Chapter 10. Hyper-realism – the Reality Plugin

For many 3D artists, achieving photorealistic results is the Holy Grail of 3D technology. Up to this point we have rendered our scenes using 3Delight, the renderer that is integrated in Studio. Although this situation is convenient, it doesn't mean that it's the only way to render a Studio scene. High-end 3D programs such as Maya or Blender have the option to switch renderers, and it's common for users of those programs to choose a renderer based on the desired result. This is done because each renderer has a different look and provides tools that might be more appropriate for a certain workflow. We will see in this chapter that we have the same opportunity with Studio.

LuxRender is an open source, physically accurate renderer that delivers extremely realistic images. Studio can render with Lux via the Reality plugin, a fully featured render interface that converts materials and geometry from Studio to Lux.

Using the Reality plugin we can achieve...