[Originally posted on 04/09/18]

macOS® versions of the Radeon™ ProRender plug-ins for Blender™ and Maya® are now available for artists using Apple® Mac® systems, and support Apple’s Metal® 2 API and external GPUs1 for maximum rendering performance.

Radeon ProRender is AMD’s powerful, physically-based rendering engine for CAD designers and 3D artists, available with free plug-ins and add-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya, Blender, and Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®, and it is natively integrated into Maxon Cinema 4D™ R19.

Following on from February’s beta releases, we’re excited to announce that, along with the currently available macOS version of Cinema 4D R19, artists using Apple Mac hardware that supports Metal 2 can now use Radeon ProRender with Blender and Maya by downloading our new plug-ins today.

In addition to macOS support, these updates include several new features designed to enhance and accelerate artists’ workflows, and make their lives easier.

Focusing on Artist-Centric Workflows

The macOS Radeon ProRender plug-ins for Blender and Maya include an updated Uber Shader that enables better PBR workflows, with more realistic defaults and enhanced subsurface scattering (SSS) for better skin rendering. There are also improved light and emissive shader controls to create more realistic lighting, including area light shapes, color temperature, and texture maps.

In the plug-in for Blender, there are now more AOV (Arbitrary Output Variables) options, such as reflections and diffuse lighting that can be composited with the final render to enhance it without having to re-render anything. Color space controls have been added to Radeon ProRender Image Map nodes, enabling artists to set the color space to either sRGB or linear, making it easier to work with PBR textures.

Interactive Viewport Denoising

First released in the Windows® version of Radeon ProRender for Blender in December, we are now bringing our interactive denoising technology to the macOS versions of the plug-ins for Blender and Maya. Denoising removes noise from an image while preserving image detail, cutting render times while producing less noisy images.

Radeon ProRender supports denoising of both final renders and of interactive rendering to produce clearer interactive viewport previews, empowering artists to do their look development with a better idea of what the final render might appear as.

New Features in the Blender Plug-In

Along with all the improvements to artists’ workflows enabled by the new features that are available in both our macOS plug-ins, we’re also introducing two brand-new features to the macOS version of the plug-in for Blender.

This plug-in now supports Volumetrics to render advanced effects like smoke, fog, and clouds to create even more realistic images with Radeon ProRender. Additionally, there is improved subdivision of surfaces, with adaptive subdivision that automatically uses distance to calculate how much is needed to smooth an object’s geometry, helping speed up workflows and allowing artists to easily render complex shapes from simple meshes.

Metal 2 Support

As part of Cinema 4D R19 for macOS, Radeon ProRender became the first production renderer to support Apple’s Metal 2 API that maximizes the performance of GPU-accelerated rendering on macOS, with this support available in the recent Cinema 4D R19 SP2 update, and in today’s macOS releases of Radeon ProRender for Blender and Maya.

Available Now

The macOS Radeon ProRender plug-ins for Blender and Maya are available now, require macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 or higher, and support all Apple Mac systems that support Metal 2.

In addition, macOS High Sierra 10.13.4’s new support for external graphics processors (eGPUs) allows macOS Blender and Maya Radeon ProRender users to harness the rendering power of select Radeon™ RX and Radeon™ Pro WX graphics cards on their Macs (such as Radeon™ RX 580, Radeon™ RX Vega64, and Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 GPUs), when used with a compatible eGPU Thunderbolt™ 3 chassis.

To provide feedback or report any issues, please join our Radeon ProRender Discord Community.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTE:

1 - Requires macOS® High Sierra 10.13.4 and compatible eGPU Thunderbolt™ 3 chassis

Apple® Mac® models without discrete Radeon™ Pro graphics will be limited to CPU rendering with Radeon™ ProRender.

Thunderbolt is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. Apple, Mac, macOS, and Metal are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.