GPU rendering

[Anonymous]

Are there any plans in the pipeline to introduce GPU rendering rather than the current CPU rendering?

[TrippyLighting]

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@diogorsergio wrote:

... There's no other answer not to support GPU rendering this day an age. ...

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Limited development resources would be one reason.

[markusthur]

It's a bit late, eventually to reply, but you may consider this idea:

I fully understand why one would not use the GPU Render and Raytracing capabilities, even and especially since the RTX generations of Nvidia graphics cards.. You are not in control of the process anymore and it is optimised for producing nicely rendered and raytraced views for games very fast, which means it uses shortcuts and has the limitations alread mentioned.. Especially portability between different systems. One would need at least a implementation for Nvidia GPUs, AMD GPUs, Intel GPUs, Mali GPUs and much more... And u would have to make sure that the options give the same results on all of them, what they obviously don't / can't.

But there is another way to use them.. U can still at least use their incredible calculating power and paralellism of the computing units on them, which are all optimized to do exactly the calcuations u need in a rendering process... So why not use the GPU as "math Coprozessor" if aviable... CUDA would be system specific again, but one could use OpenCL, Vulkan runtime or Direct Compute of DirectX. Where maybe only OpenCL and Vulkan maybe enough portable..

You may not get the full speed, you may get from a dedicated solution, but you will definitely get a hugh boost from it, compared to not using the calculating power of the GPUs.

One could argue, the targetsystem may not have such a fancy GPU... Ehem CAD Workstations or Systems that tend to be used as a CAD Workstation tend to have leading edge Graphics hardware and RAM, that's essence of a CAD System.

And yes, Fusion 360 focuses also on the enthusiast home user, that may not have workstation graphicshardware in his computer, but I guess, at least if this user is interested in offline Redering, this user is enthusiast enough to even have a Nvidia GTX  or RTX or AMD RX in his Laptop and not relying on the on chip GPU.. While even this onchip GPUs still bring a performance plus to the process if used, compared to idle around 😉

[gabebolles]

As others have pointed out, it is absolutely absurd that in 2022, AutoDesk - specifically Fusion 360 is not utilizing GPU Based renders. How dissapointing and shameful that they have marked this thread as closed - and offered little support or feedback to our community. Shortly, I will be looking elsewhere for options regarding rendering softwares that can utilize the expensive and high-tech machinery that is now common in any enthusiast or workplace machine. As previously mentioned, even on board Graphics being involved on the CPU would benefit the render speed and ray tracing speeds. Fusion 360, I love your software but you need to get with the times. This answer was unacceptable 5 years ago, and it is laughable now. 

[wILLC3QSA]

Colin can we get an updated response here on this 5 year old thread . It shows closed but definitely shouldn't be . This along with the full cloud shutdown has me looking elsewhere but if the GPU could be address it would alleviate my need for a different software.

[wILLC3QSA]

Colin can we get an updated response here on this 5 year old thread . It shows closed but definitely shouldn't be . This along with the full cloud shutdown has me looking elsewhere but if the GPU could be address it would alleviate my need for a different software.

[TrippyLighting]

1. Colin has assumed other responsibilities within Autodesk at least 3 years ago.

2. Threads usually are closed by the OP. That is as it should be!

3. What are you talking about with "full cloud shut down" ?

4. If you feel that strongly about GPU rendering, then my suggestion would be to look for another software ASAP.

I have been told - more in respect to needed bug fixes (IMHO anyway) - that there is noting on the roadmap for the render environment. I believe that was for this year, but I have not heard anything to the contrary for next year.

I find that as unfortunate as you!

[martyninoz]

2023 and still no GPU rendering option.

As others have pleaded, I am sitting here with a state-of-the-art RTX, more than capable of performing renders (I mean, that's kinda what GPUs do..) but I am stuck with CPU renders that take 15 minutes for a simple 3-material-no-reflections model. I live rural, so cloud anything is a pain in the proverbial, which is why I favour local render.

It's all very well telling people to p off and use another software, but the fact is that F360 is an awesome piece of software and the people, your customers, want GPU rendering as the icing on the very delicious cake. We don't want to have to use 3rd party software for a function that should be part of your all-in-one solution.

[nigel76FS8]

Agreed, as always.
That the GPU can't be used to help solve moving parts and assembly checks too, is, at this stage, almost embarrassing!

