Rendering Software to use with Rhino

We’re often asked about rendering and which software solution is the best for a particular application. Whilst the answer isn’t always straightforward, we’ve summarised the most popular rendering solutions below. We’ve broken these down into two areas; Raytrace Renderers and Interactive Renderers.

Let’s start with Raytrace rendering. In order to render photorealistic images with correct transparency, translucency, reflections, refractions and other realistic calculations there needs to be a raytraced calculation. You’ll need this to, for example, create correct looking glass, liquids, translucent plastics, gemstones and metals. Raytracing is computationally intensive and whether rendering on a PC or a Mac the machine specification will make a difference. Some popular Raytrace render solutions include:

The Rhino Raytrace render engine is part of the standard installation in Rhino for both PC and Mac – so there is no additional cost. If you are new to rendering then this is a great starting point, and if you only need to render occasionally it could be all you need. It is a capable solution with a real-time preview (the Raytraced viewport) and uses the same engine (Cycles) that is found in Blender. Whilst it’s feature set is not as extensive as V-Ray or KeyShot it is nevertheless capable of producing excellent results.

It uses physically based materials that can simply be dragged and dropped onto elements of the model and comes with an extensive material library. In common with both V-Ray and KeyShot, the default lighting solution is an image-based skylight with customisable background and reflection options which allows for a simple set-up. In addition to the skylight, physical lights such as spotlights and rectangular lights can be used and there is also an option of using a physical Sun and Sky model set by geolocation or manipulated manually.

The Rhino Raytrace renderer allows for full hardware acceleration on both PC and Mac. On a PC the renderer can be accelerated via a Graphics Card (GPU) and there is a choice of Cuda or RTX (Optix) acceleration for NVIDIA cards. On a Mac the product will make full use of the GPU cores on Apple Silicon processors – so (for example) on a MacBook Pro with the 16 core M3 Max chip – you’ll be able to use all 40 GPU cores for rendering.

V-Ray has established a reputation as a very fast and accurate Raytrace rendering solution for professional visualisers in many areas of design but is perhaps most associated with Rhino in the field of architecture.

It is a more complete and far-reaching solution than Rhino’s built in Raytrace renderer and as such will likely require training to get the best out of it. V-Ray has numerous controls and options for both materials and lighting that really make a difference in terms of photo-realism. The final rendered output can include separate channels for lighting, shadows, reflections etc. so that the image can more easily be manipulated in post-production. There are settings that allow for lighting to be adjusted after rendering and atmospheric effects such as fog and aerial perspective to be calculated. V-Ray also has its own method of instancing lights and geometry (proxy objects) that allow for large scenes to be rendered easily without slowing Rhino down.

Whilst V-Ray is great for all design disciplines it has a stronghold in the architectural market due to its proprietary light calculations that can quickly gather indirect illumination for interior scenes. If you spend any amount of time rendering architectural exteriors or interiors, then V-Ray is an excellent choice.

V-Ray is a plug-in and therefore works inside of Rhino and has its own real-time Rhino viewport that can be used to preview the scene in Rhino before outputting offline and it also has Grasshopper integration. It is a PC solution only and can be fully accelerated via a Graphics Card (GPU) and there is a choice of Cuda or RTX (Optix) acceleration for NVIDIA cards. There is also a hybrid CPU/GPU mode.

KeyShot has made a name for itself primarily through industrial design, structural packaging and automotive design visualisation. It consists of a real-time preview which displays the model onto which materials, lighting and environmental elements can simply be dragged and dropped. Despite this simplicity, there is a real depth to KeyShot particularly in terms of material creation and customisation.

KeyShot also has a timeline animation module that allows for both camera and part animation.

KeyShot is a stand-alone product rather than a plug-in but can be ‘live linked’ to Rhino meaning that if both applications are open then changes made in the Rhino model can be pushed to KeyShot. An advantage of being a stand-alone product is that if you have more than one CAD modeller; for example, Rhino, SolidWorks and Blender then you can push models to KeyShot from each of these meaning you have a single rendering solution.

KeyShot is available for both Mac and PC. On the PC platform it can be fully accelerated via an NVIDIA Graphics Card (GPU) and there is a choice of Cuda or RTX (Optix) acceleration. On Apple Silicon machines, however, KeyShot only uses CPU cores – so whilst this gives impressive performance on (for example) a MacBook Pro with the 16 core M3 Max chip – you’ll be able to use all 16 processor cores for rendering but not the 40 inbuilt GPU cores.

For a more immersive experience, these products can create real time interactive walkthroughs of buildings or interactive walk arounds of products such as vehicles. They also have the ability to create VR which can be viewed through a VR headset. Typically the creation of stand-alone single images is a secondary function. Two interactive rendering solutions popular with Rhino, and other CAD software, users are:

Tailored to professional architecture studios, Enscape allows for the creation of still images, real time interactive walkthrough visualisations and VR scenes of models created in Rhino. Enscape ships with a large library of high-quality materials and textures and an asset library containing people, vegetation, vehicles, furniture etc that can be added to the scene. The Rhino plug-in ensures that modelled geometry can be updated and visualised instantly in Enscape. There is also a tight integration with V-Ray (the developer Chaos produces both V-Ray and Enscape) and if you are already a V-Ray user then Enscape is an excellent choice.

Fully featured on the PC, there is also a Mac version, but this does not support VR.

Originally geared towards Architecture but now also finding a home in automotive design, product design and fashion, Twinmotion allows for the easy creation of still images, animations and interactive presentations - for example building walkthroughs - all in a simple drag and drop environment. It can also create VR scenes.

Rhino geometry can be imported into Twinmotion from where materials and textures are added. Additional elements such as animated people, vegetation, and vehicles can be dragged and dropped into the scene for further realism and location, time of year and weather are controlled with simple sliders. The live-linking plug allows for changes made in Rhino to be pushed to Twinmotion.

Twinmotion is available for both PC and Mac. The Mac version is more limited and does not support Path Tracing or the VR Mode and the Lumen GI mode is not hardware accelerated.

We trust this brief overview of popular rendering solutions for Rhino has been useful in helping you make the right choice. If you'd like to contact us to discuss your options further then we'd be happy to help.

For free trial versions of the software you will find links on the relevant product pages above, if you need further assistance with any of these please let us know.

Alternatively, if you've made up your mind and are ready to purchase now then you can find all the rendering software listed here available online at the Rhino Webstore.