I really can’t remember how I found Kerkythea. Perhaps I was just roaming the World Wide Web as usual, or maybe I was really looking for a different rendering application.

Kerkythea's Logo

Despite its somewhat “strange” name, inside Kerkythea was a full-functional application for rendering 3D models with a quality that was impressive, specially considering that it was a freeware application. It was launched (the 2008 version) on the 30th January 2008, according to the developer’s forum, but before that there was a long road (first version came around mid-2005).

Besides the application functionality, the community was also great – contributing much to the application, such as submitting materials, reporting bugs, etc…

Knowing, using, even implementing Kerkythea on the office I was working at the time, was my “freepass” to Thea Render. I found out in Kerkythea’s forum that a commercial application – simply called Thea Render – was being developed by the same authors.

Thea Render Logo

The announcement was made at 11th May 2009 and caused a big discussion, namely because people were afraid that Kerkythea development would stop and were also criticizing this step towards the commercial market. Comparisons between both applications began arising, but soon the developers stated that although with a common background, they were entirely different apps. With time people realized that Kerkythea wasn’t dead either and, after Thea’s introductory price was announced, people understood that the quality of the application was well worth it price (and even more).

I was able to get early into Thea’s early beta test group and began testing the application.

The first results, even in closed beta phase, were promising. All those things I was missing or were less powerful in Kerkythea were present or being developed for Thea Render:

• biased + unbiased rendering

Having both rendering methods gives this application a lot of flexibility in its use; since there are a lot of factors that determine the type of rendering that we need (still images or animation, time available, etc.)  having a 10-minute biased rendering solution in the same package as a 10-hour unbiased one (* rough values) is an advantage over other applications that provide only one of those methods. The flexibility in Thea increases since going from unbiased to biased requires only a few clicks, and no change in material settings are needed. However, material optimizations for each render method are possible.

• intuitive layered material system

Having experienced Kerktythea’s complex but powerful material system, Thea is more user-friendly and the layered layout provides an intuitive way of creating them. Of course, there are a lot of parameters that can frighten the newcomers, but with an online material repository (maybe in the forge) those will be also pleased. One thing I seem to miss is the possibility to view all the material parameters at once (which happened with KT), but that is an arguable question.

• displacement mapping

Altough not a “new feature” in the world of rendering, it was missing in KT and it was, indeed, one of the things I find absolutely necessary in any render engine. Displacement is a way of deforming 3D geometry based on a 2D grayscale image map. This spares us time in modeling but greatly increases rendering time. It’s a trade-off question, at the end.

• relight

This feature, coming up as a standard in all unbiased rendering applications, gives us a chance of setting up the whole lighting artifacts of a scene (either artificial lights, either sun/sky) and then change them on-the-fly during the rendering. A render can then be a whole experiment and not just an image.

• motion blur (Image Courtesy of Jon Westwood)

Altough I believe that I’m not going to use this often, all those interested in an animation rendering application will find it useful. Some more “creative” stills may also benefit from this. Perhaps time will prove me wrong.

• dispersion (Image courtesy of Grzegorz Rakoczy)

The definition of dispersion can be found here. It’s accurate calculation will provide a greater sense of realism of the scene.

• image-based lighting (Model courtesy of jotero.com, HDR images from hdrlabs.com, rendered by Patrick Nieborg)

IBL is a way of lighting a scene using one or various images (preferably HDR ones) and can provide interesting and realistic effects to a rendering, with the main goal being integrating the model with it’s “fake” environment (“fake” since it is an image, not a model). Thea provides different slots for putting in these images (background, image, refraction and reflection mapping).

• sun pool caustics (Modeled/rendered by Patrick Nieborg)

Caustics is another optic phenomenon. If interested, read about it here. In architectural visualization, it obvious its importance when rendering artifacts such as exterior pools.

• thin-film interference

This is one of the two tech-specs that recently have gone public. Citing Thea’s main developer, “Interference is a phenomenon actually very common in life but rarely solved by render engines. The phenomenon can be explained by the wave nature of light; multiple waves of light can add to each other (when in phase) amplifying the end result or cancel each other (when out of phase) zeroing the end result.”

• custom fresnel-curve

The second tech-spec is, perhaps, more important to the architectural world. Citing Thea’s main developer again, “(…) all Thea materials have a Reflectance texture and an index of refraction (with the exception of Glass). These parameters, along with Roughness texture, control the specular reflectance of a material. The Fresnel equations play a central role in these computations and deliver the variation of reflectance with viewing angle, a visual cue that is really very important elevating the realism of our renders (…) the introduction of an editable Fresnel curve (…) gives even more freedom and power to material creation. Custom Fresnel curve gives the ability now to create certain categories of rough materials that present a “flat” look, like velvet, satin, clothes, etc.”

Now, roughly one year has passed, the closed beta experience is over and it was worth it. Thea is now available, in an open beta phase, plugins are being developed or optimized for integration on various modeling applications: 3DS Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Rhino, Sketchup and Softimage. I am using it for my work and I am truly satisfied, especially when looking at Thea’s ambitious roadmap. Besides that, the community is also great (like Kerkythea’s) and the developers are very responsive and active in their forum (you can also find me there).

Bottom-line, my suggestion is that you keep a close eye on this application, if you are an architect, a designer, a creative artist. You can try it for free, and if you do so, you will see it is well worth its introductory price. Timing is everything. Just remember how Vray started and look at it now…

I also hope this article doesn’t get outdated too soon. Knowing Thea’s team, that is a great fear indeed.

links:

• Thea Render Homepage
• Kerkythea Homepage