Features
What Makes KeyShot Different?
KeyShot is designed to make 3D rendering and animation easy. It allows you to apply materials and lighting fast and provides the most accurate materials appearances and real-world lighting, all in a powerful interface that provides advanced capabilities and the ability to see all your changes in real-time. So, what is KeyShot? And what does it help you do?
Easy Fast Accurate Powerful Advanced Real-time
Focus on your design, not software.
KeyShot is extremely easy to learn and use to achieve photographic results in minutes through a simple, workflow-based interface with all the advanced capabilities for the most experienced 3D render professional.
Leave them speechless.
From still image and animations to interactive web and mobile content, KeyShot’s ability to create the highest quality visuals possible ensures you are using the best tool for all your visualization needs.
Feature by Feature
Rendering
Features available in all versions of KeyShot
CPU Rendering
Real-time ray tracing using all available physical and virtual CPU cores that scales linearly as more cores are added.
GPU Rendering
One-click switch to GPU mode for real-time ray tracing using all available NVIDIA RTX graphic cards.
Denoise
Deep learning noise removal on the Real-tiime View and render output for smoother results in less time.
Scientifically Accurate
Scientific accurate materials that represent properties like IOR, dispersion and subsurface scattering.
Global Illumination
Indirect light bounces between 3D geometry and allows other geometry to be illuminated when under transparent materials.
Focused Caustics
Show how light is affected by your materials with real world caustics immediately visible with a flip of a switch.
HDRI Lighting
Light your scenes quickly. Drag and drop a KeyShot HDRI environment into the scene and adjust as needed.
Physical Lighting
Add area, point, IES or spotlights by applying a light material to any piece of model geometry.
Material Library
Over 700+ material presets from architectural, cloth, glass, and gem to liquids, metals, plastic, and wood.
Texture Library
Access to textures for bump, color, displacement, IES light profiles, OpenVDB, roughness, labels and more.
Environment Library
More than 60 high resolution HDRI environments or edit to create your own with KeyShot Pro.
Color Library
Enhance your materials by using industry standard color libraries from Pantone and RAL, exclusively in KeyShot.
3D Model Library
Add context and detail to your scene quickly using a wide variety of models with complete materials and textures.
Exclusive Content
KeyShot includes exclusive content like Axalta Paints, Mold-Tech Textures, Sørensen Leathers, and Poliigon Textures.
KeyShot Cloud
Search and share KeyShot assets including materials, HDRIs and backplates, and download to KeyShot.
Favorites
Make collections of your favorite materials, colors, environments and textures for use in other scenes.
Procedural Textures
2D and 3D procedural textures from cloth, mesh and scratches to wood, gradient, camouflage and occlusion.
Cutaway
Expose the inner workings of your design with dynamic cutaways, set what to exclude, and add animation.
Scattering Media
Add particle scattering like smoke and fog with density texture and VDB support or use to create interesting materials.
RealClothTM
A powerful, new material type which allows the creation and visualization of realistic woven materials.
Toon Shading
Create non-photorealistic renderings suited for technical documentation, patent drawings and more.
Interactive Scene Tree
All parts, lights, cameras and animations in one place, with live search, filtering and grouping capabilities.
Interactive Labeling
Position labels on objects using their own material definition or adopted from the properties of the underlying material.
Dynamic Texture Mapping
Map textures across bump, color, specular, and opacity channels for the ultimate real-world appearance.
Material Templates
Patented technology to set up templates to automatically assign materials to the imported models on import to KeyShot.
Rounded Edges
Turn sharp edges on an imported model into beautiful, small rounded edges and fillets with simple slider.
Patterns
Create 100s or 1,000s of independent model instances without affecting file size, memory or speed.
Image Styles
Create multiple image styles with tone mapping, curve, color adjustments, or layers. View in real-time or adjust after.
Unlimited Resolution
Unlimited real-time and render output resolution with presets for common sizes and custom resolution creation.
Camera Control
Simulate real world camera behavior with different mode and controls applied in real-time to capture the perfect image.
Shift Lens
Use the shift lens to adjust your vertical edges or use a single click to adjust them automatically.
Walkthrough Mode
Set your eye height and turn on ground/collision detection to move through your scene.
Importers
KeyShot has the widest support for the direct import of over 20 native and neutral 3D file types.
