D5 Render: A rising star in architectural visualization

Discover why D5 Render is a rising star in the architectural visualization industry.

If you are an architect or interior/exterior designer, you must have known or used some of the most popular architectural rendering software, such as Lumion, Enscape, or V-Ray. However, today, many architects and designers are shifting to D5 Render, a very new 3D rendering software compared to those industry-leading solutions.

What is so special about D5 Render that many professionals love it? In this post, Chip Render will discover why D5 Render is a rising star in architectural visualization. Let’s dive in!

D5 Render is a real-time ray tracing 3D rendering software for architecture, landscape, interior design, engineering, and other 3D professionals. Thanks to an intuitive interface and a streamlined workflow, you will work out how the software works and be able to produce beautiful images, videos, panoramas, and VR tours within a very short time.

With free live-sync plugins, the software is fully compatible with SketchUp, 3ds Max, Revit, Archicad, Rhino, Cinema 4D, and Blender. By combining the benefits of ray tracing and rasterization, D5 renders images, videos, and panoramas very quickly, allowing for fine-tuning or additional editing. It also enables you to see every change you make to the scene in real time, with a reliable preview and a relatively high frame rate.

With a simple UI, powerful features, and abundant assets, D5 Render has thus become an efficient tool for all AEC professionals. It is listed as the Top 1 easy-to-use architectural rendering software on G2 in 2023.

An intuitive user interface, quick rendering, and the ability to create animations, panoramas, and images are what you can expect from D5 Render. However, D5 will need more than that to compete with other rendering platforms that have been there for longer and have a larger community of users. What makes D5 Render a rising star in the industry, especially for architectural visualization?

User interface

Image via D5 Render

When it comes to user interface and user experience, D5 Render offers a sleek, modern, and clutter-free design, with a focus on the 3D scene. The real-time preview is a game changer, allowing for instant tweaks. Some may find the D5 interface to be intuitive, while others may feel it is too modern and packed, affecting the workflow speed. Nonetheless, the potential and upcoming updates promise exciting enhancements.

Rendering

D5 Render taps into the power of raytracing for scene handling from its beginnings in 2021. Its advantage is real-time rendering, offering architects and archviz artists instant visualization, and saving them a lot of time. D5 stands out for its ability to portray precise lighting, intricate shadows, and lifelike glass reflections. In other words, when it comes to reflective objects, D5 takes the lead.

As a GPU-based rendering software, D5 Render provides rapid Global Illumination, AI denoising, and a user-friendly design experience. Thanks to the RTX technology, you can enhance lighting, shadows, and reflection rendering quality when it comes to architectural animation. If you are using an RTX card, you can leverage AI denoising for a smooth real-time interaction and experience as well as polished final outputs in D5 Render.

Living room by Jimmy3D, via D5 Render Forum

Content Library

D5 Render includes an abundance of new assets to enhance your designs and give you more possibilities. It has more than 11000 models and materials (9300 models, 2000 materials, 76 particles). The best part is that D5 Render is not holding back – it is continuously updating its vast library. In the latest update 2.5, the software introduced over 450 new models, including a wide range of 220+ animated trees and flowers that can breathe life into your architectural and landscape design.

Image via D5 Render

Improvements and Updates

As we mentioned above, D5 Render is not holding back – it is pushing the boundaries with major improvements. For example:

• In version 2.2: The Merge Project, Weather System: Rain and Snow, Projector, Layer management.
• In version 2.3: The one-click Round Corner, AO mode rendering, and Interior Parallax assets.
• In version 2.4: The new D5 Global Illumination and Z-depth channel.
• And now in the latest version 2.5: Real-time Caustics for dazzling light effects, D5 SR (Super Resolution) Image Rendering Acceleration, Enhanced control over light sources, Optimized Global Illumination for vegetation, and Improved materials for SSS (Subsurface scattering) and grass.

Moreover, D5 provides workflow enhancements such as a cloud workspace D5 Studio for teams, Section Tools for internal views, an Advanced Camera Tool for custom perspectives, and top-notch video editing capabilities. Assets have also been improved, with an emphasis on detail and realism.

The new Real-time LiveSync tool for SketchUp enhanced the iteration between D5 Render and other design software.

Overall, these innovations improve D5 Render’s efficiency and your overall rendering experience.

Dimension 5 Techs will release D5 Render 2.6 this week. Stay tuned and check out our “What’s new in D5 Render 2.6” blog post.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, D5 Render offers three plans:

• D5 Community: Free to use.

The Community plan is a steal for beginners, students, and hobbyists. Though this plan only provides a limited amount of assets (2000 models and materials), they are enough to use in most cases. Also, you can always import your own assets and manage them in your local library.

• D5 Pro: $38/month or $360/year.

The Pro plan is better for advanced and professional users, with the full content library (11000+ models and materials). D5 Render had changed its perpetual licenses to monthly and annual subscriptions. 

• D5 For Team: $75/month per seat or $708/year per seat.

The Team plan is suitable for teams and studios that are looking for further collaboration and work efficiency.

In short, D5 Render is one of few rendering software that offers a free version and free version updates. More importantly, D5’s free version has major features and a good number of assets, which will not limit your creativity. By offering the Community plan, D5 Render has nurtured the growing community and gradually made it a familiar and popular software in the industry.

Responses and Support

We believe that the developer’s rapid responses and great support have aided the community’s growth. D5 Render Team has given a proactive troubleshooting approach and advanced support in their dedicated forum and Facebook group. Their fast collaboration enables users to share work, address issues, and seek guidance. Because of all these, D5 Render can create a strong bond between their users and the team.

What also makes users love D5 is that the team actually listens to the community and the fast speed they integrate new features into the software.

To sum up, what truly sets D5 Render apart are an intuitive UI, powerful features, real-time rendering, abundant assets, constant improvements and updates with fast speed, and a brilliant pricing scheme.

The future of D5 Render seems very promising. D5 Render is a rising star in architectural visualization, and with its rapid development, it is on its way to becoming a major player in the architecture industry.