D5 Render

About this release

D5 Render exists because architectural visualisation used to mean sending a scene off to render and finding out an hour later that the light was wrong. Here the viewport is ray traced in real time, so moving the sun, changing a material or dropping in a tree shows the final quality result immediately, and the decision loop that used to take a day takes a few minutes.

The live links are what make it practical in an office. Connectors for the common modelling and building information applications push geometry across and keep it synchronised, so a change in the model appears in the visualisation without a re export, and materials and cameras assigned on the visualisation side survive the update rather than being lost.

Lighting is physically based throughout. Sun position by location and time of day, sky models, interior fixtures with real photometric behaviour, global illumination, caustics and volumetric atmosphere all resolve in the viewport. Interior scenes, which are the hardest case, hold up without the light leaks and blotchy corners that older real time approaches produced.

The asset library covers the furniture, vegetation, people, vehicles and material sets that a presentation needs, with animated entries for water, cloth and foliage motion. Output covers stills, walkthrough animation, panoramas and turntables, with a render queue that batches overnight at full quality once the look is settled in the viewport.

What it does

Real time ray traced viewport

Final quality lighting while you move the camera, so decisions do not wait on a render.

Live model synchronisation

Connectors keep geometry in step with the modelling application without re exporting.

Physically based lighting

Sun by location and time, photometric fixtures, global illumination and volumetrics.

Large asset library

Furniture, vegetation, people, vehicles and materials, including animated entries.

Animation and panorama output

Walkthroughs, turntables and panoramas alongside stills.

Batch render queue

Queue full quality output overnight once the look is agreed in the viewport.

Changed in this version

• Faster viewport on scenes with heavy vegetation.
• Improved interior global illumination on small rooms.
• New material and asset packs added to the library.
• Live link stability improved on very large models.
• Render queue gains per job resolution overrides.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive to a drive with room for the asset library.
2. Update the graphics driver before installing, since ray tracing support is checked at launch.
3. Run the installer and set the asset library location off the system drive if possible.
4. Install the connector for the modelling application from inside the settings panel.

Worth knowing before you start

File details