Plugins
A direct connection between 3D modeling software and KeyShot with many including LiveLinking
Through select KeyShot plugins, keep your geometry changes updated in KeyShot without losing any work.
Network Rendering
(Add-on) Use your computer network to render your projects in a fraction of the time.
Pro Features
Features included with KeyShot Pro, Pro Floating, and Enterprise.
Studios
Set up your own personal studios with any combination of cameras, environments, model sets and materials.
Model Sets
Set up different variations of the models in your scene to show different model configurations or create color studies.
NURBS rendering
For the ultimate quality and zero tessellation, KeyShot supports the import and render of NURBS data.
Geometry Editor
A secondary OpenGL viewport that allows camera path movement and geometry editing of the imported model.
Displacement
The Displace geometry shader allows allows you to create 3D textures for enhanced relism.
Bubbles
Bubbles can be added and configured to create everything from foam to fizz.
Flakes
Add any variety of flakes (square or spherical) inside your material or around it.
Fuzz
Add randomized, hair-like growth from the surface of any material, control length, density and more.
Multi-Materials
Create multiple variations of your materials for quick color comparison or advanced colorway creation.
Configurator
Use your material, model, and camera variations to create unlimited configurations.
Stereoscopic View
Set up stereoscopic 3D viewing to view or work in 3D space with a VR Viewer or HMD.
Perspective Matching
Interactive perspective matching tool that allows you to align the object in the scene with the photographed objects.
HDRI Editor
Lighting presets and full HDRI control with light pins, blur, highlights and the ability to enhance or create HDRIs.
Sun & Sky
Interactive Sun & Sky generation with date, time, and location, or place the sun where you need it in the HDRI.
Material Graph
Create advanced materials using KeyShot’s node-based editor to layer and animate materials and textures.
Scripting
Deeper functionality available through the Python scripting console to unleash the power of KeyShot.
Real-time Region Rendering
Select and concentrate your computer power to render small areas of your scene and see the results in real-time.
Render Passes
For more post-processing control, KeyShot includes render passes, like clown, depth and normal pass.
Render Queue
Store all your scenes prepared through the day and process the entire batch of when you’re ready.
3D Export
Export your scene as OBJ, FBX, GLTF, or STL to use in other software, view online, or 3D print.
Animation
Features included with KeyShot Pro, Pro Floating and Enterprise
Part & Camera Animation
Patented animation system to create part and camera animation using real-time setup and playback of your animation.
Camera Path Animation
Create camera path animations by selecting existing views or dynamically creating the path in real-time.
Panorama Animation
Create first-person rotation animations with a click using the camera itself as the rotation pivot.
Curve Fade
Use a custom control curve to change between two colors, across a range of colors or change a material’s opacity over a specific duration.
Zoom Animation
The Zoom camera animation allows for the dynamic change of the camera’s field of view for more dramatic animations.
DOF Animation
Depth of Field animation allows for the dynamic change of the camera’s focus distance and F-stop values.
Camera Switch Events
Set up camera switch events in a single scene to quickly switch between multiple camera animations.
Motion Blur
Create real-time motion blur with quick settings to deliver the ultimate realism when displaying moving parts.
KeyShotWebTM
An add-on available for all versions of KeyShot
Interactive Visuals
Create web-ready, touch-enabled visuals directly from your KeyShot scene with an array of unique features.
360° Spherical Experience
KeyShotXR goes beyond turntable views. With KeyShotXR, create true, fully spherical 360° product experiences.?
Touch Gesture Control
KeyShotXR is completely touch-enabled and works across mobile, tablet or larger touchscreen displays.
KeyShotXR Wizard
With six different KeyShotVR types, create turntable, spherical, animated or custom KeyShotVRs step-by-step.
Responsive Embed
When you embed your KeyShotXR, it sizes correctly to the width of a browser whether on desktop or mobile device.
Preserved Image Quality
When you zoom in on your KeyShotXR, the image quality is preserved to ensure every detail is captured.?
Interior KeyShotXR
A KeyShotXR that uses the camera itself as the pivot center to capture first-person view of the scene.
iBooks Support
Advanced iBooks widget output to embed a touch-enabled product experience in Apple iBooks files.
Creativity Unbound
KeyShot 9 brings you unbound creative capability to help you realize your ideas faster. Built as the hub for all your visualization needs, KeyShot delivers unmatched ease, simplicity, and accessibility to give you complete creative freedom and a level of visual agility that allows you to explore your design at the speed of thought.
