Reblend: Experimental Blender Build

Leonid Altman in Studio Lighting

Hi, I'm Leonid

I develop Reblend as an independent project.

Blender with an upgraded Cycles

Name: Reblend: Experimental Blender Build
Brand: Leonid Altman
Price: 49.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (4 reviews)

Caustics, bidirectional rendering and GPU path guiding, in a Blender build that opens your usual .blend files.

12 months of builds and support. Builds you download keep working after that.

Caustics from glass, water and metal

Render the focused light that glass, water and polished metal cast onto surrounding surfaces. Photon Caustics also supports caustic light in volumes, such as light shafts under water. A separate Caustics pass lets you adjust it in the compositor. Caustics also bake into textures.

Animated comparison. Off: a lumpy glass ball on a floor in sunlight, its shadow flat and dark. On: bright, intricate caustic patterns inside its shadow and across the floor.

The comparisons alternate between off and on.

Light seen through glass

Render caustics visible through another surface: the floor of a pool through its water, or light gathering inside a glass. Reblend's bidirectional methods handle these, and VCM also renders sharp light shafts in water and fog.

Animated comparison. Off: a glass French press in sunlight, its shadow on the table flat. On: light focused by the glass shows up inside the shadow.

The French press scene is by Christopher3D.

Indirect lighting on your GPU

GPU path guiding can produce cleaner images when much of the light arrives after bouncing from a small part of the scene.

It isn't a general speed increase. It's off by default, and can make other scenes slower. Compare your scene with it off and on at equal render time.

Animated comparison. Off: a dim kitchen lit through a curtained window, the walls and ceiling grainy. On: the walls and ceiling are cleaner.

Glass, liquid and ice together

Model glass, liquid and ice as overlapping objects. Reblend handles the boundaries between them without you cutting the meshes apart at each interface. Automatic priorities set their order, with manual control when you need it.

Animated comparison. Off: a glass of whisky with ice, the ice under the surface dark and glittery. On: the ice under the surface is clear, as in a real drink.

Cutaways at render time

Tick Cutter on any object to cut the scene open at render time, with solid faces where closed objects are cut. Your geometry stays as it is, and Solid mode shows the same cut.

Animated comparison. Cutter off: a two-storey house seen from outside. Cutter on: the house cut open, showing the rooms inside, with solid faces where walls and floors are cut.

Material library

213 materials in the Asset Browser. The metals come polished, brushed, satin, bead-blasted, hammered, anodised, tarnished, rusted, patinated and knurled, built from measured optical data, with smudges and edge wear you can adjust.

Glass, liquids and gems cover drinks, milk and detergents, soda-lime, tempered, bottle, tinted and frosted glass, acrylic, and cut stones like diamond and ruby. Glass takes smudges and scratches too. Baryta comes with Reblend as a view transform.

Animated carousel of Reblend library materials, one at a time with its name: gold, copper, knurled brass, anodised aluminium, bronze, patina, rust, glass, water, wine, milk, espresso, diamond, ruby, emerald, spinel

Christopher 3D explores Reblend

An ongoing project

Reblend is experimental. I release improvements as they're ready, and membership helps pay for the work.

If you use it, I'd like to hear what happens in your scenes. A problem report, a difficult lighting setup or an example from your workflow helps me decide what to investigate next. You don't need to buy Reblend to send feedback.

Membership gives you access to released builds and support during your paid period. It doesn't promise a particular future feature or release schedule.

Requirements and things to know

macOSApple silicon. GPU rendering requires macOS 15 or later. There is no Intel Mac build.

Windows64-bit Windows 10 or 11.

Linuxx86-64, with glibc 2.28 or later.

GPUsOn Windows and Linux: NVIDIA with CUDA or OptiX, or AMD Radeon RX 6000 and newer with HIP. CPU rendering is also available. Every rendering method works on several GPUs, and on the CPU and a GPU together.

BaseBlender 5.2.2, with your add-ons. Reblend's additions are not available when the same file renders in ordinary Blender.

Not every rendering method supports every scene feature. Bidirectional rendering has restrictions with shadow catchers and some camera settings; the guide explains the supported combinations.

Keep your normal Blender installation and test Reblend on copies of your scenes before relying on it for deadline work. Settings and defaults can change between releases.

Downloads, guide and support

Download your builds at reblend.app/download with your Superhive order number, the digits after the # at the top of your order page.

The guide and release notes are on reblend.app. For support and feedback, use the contact options on the website. When reporting a problem, include your Reblend version and, if you can, a scene that shows it.