New Realtime PBR Engine coming to Blender this year.
It's been a while since we had our last industry news, but this one is big, so big, that it's definitly worth the article! The speech is of the upcoming PBR Engine codenamed Eevee, which will be available in Blender later this year. PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering and is a trending technology which allows realistic real time rendering within the viewport. This is a really great benefit, as Users will be able to get a direct feedback of their work, without needing to do endless renders to get the right result.
The new viewport with Eevee implemented will support many new technologies such as image based lightning and of course others, that are already available. Eevee will support nearly all realistic Blender lights types like diffuse point lights. Only Hemi wont be supported. Other things like soft shadows, regular materials, uber shaders will be supported as well.
Image Based Lightning is the big thing in the CGI industry so it is no wonder, that Blenders Eevee will need HDRIs to work probably. The focus is always on the viewport to be responsive and fast, the User will be able to see results much quicker than with traditional methods and will be able to improve his workflow and meet deadlines.
When it comes to deadlines, especially in the CGI industry the slogan "time is money" is always a factor. Every artist will exactly know what I mean. Doing many renderings is essential to provide high quality results. But the rendering process is really time consuming and the artist is pretty much deedless while the machine does it's work. That is why PBR became such a big thing throughout the industry. The fact that this technology will be available in Blender this year is a really great news for every artist who uses this tool for his daily work.
PBR is utilizing the GPU instead of the CPU which in fact makes the awesome speed possible. It is the perfect solution for quick rendering tests and will safe a lot of time. As Blender is Open Source Software everyone will have the possibility to get his hands on one of the most important improvements to rendering in the last years. It is just really convenient to be able to preview your work without losing much time.
It is still unknown when Eevee will finally be available in Blender but it shouldn't take much time anymore. There are already some nice preview videos on YouTube which show the great value of Eevee's PBR possibilites. You may want to check it out!
You can also find more information about Eevee and Blender on the official page where the Eevee Roadmap is available:
https://code.blender.org/2017/03/eevee-roadmap/