• Kerkythea is a graphic rendering engine that is mainly characterized by making very fast and easy renderings. Kerkythea includes a material editor and all kinds of graphic tools to work with designs. It supports HDRI, real depth of field, camera projection models (flat, cylindrical or spherical), import of 3DS and OBJ files, filters for textures, light sources, shading, chromatic dispersion.
• The Best 3D Rendering Software to Create Amazing Visuals. KeyShot brings you real-time 3D rendering that displays results instantly and reduces the time to create realistic product visuals. KeyShot is trusted by brands around the world for its speed, ease of use, scientifically accurate materials, and advanced material editing capabilities.Communicate your ideas easier, explore concepts sooner.

• Award-Winning Open-Source Video Editing Software
  CREATE STUNNING VIDEOS!
• Get started making beautiful videos today!

There’s no complete list of rendering software without Blender on the list.

Hand-crafted with and 100% FREE and open-source! Free & open-source forever (GPL version 3.0)

We designed OpenShot Video Editor to be an easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful video editor. Take a quick look at some of our most popular features and capabilities.

Cross-Platform

OpenShot is a cross-platform video editor, with support for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Get started and download our installer today.

Trim & Slice

Quickly trim down your videos, and find those perfect moments. OpenShot has many easy ways to cut your video.

Animation & Keyframes

Using our powerful animation framework, you can fade, slide, bounce, and animate anything in your video project.

Unlimited Tracks

Add as many layers as you need for watermarks, background videos, audio tracks, and more.

Video Effects

Using our video effects engine, remove the background from your video, invert the colors, adjust brightness, and more.

Audio Waveforms

Visualize your audio files as waveforms, and even output the waveforms as part of your video.

Title Editor

Adding titles to your video has never been easier. Use one of our templates, or make your own.

3D Animations

Render beautiful 3D animated titles and effects, such as snow, lens flares, or flying text.

Slow Motion & Time Effects

Control the power of time, reversing, slowing down, and speeding up video. Use a preset or animate the playback speed and direction.

Edit Video

Drag and drop video, audio, or images from your file manager into OpenShot. It's that easy to get started video editing.

70+ Languages

OpenShot is available in many different languages, and can be translated online with LaunchPad.

Simple User Interface

We have designed OpenShot to be the easiest and friendliest video editing software ever! Give it a try and see for yourself.

For photorealistic rendering of 3D images and videos, 3D rendering software is a must have. Most 3D modeling and animation tools have their own internal renderer. At times the capacity for internal renderers to produce high-quality, photorealistic images and video is limited. In such cases, an external renderer can be used; one that will improve the quality of the render. Here are some of the top 3D rendering tools for the creation of amazing projects.

Lumion 3D

Capture your audience’s attention by making great presentations using Lumion 3D. You can create flythrough videos and fantastic images using this tool. Lumion is used by 61 of the top global architectural firms. It has a simple workflow, allowing users to get started within a short period. The render engine is one of the fastest in its caliber.

AutoDesk 3D

This is a design, visualization and rendering tool that is used in the design of motor vehicles, building, and a host of other products. The render tool can be used to bring videos, still images and even abstract designs to life. The real-time render engine allows you to view your project as you proceed, allowing for faster realization of ideas.

KeyShot

For an awesome, accurate and fast realization of your 3D creations, KeyShot is the perfect render engine to use. It has a real-time render workflow that allows you to see your animations and images become real as you create them. The time required to complete projects is reduced by the inbuilt environments and materials, which you can assign with a click of your mouse.

Indigo renderer

This is an unbiased, physically based 3D rendering tool that uses physical calculations of light to give you the best photorealistic renders ever. The tool comes with plugins that can be used by several 3D modeling software, across many platforms. The application of this render engine has produced some of the most breathtaking videos and images ever seen.

3DS Max

3D design, modeling and animation software, used for a wide range of creative projects. Whether you are creating a cartoon or a realistic scene for a commercial, this software gives you the tools to accomplish this with ease. It is also used for the creation of architectural designs and flythroughs.

