Home Reality 1.2 Overview

Reality 1.2 Overview

Where you can buy Reality.

Today Prêt-à-3D announces the upcoming release of Reality version 1.2, the acclaimed plug-in for DAZ Studio.
The Reality plug-in makes it possible to render any DAZ Studio scene via LuxRender, the stunning physically-based renderer. With Reality is it possibly to create photo-realistic images that rival the results found on high-end 3D environments.

Reality 1.2 adds more than 55 new features and numerous User Interface improvements that make the app simpler to use and more powerful. Reality 1.2 also adds a new cloud-based service named ACSEL Share that makes sharing and installing Reality shaders (materials) as simple as one click of the mouse.

Features at glance (full list and details here):

New Lights

Image Based Lighting (IBL). Easy to set up, gives astounding results.
Studio preview for IBL. Position your IBL background in seconds.
Point lights. Easy, fast, effective.
Full light editor. Set all your light parameters inside Reality.
Editable light groups. Get full access to dynamic lighting in LuxRender.
Turn any material into a light. From LEDs to street lamps, make them shine
with just one click!
Separate Sun and Sky adjustment. Adjust the sun and sky lights in Lux separately.

New Materials

Glossy Translucent. Great for hair, leaves and many other objects.
New Glossy options. Translucent color, Surface fuzziness, finer controls, better
specular maps.
New skin parameters. Even more realistic than before.
Velvet. Excellent for clothing and drapes.
Stained glass. Create mesmerizing light effects.
Frosted glass. Simply amazing.
And much more!

ACSEL Share

ACSEL. Customize the shaders for any Studio model.
Once saved, Reality will used them automatically.
Share. Share your custom shaders with one click.
A cloud-based service, free for all Reality users.
Install. Install new ACSEL shaders shared by others.
It’s all inside Reality and requires only one click.

Expanded Texture Control

MLIE support. Layered textures for make-up, tattoos, etc.
Tiling. All textures can now by tiled up to 200 times.
Displacement. Now side-by-side with the improved bump mapping.
Alpha channel. For Metal, Water and Glass.
Opacity. Full control without requiring a transparency map.
Reload. One button to reset the texture to the original.

Easier to Use

Enhanced compatibility. Compatible with many custom shaders,
Reality 1.2 makes it easy to move your scenes to LuxRender.
Material selection. Reality highlights the material that was selected in Studio.
Preview mode. Up to 200% faster than the standard rendering.
Frame support. Playhead controls in Reality make it a snap to render
any frame in your animation.
Memory conservation. Fits 32-bit machines better with up to 22% less RAM required.
More frame sizes. Render at 200, 300 or 400% of the frame size.
Export only. Make a scene without starting Lux.

These are just the top features of Reality 1.2. The full list and more details are available here.

“Reality 1.2 is the culmination of 18 months of development of this plug-in to bring the power of LuxRender to all Studio users at every level. With this release I believe that now Studio artists have the rendering power that just a few months ago was reserved for people able to invest several thousands of dollars in very expensive software. Reality 1.2 is the end of the high-end envy.” says Paolo Ciccone, software designer of Reality and founder of Prêt-à-3D.

Some feedback from Reality 1.2 artists

As a clothing texture maker, Reality gives my materials the chance to shine like no other program. Velvet that looks real enough to touch, sparkles and sequins come to life and with a little skill even materials like leather look just about perfect! I’m totally hooked on it. It’s wonderful to have the power of proper indirect lighting and real world textures at my command, and Reality, combined with the power of LuxRender brings Daz Studio users the kind of rendering power that is usually reserved for the high end application

— Martin Frost

With Reality I re-discovered the joys of my first love, photography!

— Peter “Akhbour” Rex

Paolo has done an amazing job of moving this plug-in forward with a loyalty that can’t be matched by many. I can tell by his attention to the little details that he’s serious about making Reality as perfect as possible, and it’s getting closer to that with every bug fix and feature addition. It’s definitely here to stay.

— Dimension Theory

The Reality plug-in is a dream come true for me since I started out with 3D to create ‘realism’ in my images. A very powerful and easy to use bridge between DAZ Studio and LuxRender I simply love!

– Callad

Price and Availability

Reality 1.2 runs under DAZ Studio 3.1.2.24 or above on Mac OS and Windows 32 and 64 bit variants. The release of Reality 1.2 is expected around February 28th, 2011, and will be on sale at DAZ 3D. The price for this release is the same of version 1.0: $79.95. For a limited time Reality 1.2 will be on sale at 35% off at $51.95. Existing customers of Reality 1.0x will upgrade for free.