Kerkythea

Kerkythea is a standalone rendering system that supports Ray [tracing (graphics)|raytracing] and Metropolis light transport, uses physically accurate materials and lighting, and is distributed as freeware. Currently, the program can be integrated with any software that can export files in obj and 3ds formats, including 3ds Max, Blender, LightWave 3D, SketchUp, Silo and Wings3D.

WWW Official Site

History

Kerkythea started development in 2004 and released its first version in April 2005. Initially it was only compatible with Microsoft Windows, but an updated release in October 2005 made it Linux compatible. As of January 2016, it is also available for Mac OS X. In May 2009 it was announced that the development team started a new commercial renderer, although Kerkythea will be updated and it will stay free and available. A new version called 'Boost' has been released in 2013.
In June 2018 the main developer announced the third version of Kerkythea called "Kerkythea 2018 Boost".

Exporters

There are 6 official exporters for Kerkythea.
;Blender:
;*Blend2KT
;*Exporter to XML format
;3D Studio Max:
;*3dsMax2KT 3dsMax Exporter
;Maya:
;*Maya2KT Maya Exporter
;GMax:
;*GMax2KT GMax Exporter
;SketchUp:
;*SU2KT SketchUp Exporter
;*SU2KT Light Components

Features

Supported 3D file formats

3DS format
OBJ format
XML format
SIA format

Supported image formats

All supported by FreeImage library

Supported materials

Matte
Perfect reflections/refractions
Blurry reflections/refractions
Translucency
Dielectric material
Thin glass material
Phong shading material
Ward anisotropic material
Anisotropic Ashikhmin material
Lafortune material
Layered material

Supported shapes

Triangulated meshes
Sphere
Planes

Supported lights

Omni light
Spot light
Projector light
Point diffuse
Area diffuse
Point light with spherical soft shadows
Ambient lighting
Sky lighting

Supported textures

Constant colors
Bitmaps
Procedurals
Any weighted or multiplicative combination of the above

Supported features

Bump mapping
Normal mapping
Clip mapping
Bevel mapping
Edge outlining
Depth of field
Fog
Isotropic volume scattering
Faked caustics
Faked translucency
Dispersion
Anti-aliasing
Selection rendering
Surface and material instancing

Supported camera types

Planar projection
Cylindrical pinhole
Spherical pinhole

Supported rendering techniques

Classic ray tracing
Path tracing
Bidirectional path tracing
Metropolis light transport
Photon mapping
Diffuse interreflection
Depth rendering
Mask rendering
Clay rendering

Application environment

OpenGL real-time viewer
Integrated material editor
Easy rendering customization
Sun/sky customization
Script system
Command line mode