Power Render

Power Render is a general purpose software development kit for games and 3D visualization. In addition to providing an API for developers, several tools are provided for artists for building content and previewing models in realtime from Autodesk's 3ds max, Alias Wavefront's , and Newtek's Lightwave. The new version can also preview content using High dynamic range imaging and supports the OpenEXR file format. The personal edition is a free download and contains all of the tools, API, documentation and sample content found in the standard version. Over 50 working C++ examples of varying difficulty are provided to demonstrate various aspects of the product and get you started right away.

Power Render provides a wide range of graphics algorithms in a higher level API which can be used instead of DirectX or OpenGL, while still providing low level access to the hardware if needed. Key functionality includes shader support up to SM 3.0, Cg programming language, HLSL, or assembly, a variety of shadow methods, texture formats, terrain and Binary space partitioning rendering, full screen graphical user interface design, C++ like scripting language, collision detection, audio and input device support including force feedback from companies such as Logitech and ActLabs, character animation using skinning, tweening, or keyframing.

Power Render 6 now has built in physics capabilities for simulating objects with real world properties. Simple or compound objects with multiple rigid bodies and joints can be created. Ragdoll support for characters is provided along with an editor for adjusting skeletal geometry and physics properties.

While game development is the main use for Power Render, it has been used in many other fields such as theme park rides, military simulations, museum exhibits, screensavers, music visualizers, commercial and architectural visualizations. It is also used in a number of educational institutions for teaching students in the computer graphics field.

History
1994: Founded and evolved from the WordUp Graphics Toolkit, a popular 2D graphics library for Watcom and Borland C. The first versions used software rendering under DOS using VGA and VESA.

1995: Glide API support was added for version 2.5 when 3Dfx released the Voodoo 1 cards in 1995.

1997: DirectX and OpenGL support were added, however OpenGL was dropped after version 3.0. The first ever demoscene demo that supported DirectX under Windows (Trip, the Party 97) was created with Power Render.

2000: Version 3 released

2003: Version 4 released

2004: Version 5 released

2005: Current version is 6, which uses DirectX 9 and runs under Windows and partial Xbox support. Free personal edition was released on September 15, 2005.

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