Sign In
Sign in
English

TopBanners12072302.jpg

This is a follow-up article of BI vs. Yafaray vs. Cycles - an Artist's Observation published on June 4, 2012 by Olivier Boscournu,
 the winner of the Render of the Week Award for the week of May 14, 2012. 
The following article may not reflect the official view of www.BlenderNews.org.—Editor in Chief.

July 2, 2012 8:00 AM

by Olivier Boscournu

After " Bidirectional Interior" where I did compare the 3 renderers for an indoor scene, I decided to do the same for an outdoor arch viz.

Exterior-BI-Yafaray-Cycles.jpg
Blender Internal: 12 min.
Yafaray (Photon Mapping): 18 min.
Cycles with GTX460: 9 min.

The goal is not to get the same renderings, but to observe what happen when you switch between the three methods, with as lest changes of settings as possible (only shaders & lights). The three renderings have almost the same post-compositing based on the BI passes (Blender nodes, color correction, vignetting, fog effect,...). The scene is not really complex (a simple snow ground, basic architecture, few furnitures, ...), the shaders are not sophisticated. The forest is made with a particle system and only one birch tree made with a slaping add-on. The sky lighting is obtained with an UVmapped hemisphere, used as an emit object for shader. This simple method provides good and fast results for all kinds of render engine, saving lot of time. 

Making-of-OAV12072302.jpg

Of course, BI doesn't have a Global Illumination solution, but GI is not really necessary for outdoor scene, specially in this case, and the Ambient Occlusion can be very usefull to simulate this kind of lighting with an HDR environnement. I believe, every new Blender user must learn to know how to use the Blender Internal. The method is quite old, but you get to learn a lot about how to configure the textures and lightings. It's useful for improving your technical skills. Blender Internal is pretty fast and versatile with several of rendering passes.

After BI, I've needed just a few minutes to configure the lighting method and the shaders in Yafaray. That's what I love with Yafaray, its workflow is very easy and fast, providing good results. New users can easily see that. Renderings are pretty fast that it's helpful for configuring the right settings and the border render allows fast previews on focalized areas. The rendering with Yafaray and it GI solution is 50% slower than BI on the same size (1600 x 1200 px), but it's pretty fast and requires less tweaks in lightings.

Cycles still has much room to be improved but is very efficient for outdoor--unlike for indoor arch viz. This is because it uses only a Pathtracing integrator, more suitable with opened scene and huge light source. To produce the final rendering, I had to convert each shader to make it fit for Cycles. I like the versatility and the power of its node shaders, but it's imperative to have a good CUDA graphic card with you so as to benefit from the full potential of this render engine. That's why I used my Nvidia GTX 460 (1 GB RAM & 336 CUDA cores) to get a good rendering time. With CPU it would take more than one hour!

Exterior-BI-Yafaray-Cycles-Settings.jpg

Conclusion
With a simple outdoor scene as in this case (no transparent leaves on trees, no grass,etc...), Blender users will be able to use different methods and renderers. With BI, the basic solution, you can do the job but you needs more tweaks and extra time to enhance the result. Yafaray, as external GI and biased solution, is the fastest and easiest way to get a photorealistic result on CPU! After passing a little time to know Yafaray, it's a real pleasure. As for Cycles, it's very useful with the realtime preview, and its node system provides incredible results. But in most cases, You need a good--sometimes expansive--Nvidia graphic cards.


Hardware spec.:
intel i7-2600k ( 3,4GHz), 16 Go DDRam, Nvidia GTX 460 1GoRam ( 336 cuda cores), windows7 64bits. Yafaray & BI rendering processed with 4 cores CPU, Cycles render on GPU. Made with official Blender 2.63a-64bits & official Yafaray 0.1.2 beta5a-64bits.

