AMD ships Radeon ProRender 2.5 for Blender in beta
AMD has released Radeon ProRender 2.5 for Blender, the latest update to the Blender edition of its free, physically accurate GPU renderer, in beta.
The release updates the new next-gen render mode based on version 2.0 of the Radeon ProRender SDK, making it available for viewport rendering as well as final-quality output.
Other changes include an interesting new Samples per second option, which AMD describes as analogous to a target frame rate for viewport renders, and support for the upcoming Blender 2.90.
New next-gen render mode based on Radeon ProRender 2.0 now available for viewport rendering
In the previous version of the plugin, AMD introduced an experimental render mode based on version 2.0 of the Radeon ProRender SDK, improving performance when rendering with multiple GPUs, or CPU and GPU.
Version 2.5 extends the new mode, making it available for viewport renders as well as final output.
AMD also says that when rendering in RPR 2.0 mode, noise should be lower for a given sample count, and render speed should scale better across multiple GPUs.
Other new features in the Radeon ProRender 2.0 SDK itself, also updated this week, include support for Light Path Expressions, the MaterialX open standard for material data, and new sphere and disk light types.
New Samples per second option preserves a constant frame rate for viewport renders
Radeon ProRender 2.5 for Blender also introduces an interesting new Samples per second option for viewport rendering, which AMD describes as “roughly analogous” to a target frame rate.
When it is enabled, Radeon ProRender automatically adjusts viewport render resolution to maintain the sampling rate, preserving interactivity in complex scenes by trading it against render quality.
AMD describes it as providing “a much better viewport experience, especially on higher-resolution displays”.
Other changes include the option to import sequences of OpenVDB volumes or to import animated textures as image sequences, plus support for the upcoming Blender 2.90, which is due to ship later this week.
There are also several smaller performance and workflow improvements: find a full list via the link below.
Availability and system requirements
Radeon ProRender 2.5.1 for Blender is currently available in beta.
The current stable build, version 2.4, is compatible with Blender 2.80+ on Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.04.3 and 18.04.0 Linux, and macOS 10.13.3+ and macOS 10.14. It’s a free download.
Read a full list of new features in Radeon ProRender 2.5.1 for Blender in the GitHub changelog