[bjorn39YVB]

That people still expect any progress is tragic. Just drop the carcass, it
is dead and rotten.
They wanted this, they actively worked for this, they want you to leave
unless you are willing to pay for their cloud service. I left and I am not
looking back.

[Anonymous]

The fact that none of you have moved onto keyshot or blender is laughable at best.
Pathetic at most.

Move on from trying to render in a cad program. There’s better options out there, purpose built for rendering.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:
The fact that none of you have moved onto keyshot or blender is laughable at best.
Pathetic at most.

Move on from trying to render in a cad program. There’s better options out there, purpose built for rendering.

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Let's take a look at the workflows involved in using external render engines with and without plugins.

Blender

I've worked with Blender for at least 15 years and sometimes use it for renders for Fusion 360 models.

Sometimes I only use it as an intermediary to render in a unbiased, spectral render engine.

First you have to export the models from Fusion 360 and .fbx is the go-to format for assemblies. The .fbx exporter very nicely maintains the assembly structure, but it does not offer any control over the mesh resolution. That might be OK for overall shots, but sometimes for closeups, individual objects show tessellation artifacts and have to be re-exported using the only format that does allow control over the resolution, .stl. Unfortunately .stl meshes do no include edge "sharp" values and also don't include custom (split) vertex normals, which results in additional work in Blender.

Material and textures form Fusion 360 also are not exported.

For a final "high gloss" presentation render all that extra work that is fine, but for a WIP render for presentation to internal and external stakeholders, the process to get to a good render is way too time consuming!

And, of course, if the model requires changes in Fusion 360, a lot of the work has to be re-done. 

I my 3  decades of professional experience changes are the norm rather than the exception and WIP presentations are much more frequent than final renders.

Keyshot

I've not worked a lot with Keyshot and only have worked with it through the trial period of another CAD software 3-4 years ago. It is certainly a very capable tool, but with a pretty steep subscription price tag of  $99/ month for an annual subscription. That is a little more than twice the price for a full Fusion 360 subscription for $45.42/month for an annual subscription.

For many users of Fusion 360's who only use it's render abilities occasionally that is way too much money! 

Blender and Keyshot are additional tools for a different purpose and target audience. They are no replacements for the built-in render engine.

[Pedro_Bidarra]

Frankly, I still use Fusion's renderer just because the hassle of exporting and the changes which are the norm as you say, local rendering with current CPUs is quick enough (I have no need to use the cloud renderer), but it would be faster with GPUs no doubt. Also, setting up is very fast, without the need for setting up cameras or lights, it's not as flexible but it's just faster.

That's the painful part of Fusion's renderer, it's so convenient that it's sad it doesn't get updated, Even if it's quite inferior to Blender or Keyshot, the integration is very convenient.
But I got so proficient at it that I still get as good or better renders than some of my colleagues that use 3DS with Corona or Vray or C4D (someone that is very proficient in Vray or Corona will obviously get better renders than the ones I can get in Fusion, no doubt).

[ethanjrapoport]

Why not use the GPU on personal/local systems? I have a 3070ti which can probably render a scene of that size in seconds, yet my poor CPU has to do it, and it takes 10-20 seconds

[marekH6NQ7]

That's the whole point of this thread. Autodesk is lying and pretending it's an undue hardship to support local GPU rendering, despite the fact that literally every other player in the game does it. The reality is that Autodesk doesn't want to invest in making users happy because the alternative is that some will pay for their overpriced cloud credits, but most will leave for more competent pastures.

[Zoltan3D]

It's exactly what I think ....

I own a design computer with 128Go ram, Ryzen 9, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB ROG-POSEIDON... can render ultra complex things in rhino or blender in seconds with the GPU .....  but in Fusion it take a while even with a ryzen 9 .. because CPU are not made to render things ....

It's simple to see .... when you click render, the default option is cloud render with paid credits ...
If you forget to change the local render option EVERY TIME, you will pay for a thing that you can make in local even faster .... 
Even this simple option , you don't have any settings to set Local render the default render solution .... 
Say me it's not for money ....


Even more if we make a simple calculations .... it's compretly ridiculous and OVERPRICED !
100credit = 300€ ...   1 Final render = 5 crédit ..... so ONE SINGLE RENDER = 15€!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Imagine you want to make 10 different render of a complexe object = 150€ ONLY FOR RENDER 
And imagine you are not happy with the angle or render = 15€/render paid for nothing !

