Power Render is a general purpose software development kit for games and 3D visualization. In addition to providing an API for developers, several tools are provided for artists for building content and previewing models in realtime from Autodesk's 3ds max, Alias Wavefront's Maya_(software), and Newtek's Lightwave. The new version can also preview content using High dynamic range imaging and supports the OpenEXR file format. The personal edition is a free download from www.PowerRender.com and contains all of the tools, API, documentation and sample content found in the standard version. Over 50 working C++ examples of varying difficulty are provided to demonstrate various aspects of the product and get you started right away. 3D Studio Max (sometimes called 3ds Max or just MAX) is a 3-dimensional vector graphics and animation program, written by Kinetix (a division of Autodesk). ... Jump to: navigation, search The Maya logo Maya is a high-end 3D computer graphics software package by Alias used in the film and TV industry, as well as for computer and video games. ... Lightwaves current logo LightWave (or, more properly, LightWave 3D) is a computer graphics program for 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. ... It has been suggested that High dynamic range rendering be merged into this article or section. ... OpenEXR is a high dynamic range imaging image file format, released as an open standard along with aset of software tools created by Industrial Light and Magic, released under an open source license similar to the BSD license. ...

Power Render provides a wide range of graphics algorithms in a higher level API which can be used instead of DirectX or OpenGL, while still providing low level access to the hardware if needed. Key functionality includes shader support up to SM 3.0, Cg programming language, HLSL, or assembly, a variety of shadow methods, texture formats, terrain and Binary space partitioning rendering, full screen graphical user interface design, C++ like scripting language, collision detection, audio and input device support including force feedback from companies such as Logitech and ActLabs, character animation using skinning, tweening, or keyframing. The current official DirectX logo. ... Jump to: navigation, search OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... Cg or C for Graphics is a High level shader language created by nVidia for programming vertex and pixel shaders. ... The High Level Shader Language is a shader language developed by Microsoft for use with DirectX, and is very similar to Cg. ... Binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for recursively subdividing a space into convex sets by hyperplanes. ... Logitech (NASDAQ: LOGI) (SWX: LOGN). ...

Power Render 6 now has built in physics capabilities for simulating objects with real world properties. Simple or compound objects with multiple rigid bodies and joints can be created. Ragdoll support for characters is provided along with an editor for adjusting skeletal geometry and physics properties.

While game development is the main use for Power Render, it has been used in many other fields such as theme park rides, military simulations, museum exhibits, screensavers, music visualizers, commercial and architectural visualizations. It is also used in a number of educational institutions for teaching students in the computer graphics field.

History

1994: Founded and evolved from the WordUp Graphics Toolkit, a popular 2D graphics library for Watcom and Borland C. The first versions used software rendering under DOS using VGA and VESA.

1995: Glide API support was added for version 2.5 when 3Dfx released the Voodoo 1 cards in 1995. Glide was a proprietary 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx used on their Voodoo graphics cards. ...

1997: DirectX and OpenGL support were added, however OpenGL was dropped after version 3.0. The current official DirectX logo. ... Jump to: navigation, search OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ...

2000: Version 3 released

2003: Version 4 released

2004: Version 5 released

2005: Current version is 6, which uses DirectX 9 and runs under Windows and partial XBox support. Free personal edition was released on September 15, 2005. Jump to: navigation, search The Xbox is Microsofts first game console, released on November 15, 2001. ... Jump to: navigation, search September 15 is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years). ...

External links

Power Render Home Official Site