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Gelato (software)
Encyclopedia
Gelato is a hardware
-accelerated, offline renderer created by graphics card manufacturer Nvidia
. It was originally intended for use with its Quadro FX GPU
, although a Quadro class GPU is no longer a requirement, as it now also supports GeForce
cards. Designed to produce film
-quality images, Gelato uses a shading language
very similar to RenderMan's
. Gelato was first released in April 2004. NVIDIA stated in May 2008 that it will no longer be developing or supporting the Gelato software products
.
With the release of Gelato 2.0, and in a push to popularize GPU accelerated rendering (as opposed to the traditional CPU rendering), Nvidia released a free version of Gelato for PCs. Some of the more advanced features on this version were locked out, such as those used for production rendering. This was done to encourage more professional users to purchase the full product. However, on 23 May 2008, Nvidia released Gelato Pro as a free download without any additional license. It does not come with support from Nvidia, but there are user forums.
s (USD) per node. In order to boost the adoption of the product by a wider user base, in late 2006, Nvidia decided to split the product up into two versions, a free version called Gelato and a professional version called Gelato Pro, which sold for 1,500 USD per render node. Gelato Pro is now also offered as a free download. The professional version includes the following extra features.
The whole 'Gelato Zone', including Gelato Pro 2.2, was removed from Nvidia's website around the end of July 2008, in favour of the new CUDA
-based OptiX
ray tracing engine.
Computer hardware
Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
-accelerated, offline renderer created by graphics card manufacturer Nvidia
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
. It was originally intended for use with its Quadro FX GPU
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
, although a Quadro class GPU is no longer a requirement, as it now also supports GeForce
GeForce
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units designed by Nvidia. , there have been eleven iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for use on add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market...
cards. Designed to produce film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
-quality images, Gelato uses a shading language
Shader
In the field of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility...
very similar to RenderMan's
RenderMan Interface Specification
The RenderMan Interface Specification, or RISpec in short, is an open API developed by Pixar Animation Studios to describe three-dimensional scenes and turn them into digital photorealistic images...
. Gelato was first released in April 2004. NVIDIA stated in May 2008 that it will no longer be developing or supporting the Gelato software products
.
With the release of Gelato 2.0, and in a push to popularize GPU accelerated rendering (as opposed to the traditional CPU rendering), Nvidia released a free version of Gelato for PCs. Some of the more advanced features on this version were locked out, such as those used for production rendering. This was done to encourage more professional users to purchase the full product. However, on 23 May 2008, Nvidia released Gelato Pro as a free download without any additional license. It does not come with support from Nvidia, but there are user forums.
History
The original renderer was priced at several thousand United States dollarUnited States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
s (USD) per node. In order to boost the adoption of the product by a wider user base, in late 2006, Nvidia decided to split the product up into two versions, a free version called Gelato and a professional version called Gelato Pro, which sold for 1,500 USD per render node. Gelato Pro is now also offered as a free download. The professional version includes the following extra features.
- Nvidia Sorbetto interactive relighting technology
- DSO shadeops
- Network parallel renderingParallel renderingParallel rendering is the application of parallel programming to the computational domain of computer graphics. Rendering graphics can require massive computational resources for complex scenes that arise in scientific visualization, medical visualization, CAD applications, and virtual reality...
- Multithreading
- Native 64-bit support
- Maintenance and support
The whole 'Gelato Zone', including Gelato Pro 2.2, was removed from Nvidia's website around the end of July 2008, in favour of the new CUDA
CUDA
CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...
-based OptiX
OptiX
NVIDIA OptiX is a real time ray tracing engine for CUDA-based video cards such as the GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla series....
ray tracing engine.
External links
- Official website
- Nvidia Gelato Blog
- Other GPU based renderer