Guys ! we already pay expensive for yearly licence, and you sell us 15€ A SINGLE PICTURE ?!
Even more ridiculous with new GPUs ... who can render this photoreallistic, with reflection and all in 10 seconds ....
But make money is better no ?
Who really are stupid enought to pay 15€ONE PICTURE ???
Even if someone have an old computer he will prefer to wait 20 minutes for one CPU render for free ...


And people who say " bla bla bla go render in blender or other third party app .... Why make simple if we can do complicated ?no ? Blender is free, okay, but it's an over complicated software who many people can't or simply dont want to handle ....
All render capabilites are inside Fusion no need to export all things, set again all colors, light etc ... But make easy money is better than do happy customers ....

I stopped to participate in insider surveys too ...
AUtodesk make us pay for the software, want to make us pay 15€ / picture ... and ask us to work for free to find bugs and ideas for they team .... not even free credits or free subsctiption months/days for this ....
I stay in fusion only because it's the best for my 3D work ... But I will certenly never pay 15€/picture ... by chance I have a Ryzen 9 GPU .... but even with a celeron I wll prefer to wait 1hour/ render than pay .... ANd if they also remove CPU render ? I will use Blender for sure to render the stl exports ... 
But it's really not fair .... it's not a win-win deal ... the only who wil in this situation ... it's Autodesk

[kristjan_minn]

I really started to like Fusion 360, but having no GPU render is a dealbreaker for many. 

[fabianbender]

I work as an industrial designer and use Fusion every day. We use Keyshot for the more realistic renders when we need the quality but mostly we do our renders in Fusion. It is time saving to do it that way and the renders turn out pretty good and are enough as pdf presentation material.

I would love Fusion to have GPU render and I would be in more love, probably engaged, if it had Network Rendering as in Keyshot. For me it is not important who will win the fastest picture race in rendering between CPU and GPU. For me it is more important to spread the work load while I work. When I render I still want to work on my computer and not being forced to take a break since the CPU is 100% occupied with the render. 

What Autodesk think is the best way to render an image in terms of quality may not be important in this question? I think the question here lies in letting the end user choose how they want to use their system and what part of their computer that should handle the work load. 

I love to work in the Fusion 360 environment and have been using it since it was launched. I really enjoy the more user friendly and faster to set up render tool than Keyshot is, but this GPU render thing is just a little stone in my shoe that I would like to get rid of. And while you're at it... Network rendering... 😉

[Zoltan3D]

As you said, the problem here is the CPU load not the speed.
I own a Ryzen 9 7950x CPU now... It's a beast... But even got a simple render I need to take a break too and can't even do other things on the computer because all cores are at 100% for some minutes.
And as I said before the only and the single reason I see in this limitation of no GPU or no network job is to sell they online render tokens... There are absolutely no other hardware or software reason... And this is not fair for users...

[TrippyLighting]

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@Zoltan3D wrote:

...
And as I said before the only and the single reason I see in this limitation of no GPU or no network job is to sell they online render tokens... There are absolutely no other hardware or software reason... And this is not fair for users...

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If you follow the development of Fusion, you'll notice that rendering is just not a focus and it simply isn't currently on any roadmap, because that's not where they spent the development resources. That is simply not what most users ask for!

Users in this case isn't necessarily limited to Individuals, but includes companies and corporate entities, who are more interested in the collaboration and teamwork abilities Fusion has to offer.

What I'd love to see is a Fusion version of the Blender Bridge for Plasticity.

[Pedro_Bidarra]

I second that. It's very unfortunate that Keyshot (which is on the more expensive side when you compare multiple commercial render engines) is the only one with a Live-Link  capability.
I've successfully created a poor man's method of live linking between Fusion and Blender, by exporting from Fusion as an OBJ and importing with vertex groups.
In Blender, change material links to the Object level. To update the mesh, import updated OBJ. Delete the new Object created (the data remains in memory), go to Data tab and select the new mesh.
Bodies become vertex groups in this method, so you might want to change body names in Fusion to something meaningful.
This is just a summary of the method I developed, of course you'll want to use modifiers  like UV Warp if you want  to change UVs so you don't lose your changes when changing the mesh.