BI vs. Cycles vs. Yafaray – an Artist’s Observation
Blender artist Olivier Boscournu compares the three most popular renderers for Blender.
Olivier writes:Blender is a free 3D software package and is ideal for small studios or freelance CG artists who need to provide cost-effective and quality 3D renders. Still in development, the new Cycles render engine has been integrated since the 2.61 version, with GI render and GPU support. Still young, it offers a Pathtracing method which is very effective for outdoor rendering or a render for open stages where light spreads easily.
For interior renderings, I usually work with Yafaray, which is very easy to configure and offers several lighting solutions, but it only calculates with CPU. I named this picture “Bidirectional Interior,” because it was rendered with the Bidirectional Pathtracing method of Yafaray. Having never tried this, I decided to test it to see its performance. This unbiased solution is relatively slow, even if we take it into account that it’s being rendered just by CPU. I also wanted to compare the Blender Internal to check if it’s able to perform for an indoor scene.
Link
Clearly this is just an advertisement for the iphone on the left
lol
Hi all and thanks for comments !
I would like to say I made this comparison out of curiosity, first it was a test of the Bidirectional Pathtracing method of Yafaray that I never tried ( calculated with CPU i7-2600k_3,4Ghz, rendered with 4 cores_rendering time: 8h45mn). After some feedbacks and the job done, I decided to do it again with Yafa’s Photon Mapping method ( RT: 1h30 mn) and to push the comparison more far with BI and Cycles.
I used for the three methods the same compositing nodes with each raw render generated ( only BI compisiting is a little bit different because of non-GI). Yafaray and BI was rendered on CPU, Cycles was calculated with a GTX-460-1GoRam ( Cycles on CPU is pretty slower than Bidirectional Yafaray !).
The goal is to know what Blender can offer in terms of rendering with 2 included solutions and an external one, with pretty closed final results.
I think that BI should stay as an “additional way to render”. It’s here and it disturbs nobody, if you don’t want to work with, it’s ok ! As I often say: ” it’s better to have something and to not have to use it than to have to use it and to don’t have it !”. It’s impossible to tell people/users to use only one way to render. So IMHO BI should stay !
most differences is see are:
– the different looking texture of the dark brown shelf and the floor;
– the reflection in the chairs foot;
– the mobile phone (screen & reflection);
– the speaker box membrane;
– and the light in the lamp on the shelf;
Thanks for this! I was long time wondering and form what I see here is that, from an animator point of view at least (my case), blender internal is the way to go, because it’s very faster then the others and the darker shadows issue can be easy corrected in compositing… it’s very a very close result and in animation one second saved in each frame is a month saved. One question doe: Does it have already any compositing, the blender internal rendering?
no “Yafray” Please correct write “Yafaray”
Ah right, I’ve updated it. This name change has always confused me ;-)
Thank you for pointing that out. Some typos have been fixed as well in the illustrations for the article. :)
I think this comparison
(although very good) really lacks V-Ray/Blender integration test, since it is available now and really works on feature-rich level. I guess render times would be around 10 mins there..
Many thanks anyway!!
Great work excellent comparative work. yes for me I am very pleased with BI. As someone here said: 1 minute less per frame could make a big difference between eating today or eating next month ! May be Cycles is better for those who never animate and they make stills for magazines.
Is it really fair to compare Blender internal to Cycles rendering time? You can specify how long you want Cycles to run, but BI is what it is when it comes to render time.
Comparison probably should come with a set number of passes. If you were running a dual core cpu with a newer graphics card, or running multiple video cards then render times would be greatly unbalanced. Limited passes would probably be the best way but deciding how many passes should be allowed for comparison would be the issue
not too accurate but if you let cycles run, then monitored it side by side with the previously rendered comparisons, when the noise of the image becomes comparable then stop it. this way you could have a somewhat accurate Idea of how long it would be to achieve a similar quality image (not taking into account actual light/shading variables)
Hi Olivier, thanks for sharing your test =)
Hmm, looking at BI and Yaf and the render times, I’d be more inclined to use BI or Cycles for both test and final renders. The small quality advantages of Yaf for this type of scene just don’t out weight it’s render time.
the test was made with Bidirectional Algorithm…. Yafaray has other biased algorithms like Photon Mapping with Final Gather and Stochastic Progressive photon mapping, which make (with correct settings) yafaray faster than other open source render engines. Besides, Yafaray with Direct Lighting + Ambient Occlusion is way faster than Blender Internal+ Ambient occlusion. Another thing to consider is that comparing Bidirectional Algorithm in CPU vs Path tracing in GPU is not really a comparison.
I’m looking at differences in quality to render times, I’m in no way saying that Yafaray is inferior to BI or Cycles. It’s simply another option as are all render engines. But I also take into consideration a streamlined pipeline, which Blender provides quite well. I’ve even gone as far as to use it for concept sketches, and may later use it even for texture painting if a few more editing abilities are added down the road.
I’m one of these people that think BI can produce great results when used wisely. Though my PC can render Cycles pretty fast I usually use BI for my animations. I really think BI should somehow stay in Blender even after Cycles is complete and perfected.
I’ll second that
Definitely
I disagree, when Cycles is perfected one should hope it is comparative to or better than Internal in every way, at that point why would you need Internal other than out of pure stubbornness? I’d prefer to see BI kept until Cycles has all it’s features and is of a similar speed but I don’t see much point in keeping it forever.
