Ran into a reference to a GPU based render engine for 3DS Max the other day - it's called RT2. Couldn't find any more info, but it's reported to be extremely fast.

With OpenGL 2.0 / DirectX 9.0c the graphics cards have highly programmable vertex shaders and pixel shaders. So a lot of the rendering tasks can be offloaded to the GPU.

The softbody simulation pnevai refers to is NOT part of the rendering step. 3D work consists of many steps, of which rendering is only one - but very time-consuming, especially in the case of animations - step.
I think rendering can be sped up by an enormous amount using the rendering capabilities of the modern GPUs. And that RT2 development looks promising.

Message edited on: 03/17/2006 12:21

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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