YafaRay 0.1.1

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YafaRay is a free open-source raytracing engine.Raytracing is a rendering technique for generating realistic images by tracing the path of light through a 3D scene.
A render engine consists of a "faceless" computer program that interacts with a host 3D application to provide specific raytracing capabilties "on demand".Blender 3D is the host application of YafaRay.

YAFARAY MAIN FEATURES

Global Illumination
Apart from direct lighting, YafaRay uses Global Illumination to produce realistic renders of 3D scenes. Supported GI algorithms are Pathtracing, Photon Mapping, Final Gather and Bidirectional Pathtracing.

Background Illumination
This illumination system is based mainly on light coming from an emitting sky, taking into account the soft shadows calculations also involved. The illumination can be obtained from simple backgrounds, HDR images and complete SunSkysolutions.

Caustics effects.
YafaRay uses photon mapping techniques to produce fast yet accuratecaustics effects. Caustics is light concentration produced by reflective and refractive objects. This option is available in several lighting methods apart from photon mapping. Caustics can be also calculated with Pathtracing paths.

Materials.
Four shader types are implemented in YafaRay, which are ShinyDiffuse,Glossy, CoatedGlossy and Glass. They are flexible enough and with many parameters available for each of them to produce a wide range of materials, transparent surfaces and reflections.
Besides, there is a Blend option implemented to mix properties from several different shaders.

Textures.
YafaRay supports several mapping options for texturing, blending of different textures and modulation of material parameters with textures.
YafaRay support several procedural textures as well. A procedural texture is a computer generated image produced by an algorithm and intended to create a realistic representation of natural elements.

Cameras
YafaRay implements four camera types to reproduce different optic effects. YafaRay also supports raytraced depth of field (DOF) to focus a part of the scene.

Volumetrics.
YafaRay`s volumetric features provide a simulation of light interacting with particles suspended in a region of space. YafaRay uses a realistic physics-based model to render volumetrics, and provides a basis for creating not just believable beams of light, but also smoke, clouds, fog, and other volumetric effects.