But to get Cycles to that level can be quite hard… the SSS, difficult Interior scenes (the example above is really still not that hard). These will be able to be done in Cycles, but at what speed compared to BI? Cycles cannot get increasingly faster, while having more features AND being able to be run on the GPU for ever.
A Bi-Dir integrator would help, but that’s alot harder than a path tracer to write the program for a GPU. To ‘perfect’ Cycles, and still have all those features supported on the GPU is incredibly hard given the limitation of GPU’s at the moment.
If you lose the GPU acceleration of Cycles… then really, Yafaray and LuxRender already exist for CPU only rendering, with more features.
Speed is the main thing. Now I have not used a lot of other renderers so maybe the speed will improve in cycles to the point that I can get better quality renders in a shorter amount of time, but I do animations that are rendering 10 seconds per frame in the Blender Internal, and I need it to do that. If Cycles can do it, great, otherwise I very much need the internal render engine to stay.
There are some commercial 3D packages that use more than one renderer, why not Blender?
really blender internal did a pretty good job on that image and fast too, if gpu rendering was added to it then it would truly be amazing
This is really negative way to think about technology. The exclusion, the minus, the conflict. It might be the pacifist in me speaking but dont anyone think that BI+Yfaray+Cycles would be much more helpful algorithm? :) anyway I like Cycles render/rendertime ratio the most.
Yafaray is still faster than other open source render engines… the main issue is people do not know how to set it correctly to get best results. Yafaray can use Adaptvie Sampling and that combined with Biased algorithms is great to reduce render time. As an example, this render took only 30 minutes at full resolution rendering with Stochastic Progressive Photon Mapping
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4113119/condar_yafaray_winter_contest_2012.jpg
I actually like the Internal a lot, you should try rendering this with LuxRender.
Has there actually been any official discussion from the developers about a BI phaseout?
wow, that was a pretty biased test…while I agree cycles is not always 100% up to the task, in the scenarios the article spoke of it was absolutely, even in cpu mode, up to the task at hand and the faster of the three…I shout “one sided” test from the rooftops.
I am very impressed by the result of the Blender Internal.
For me the time I save by using Cycles is invaluable. I can work 10x faster setting up lighting and shaders with the instant feedback I get from Cycle’s progressive viewport rendering. Processing power is cheaper than manpower.
I don’t think it is a 100% fair comparison as far as time goes as there are so many variables(Different CPU/GPU, Yafaray has faster methods, Cycles can be optimized etc). It does however prove that in capable hands Blender Internal is good enough.
It is good that we have these options.
I haven’t read the article yet but I would guess the one on the left is the BI one. Shadows are too dark and there is also too much contrast in that one. I have a feeling the one on the right is yafaray and the middle one cycles. Let me read the article and find out how wrong i am :-)
One of the great things about Blender is how you always have several ways to go about achieving the same or similar results, and it’s left up to the artist to decide which method would work best at the given time. Viewing this as some sort of elimination tournament among rendering engines might be missing the point; they’re all on the same team, the team that’s here to turn your hard work into a pretty picture and/or movie.
I’d understand if the BF eventually zones out BI support if maintaining legacy compatibility becomes too difficult, but this wouldn’t leave old curmudgeons like me who learned Blender with BI out in the cold. Older versions are always available and the way Blender is distributed makes it easy to keep multiple versions on the same system.
Hello guys I’m little confused about rendering time for Yafaray. It says that “Bidirectional time is 8h45, and Photon time is 1h30”. So what is actual rendering time of completing this image 8h45 or 1h30 ?
thanks in advance
As I always say (personally, anyways), “You can never have too many rendering options.” I use Blender Internal, Cycles, LuxRender, Yafaray, Appleseed, NOX, 3Delight, Aqsis, POV-Ray, and Mitsuba. …I have my reasons. Each provides for different advantages and varying tradeoffs, and plus, I’m just kinda a digital packrat.
Couldn’t tell if he used the compositor, but Cycles has richer colors. Looks like it has black levels amped. For stills, Cycles is pretty awesome, but I still do animations in Blender Internal. If I had a warehouse of computers I’d change, but I don’t.
Never tried Yafaray. Almost looks like a middle ground in a way, but really it’s just the right tool for the right project.
I did not read all the comments but its a very interesting discussion. This falls well as me too I am facing a situation where I need to try other renderers like luxrender and surely the new Yarafay 1.2.
I also I’m very impressed by the render done with BI. I’ll be frank that I have never been able to produce this quality with BI.
Yafaray has been my main renderer in the past with 2.49. But I have moved to Cycles, and I am very pleased with it personally. But I know that it can do much more, saw many impressive work by great artists. But the main advantage I have with Cycles is that in a few seconds only I can test my textures and have an idea if my render settings are good.
I am gonna read all the comments and pass some time on the forums. I am sure that I am gonna find some good tips to make my renders better.
Big thanks to Olivier Boscournu, to whom we owe this opportunity.
Good day to you all.
Please redo the Yafaray render using a better method. The BiDirection Method is slow.
I would like to see it rendered with the same setup as the BI (which is awesome looking).
Blender Internal needs a major rewrite. Perhaps someone from Chaos Group could donate some code.
All 3 impressive renders (results….disregarding times)…..I think I like the Blender Internal best, but it’s subjective. I didn’t realize it could render that well.
I wonder which is best for e.g. SSS, AO, Caustics……i.e. which is best for different situations?