Friday, July 15th, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

DNA Research ships beta of 3Delight for Katana


DNA Research has released a new version of 3Delight, its RenderMan-compliant production renderer, for Katana, The Foundry’s lighting and look development toolset.

The release, which is still officially in beta, coincides with the new Windows version of Katana.

A powerful, production-proven renderer for visual effects work
Also available for Maya, Softimage and 3ds Max, 3Delight has been used in production on a number of major movies – notably by Image Engine, which used it on District 9, Elysium and Jurassic World.

It is RenderMan-compliant, supports a full set of RenderMan geometry, and includes both path tracing and REYES algorithms.

3Delight supports hair, particles, depth of field and motion blur. AOVs can be generated on a per-light basis, including the separation of environment and incandescence, and lights can be mixed in real time.

Real-time light mixing and improved OSL support
That last feature is being promoted as one of the key selling points of the new Katana edition, with users able to view individual AOVs in the frame buffer and mix them in real time using the Light Mixer.

In addition, the path tracer has been “redesigned around the Open Shading Language” developed by original Katana creators Sony Pictures Imageworks so any 3Delight material can be expressed as a set of OSL nodes.

Pricing and availability
3Delight for Katana 1.0 is available now in beta for Katana running on Windows or Linux. The first eight-core licence is free; an unlimited multi-core licence costs $1,200.

Read more about 3Delight for Katana on DNA Research’s website