Friday, June 21st, 2019 Posted by Jim Thacker

Uppercut releases U-Render 2019.06 for Cinema 4D


Uppercut broadcast & visual technologies has released U-Render 2019.06, the latest update to its physically based ‘really real-time’ render engine for Cinema 4D, adding support for 360° spherical rendering.

The update also improves U-Render’s handling of clear coat materials and introduces support for overscan rendering to improve the quality of screen-space effects.

A genuine real-time render engine with good support for Cinema 4D’s native features
Originally known as Tachyon Render, U-Render launched last year, and is currently in early access.

It promises genuine real-time rendering – the software is designed more like a game engine than a conventional offline renderer – with good support for Cinema 4D’s core features, including MoGraph.

As well as its own PBR materials – it supports specular/glossiness and metallic/roughness workflows – U-Render automatically converts standard Cinema 4D materials.

The feature set is still evolving, with support for particles, hair and volumetrics still to be added, but there is now basic support for rendering animation.

New in U-Render 2019.06: support for 360° spherical rendering and overcan rendering
The 2019.06 update crosses another missing feature off the list, in the shape of 360° spherical rendering, either for VR and dome projections, or for rendering environment maps.

You can see the feature set in action in the video above, with U-Render rendering a scene in a variety of standard output formats, including lat-long and horizontal cross.

Other changes include support for overscan rendering, making it possible to render areas of an image outside the visible frame to improve screen-space effects like reflections, refractions and ambient occlusion.

The update also introduces support for separate normal maps for the clear coat layer in the clear coat material, improving rendering of surfaces like car paint.

Pricing and availability
U-Render is available in early access for Windows 10 only. The integration plugin is compatible with Cinema 4D R16+. As the renderer is OpenGL-based, it should support any modern Nvidia or AMD GPU.

A node-locked licence currently costs €249 (around $280); floating licences will cost €349 ($295), and are listed as “available soon”.

The current prices are the start of the second phase of early access, with Uppercut planning to increase the price of a node-locked licence by €150 in increments before the final official release.

Read a full list of features in U-Render 2019.06 on Uppercut’s blog

Read more about the U-Render early access program
(Note: the current schedule is around three months behind that listed here)