LuxRender

What do you like best?

LuxCoreRender, (formerly known as LuxRender), is a physically based, unbiased rendering engine. It is free, and its site claims it will ever be.

This standalone render engine could be used with different 3d programs.

A Blender (https://www.blender.org) add on makes it immediately available from within Blender.

This makes LuxCore Render an interesting alternative render engine for Mac users, since it could fill the gap left by Cycles (the most accurate Blender internal rendering engine) which is, as for now, incapable of GPU rendering on Macs.

Being based on OpenCL, LuxCoreRender can take advantage of GPU rendering , and could be also set up to use Cycles materials.

Did I mention it's free?

What do you dislike?

LuxRender used to have exporters for a wider number of 3D applications than LuxCoreRender.

But things could change in the future.

One has also to choose carefully the version of LuxCoreRender compatible with the installed Blender version (see LuxCoreRender site and Readme.md for details).

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If you are a Mac Blender user disappointed by the lack of GPU support, give LuxCoreRender a try!

It could also help in revamping old Blender projects made in the times when Cycled offered GPU rendering on Mac.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I could finally use again my GPU to speed up renders in Blender, without having to change all the materials set up in Cycles from my old files. As for now, LuxCoreRender seems to be able to read the cycle settings without troubles. Other alternative engines require changes in the shaders in order to work well.