KeyShot 9 detects Nvidia GPU-accelerated graphics cards to provide real-time ray tracing via the GPU. Model: Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.
Luxion has officially announced that KeyShot 9, due for release this Autumn, will support Nvidia RTX ray tracing and AI denoising.
Back in February we reported that Luxion was working on a future version of KeyShot that could be accelerated by Nvidia Quadro RTX GPUs. This was big news as the popular physically-based rendering tool had always relied on the CPU for its ray tracing calculations.
The addition of GPU rendering might be seen as a shift away from one rendering method in favour of another, but Luxion is keen to point out it’s anything but.
The company says that it has brought CPU and GPU-accelerated rendering capabilities together in such a way as to give users complete control and a choice over what powers their rendering workflow.
Luxion says the implementation is ‘seamless’ and users will be able to easily switch between CPU and GPU.
When KeyShot is launched on a desktop or mobile workstation and it detects a compatible Nvidia GPU, users will see a new GPU button on the KeyShot Ribbon.
When activated, the scene in the Real-time View and the rendered output will be rendered on the GPU instead of CPU.
“It’s important that the implementation of Nvidia GPU acceleration was seamless,” explains Derek Cicero, VP of Product and Strategy at Luxion.
“A single button, a single click. It’s that simple. When you want real-time rendering using your CPUs, use your CPUs. When you want to use your GPUs, use your GPUs. It’s all up to the KeyShot user.”
Supported graphics cards include Nvidia GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla products with Maxwell and newer generation GPUs.
To learn more about GPU rendering see our review of the Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000.
