GDC: Nvidia Launches Gelato 2.0 Rendering Software

NVIDIA Corporation has announced the release of NVIDIA Gelato 2.0 rendering software, the latest major release of its high-end, GPU-accelerated rendering software. Gelato also comes with the Mango plug-in for Maya and (coming soon) the Amaretto plug-in for 3ds Max. With the plug-ins, users have access to all the features found in Gelato. Amaretto is currently in beta testing with availability planned in coming weeks. Artists can use the plug-ins to render images “right out of the box,” or can use Gelato’s API to combine the renderer with other production tools. Gelato 2.0 brings performance improvements and major new features including: * Sorbetto interactive relighting * Raytracing performance improvements of 30-50% (depending on scene) * Volume shadows for hair and smoke * Dynamic shadows * Simultaneous rendering of stereo images * Shader metadata * Physical units in shaders * Multithreading Sorbetto lighting technology allows you to add, delete, or move lights (including recomputation of shadows), or modify any light parameter, and see the changes interactively. At all times you are viewing final pixels, including full antialiasing, motion blur, and transparency. This saves artists time and allows them to adjust lighting in a scene to get the exact look they are trying to create. For Maya users, Sorbetto features are exposed directly in our Mango plug-in for Maya. For developers, all relighting features are exposed through extensions to the Gelato APIs. Amaretto, which was created by Frantic Films of Winnipeg, allows 3ds Max users to select Gelato to render existing scenes, and access Gelato's extensive feature set including fast sub-pixel displacement, analytical sub-division surfaces and shader programming language to enhance the quality of their artistic output. Amaretto is currently in beta testing with commercial availability planned in coming weeks.