A New Spectral Physically-Based Renderer Revealed

Diffuse Logic has recently revealed a new render engine called Bella which is available as a standalone app and plugin for Maya with more implementations in the works.

The new tool is a spectral, physically-based renderer with a node-based scene description graph, and an intuitive material model based on several material types (Conductor, Dialectric, and more) that can be layered for complex materials.

You can control cameras using Camera, Lens, and Sensor modules, using real-world settings. There’s the ability to choose from either fully manual exposure control, or automated exposure compensation (aperture or shutter priority). The Sensor node is for the physical camera sensor, giving control over film size, ISO, and sharpness, plus simulation of sensor diffraction and bloom. The Lens node is said to support optional vignetting, lens shift, and choice of diaphragm shape and rotation, plus a lens filter stack.

The tool includes four solvers for beauty renders. The default one Atlas which is an unbiased bi-directional path tracer that is “highly optimized for solving complex lighting scenarios”. Then there’s Ares, an unbiased non-bi-directional path tracer (may render faster in case of less complex lighting). The third one is Apollo, a quasi-unbiased solver with a proprietary new method. It can solve lighting scenarios which have been infeasible for a bi-directional path tracers. Also, there’s an IPR solver for quick previews.

You can learn more about the tool here.