@DustRider:

The issue of CPU versus GPU based renderers will never be settled. Each technology has its supporters, and we can debate it for months without any tangible results.

What I am trying to do is to see which one of Embree or Octane make more sense for Carrara.

So far these are the results that, I think, I have established:

1. Embree provides that part of a renderer that is the hardest, most 'rocket science', most onerous to design, i.e. the raytracing routines.

2. Embree is already in world-class apps like VRay, C4D and Simlab. Therefore Embree itself is a world-class product. Being a world-class product means that most likely it will soon be in Lightwave, Modo, Shade and even Poser. So not being in Carrara, will take Carrara one step closer to a dying dinosaur.

3. Embree will run natively in Carrara and will support Carrara's lighting and shading systems, including hair shader and volumetrics, for a total estimated development cost of 6 months or $100K.-, asuming that the developer assigned to the project knows what he/she is doing.

4. Embree will run on any fairly recent Intel or AMD CPU, provided that it supports the SSE3 instruction set, i.e Embree will run on anything from laptops all the way to high-end workstations.

5. Embree could make Carrara's renderer go up to 30x faster by my estimate, while at the same time improving the render quality noticeably. This is more  than enough for most Carrara users. Actually if you look at this list (link) of all the movies rendered with 3Delight, which is a CPU based renderer, you will wonder  why the producers of these movies did not use a GPU based renderer. Certainly it is not a question of budget, since these guys have all the multi-million dollars budgets that they could wish for. Therefore there must be other reasons. Render quality maybe? Or speed? Or reliability in handling large projects?

6. Embree will positively contribute to Carrara sales going through the roof, i.e Embree could potentially turn Carrara into a self-sustaining product. This will be a huge benefit for Daz, for Carrara PA's, and for Carrara users, because nobody wants to drag along, develop contents, or work with a 3D app whose future is uncertain.

In other words with Embree implemented in Carrara everybody wins: Daz, PA's and users.

In my next post I will look at whether the same can be said about Octane and Octane plugin for Carrara.