What's great
As an architectural student working primarily in Rhino and SketchUp, D5 Render has become an essential part of my visualization workflow. Its real-time rendering capability, simple interface, and live sync make rendering models into photorealistic scenes remarkably fast and enjoyable. The natural lighting engine, asset library, and AI features help me achieve quality visuals without spending a lot of time on post-processing. For academic presentations, D5 allows me to quickly and clearly communicate the atmosphere, materiality, and spatial intent of my project and I would highly recommend my peers to use it.
What needs improvement
The asset library in the free community version can be expanded a bit more since other competitors such as Twinmotion offer a wider range of high quality assets which make a great difference while visualizing.
vs Alternatives
Lumion
TwinmotionI would choose D5 over other rendering software mainly because of how quickly it can deliver a photorealistic image with minimal effort, which matters a lot when working in a tight schedule.
How smooth is real-time ray tracing on your hardware?
It works smoothly on my I7 13650HX, RTX 4060 8GB laptop GPU
Any issues syncing with Rhino, 3ds Max, or Blender?
No issues encountered yet.
How helpful are the AI features in daily work?
AI features help to quickly visualize the project in different environments through the style transfer feature, it is great for deciding how you want to approach each frame.
What GPU specs are needed for smooth performance?
Not exactly sure, but NVIDIA RTX graphics cards tend to perform well.
How easy is round-tripping between D5 and CAD apps?
Extremely easy due to live sync plugins offered for all major CAD apps.
Does it handle lighting and GI realistically in real time?
Yes, it does a great job in handling lighting with smooth real time performance.