Related Links:
1. http://www.blendernation.com/2012/06/16/bi-vs-cycles-vs-yafray-an-artists-observation
2. http://www.olivier-boscournu.com
3. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?256953-Comparison-BI-Yafaray-Cycles-for-outdoor-archiviz
List of Articles
No. Subject Author Viewssort Votes Date Last Update
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective 255914   Feb 20, 2021 Feb 21, 2021 01:20
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file 608399   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file 471448   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file 478204   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:15
Notice Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file 421491   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:12
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file 392065   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 23:35
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file 733195   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 23:34
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file 454929   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 15:48
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file 390201   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 10:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file 427250   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:20
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file 420908   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:42
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file 1016914   Jan 09, 2018 Jan 25, 2019 23:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file 742968   Jan 01, 2018 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file 596598   Dec 26, 2017 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file 811253   Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017 05:18
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file 1106923   Dec 29, 2016 Feb 01, 2017 10:28
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file 836070   Jan 20, 2016 Feb 02, 2016 03:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file 808013   Jan 12, 2016 Feb 20, 2016 22:40
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file 851473   Jun 26, 2015 Jan 01, 2016 05:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file 859982   Jan 02, 2015 Jan 02, 2015 16:04
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file 899650   Dec 11, 2014 Jan 24, 2015 21:31
48 Render of the Week 'Indiana Jones/Harrison Ford' by George Siskas - the Winner of the Week of April 26, 2021 8142   May 01, 2021 May 01, 2021 20:31
 
47 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of March 8, 2020 8131   Mar 10, 2021 Mar 10, 2021 03:38
 
46 Render of the Week 'Guanlong Pair' by Joanna Kobierska - the Winner of the Week of July 12, 2021 8106   Jul 17, 2021 Jul 17, 2021 12:02
 
45 Render of the Week 'Tengu' by Marcel Deneuve - the Winner of the Week of March 8, 2021 8097   Mar 10, 2021 Mar 10, 2021 03:51
 
44 Render of the Week 'Mole Monster' by Balázs Gräff - the Winner of the Week of December 7, 2020 file 8082   Dec 09, 2020 Dec 16, 2020 02:45
 
43 Render of the Week 'Survivor' by Andrew Sounios - the Winner of the Week of November 29, 2021 8059   Dec 05, 2021 Dec 05, 2021 03:29
 
42 Render of the Week 'Space Trucking' by Davi Goldberg - the Winner of the Week of December 14, 2020 file 8058   Dec 16, 2020 Dec 16, 2020 02:41
 
41 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of March 22, 2020 8048   Mar 24, 2021 Mar 24, 2021 02:35
 
40 Render of the Week 'Winter in Japan' by Sonja Christoph - the Winner of the Week of December 20, 2021 8004   Dec 26, 2021 Dec 26, 2021 02:02
 
39 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 18, 2021 8004   Jan 20, 2021 Jan 20, 2021 04:16
 
38 Render of the Week 'Odin Tree' by Saif Roshdy - the Winner of the Week of November 23, 2020 file 8002   Nov 25, 2020 Dec 16, 2020 01:04
 
37 Render of the Week 'Anchiornis Huxleyi' by Joanna Kobierska - the Winner of the Week of April 19, 2021 7982   Apr 22, 2021 Apr 22, 2021 04:09
 
36 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of July 19, 2021 7976   Jul 25, 2021 Jul 25, 2021 02:20
 
35 Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2020: Winners Are ... 7971   Jan 13, 2021 Jan 13, 2021 05:12
 
34 Render of the Week 'Test Run' by Sungyong Park - the Winner of the Week of August 9, 2021 7941   Aug 14, 2021 Aug 14, 2021 02:46
 
33 Render of the Week 'Smoking Pirate' by Nikolay Kvartnikov - the Winner of the Week of August 26, 2021 7938   Aug 28, 2021 Aug 28, 2021 02:36
 
32 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of June 21, 2021 7928   Jun 26, 2021 Jun 26, 2021 02:51
 
31 Blender Retrospectives 2021 Blender Retrospective 7925   Jan 07, 2022 Jan 08, 2022 01:32
 
30 Render of the Week 'Castle in the Sky' by Rémi Tou - the Winner of the Week of June 7, 2020 7900   Jun 12, 2021 Jun 12, 2021 12:40
 
29 Render of the Week 'Flowers - in Love with a Ghost ft. Nori' by Ken Liang - the Winner of the Week of December 6, 2021 7875   Dec 11, 2021 Dec 11, 2021 15:35