I have been doing a lot of research for work and for myself. I have mostly compiled a chart (copy pasted from excel) over the last couple months about rendering engines that can be used in place of Revit's. With 3dmax 2013 and later we can link a revit file importing all materials and lights. This chart is assumed that the model is in max.
What I am looking for for work is a rendering engine that can render a walkthrough over network easier than revit does (it doesn't lol I go to each computer and tell it what frames to do). All computers in my office have AMD gpus so it would be nice if I could find one that used them and possible was able to throttle back so other people can keep working.
For my personal use, I will be starting my masters this fall and I have the following available at home to render on-
two gtx 460's 768mb in one computer
two radeon 6950's 2gb in another
So for this I am looking for one that uses both kinds of gpu to render faster than my amd 1055t cpu, and don't really need walkthrough support or throttle.
I hope this information is helpful to others and any information I don't have would be awesome. The main things I want for both work and home is revit materials preserved and a faster one than the default revit renderer.
renderer cost use amd? use nvidia? throttle? bucket? network? walkthorugh? notes Scalene inc N N Y Y i-ray inc N Y Y Y Y VRAY N N Y Y VRay-RT Y Y Y Y Quicksilver inc N Y N Y Mental Ray inc N N Y Y Y Indigo Y Y Y from revit! Redo materials Octane N Y Luxrender free Y Y Y redo materials