.

V-Ray, Redshift and Unreal are the most impressive and interesting render engines going forward IMHO. They are for different solutions, clearly, but no way I would spend time to learn the rest. (And yes, I know Arnold is perfect for animation/VFX).