Blender 3D

This is an open source, free tool that is used for fantastic 3D creations. You can create cartoons and photorealistic images and videos using this tool. It comes with two inbuilt render engines, namely Blender internal and Cycles. The tool also works with several external render engines such as Yafray and LuxRender.

Rendering For Rhino Mac

Maxwell Render

Best Photo Editing For Mac

Create plains, trees and grass that looks like it was shot with a high-definition camera, using the internal libraries of this versatile 3D rendering software. The render engine works well with other 3D design tools such as Sketchup and Modo. Create fantasy images and breathe life into them with this versatile tool.

Sketchup

Create 3D models and renders by simply drawing. With Sketchup, you only need to draw lines and shapes, and then stretch and pull the surfaces to turn them into 3D designs. You can make anything that your mind can imagine. This is a 3D rendering tool that has been dubbed as one of the easiest to use in the industry.

Shaderlight

A 3D rendering tool for Sketchup that uses cloud computing in its workflow. You now have access to unlimited computing power to bring the most resource-intensive creations to life, within a short period. The render engine allows you to buy a full license, or one that you can use as you go, starting from as little as $50.

Other 3D rendering Software for different platforms

Oddly, most of the 3D render tools are designed for Windows and Mac. However, due to the high demand for mobile solutions, there has been an increase in the development of 3D tools for other platforms including iOS, Android, Ubuntu amongst others. Here is a list of these 3D tools.

Wings 3D

This is a free 3D rendering tool for Windows with advanced sub-division modeling for the creations of lifelike images and videos. It comes with a built-in AutoUV mapping tool for easy assignment of the most complex textures. It exports to the most common 3D formats. NOTE: you cannot animate the models in this tool.

Clara.io

Clara.io is a free 3D rendering software that can be used on an Android system. The tool runs on a web browser and unleashes some powerful tools to help you realize your 3D creations. The material library is vast and allows for photo-realistic texture application. The tool is quite fast and great for the creation of quick visualizations and animations.

Autodesk 123D

This is a free 3D rendering software for Mac OSX, among other operating systems. The various tools allow you to design, create and render 3D models with power and speed. The program supports 3D printing and you can bring your creations out of your computer and into your real world environment. There are thousands of free models that you can use for your projects.

Houdini Apprentice

The free version of the professional Houdini FX, used on Linux. It is great for hobbyists, Students and Artists to create their designs, before moving on to the commercial version. You get watermarks on your renderings and there is a limited render size. Otherwise comes with a lot of powerful features built-in for your creative projects.

LuxRender – The best 3D rendering software for 2016

This is an unbiased, physically based 3D rendering engine. It comes with advanced, state-of-the-art algorithms that calculate light flow based on physical equations. These calculations allow for the most photorealistic renders that you have ever seen. It will be hard to believe that the image or video that you are watching was not created using a real-life camera.

What is 3D rendering Software?

These are tools that are used to bring 3D models to life. Whether you are creating cartoons or realistic scenes, you can achieve all these using these versatile tools. They read the texture characteristics, and the lighting to create the images and videos that you want. Some 3D rendering tools are free while others are commercial; some come inbuilt into the modeling software, while others are external. The choice of your 3d rendering tools should be dictated by the project that you have. Some scenes are simple and do not use a lot of system resources, making it ideal to use the inbuilt render engines. Other complex scenes may require the use of external, cloud-based, 3D rendering engines.

How to install 3D rendering software

Some of the 3D render engines come pre-built into the modeling and animation software. By simply clicking the installer, you not only install the modeling tool but the render engine too. However, in the case of external render engines, you may have to install plugins, which will allow them to work within your modeling tool. If you want to export to a format that can be used by the render engine, then you can do so, directly from the modeling tool, or look for export plugins. In some cases, you may have to go through a complex installation process where you change file paths in your system tools, but these cases are few.
Basically, 3D rendering tools are ideal for people who want to impress their audience through imagery. Just like the musician uses instruments to enthrall their listeners, 3D modeling artists depend on the render tools to bring their creations to life. What good would a 3D modeling and animation tool be, if it could not render the designs into captivating images and videos? The tools have several features and you should go through each carefully before deciding on which render engine to use.