KeyShot 9
Key Features
RealClothTM
RealCloth is a patent-pending technology from Luxion driving a powerful, new material type which allows the creation and visualization of realistic woven materials. The material type provides control of the weave pattern (Pro) and ability to easily add flyaway fibers. New RealCloth materials have been added to the Library as well.
Denoise
Smooth, fast, beautiful renderings with the click of a button. Denoise works in both CPU and GPU mode to eliminate noise in the Real-Time View and render output. It turns that time crunch into a time-saver. Turn Denoise on and watch your image render up to 30x faster with the advantage of using it in an unlimited number of KeyShot Image Styles.
GPU Mode
KeyShot 9 introduces the ability to harness the full GPU-accelerated ray tracing power of NVIDIA RTX with OptiX. Available for both real-time rendering and local render output, KeyShot’s GPU Mode allows GPU resources to be accessed with one-click to take advantage of multi-GPU performance scaling and the dedicated ray tracing acceleration hardware in NVIDIA RTX-capable GPUs.
3D Model Library
KeyShot 9 brings you a new Model Library filled with the highest-quality, specially curated 3D models to complement the products in your scene. All 3D models come complete with materials and textures, and are easily searched, filtered, and added to any scene with a simple drag-and-drop from KeyShot Cloud.
Web Configurator (PRO)
KeyShot 9 introduces the power to generate interactive, browser-based product configurators. Featuring fully-rendered product variations using the models, materials, and Studios of your choice, web configurators can be produced to share privately or hosted online to provide a more engaging product option experience.
Creative Freedom
Unlock your imagination.
With new materials and textures, KeyShot 9 opens up your creative freedom for a new level of detail and control over your product visuals.
Fuzz Material (PRO)
For that warm, fuzzy feeling.
That warm, fuzzy feeling flooding over you isn’t in your head, it’s a new material geometry shader that brings a whole new level of realism to your products. Just open up the KeyShot Material Graph (Pro) and add any amount of fuzz you need on the surface of any material. Control length, randomness, density and more for that perfectly, fuzzy look.
Contour Texture
The edge you need.
Imagine putting an edge on any material. With contour as a texture, you now have more control and flexibility while creating custom materials. You can use it to add an illustration-like effect on top of real-world materials such as metal or plastic.
Animation Curve Control (PRO)
Ease it in. Spin it out.
Controlling your animation has never been so easy. Customize the motion or appearance of an animation or a material color, bump, opacity or other property. Add controls quickly along the curve and adjust it all in real-time to create incredible part and material animations.
Generic (BRDF) Material
Ultimate material possibilities.
It’s only generic in name. The flexibility it adds is anything but. Adjust properties for sheen, clearcoat, metallic, anisotropic and more. It’s a new material that provides endless possibilities to create incredible material finishes.
Visual Agility
Create like never before.
KeyShot 9 streamlines import, expands compatibility, and extends output to bring you a more agile workflow from start to finish.
Streamlined Import
Simplified to start creating faster.
That was quick. And with the new import options designed to speed up your import efficiency, you’ll be in your scene and rendering in no time. Import KeyShot files to scenes, save import settings, and more.
Substance Painter Import
Make those textures pop.
Go from immersive texture experience to immersive 3D rendering experience. KeyShot 9 automaticall generates KeyShot materials from the texture sets you create in Substance Painter. No need for additional mapping or adjustments, just drag and drop your Substance Painter texture where you want it to get the beautiful final result you need.
Browzwear VStitcher Plugin
See your apparel in a new light.
KeyShot 9 introduces a new plugin for the leading 3D software for apparel design and development. Send your garments from VStitcher straight into KeyShot 9 with all colors and textures included. It a whole new level of photorealistic apparel visualization.
X-Rite AxF TM 1.6
Deep, rich, marvelous materials.
The industry standard appearance exchange format (AxF) from X-Rite is packed with even more power and fully supported in KeyShot 9. The flexible file format now displays accurate appearance attributes for translucent and cloudy plastic-like materials.
Speed of Thought
The flexibility to visualize faster.
KeyShot is fast. From scene setup and real-time interaction to what you make and the reaction, KeyShot 9 delivers the capabilities you need to create with speed.
Tools Menu
Faster access to start creating faster.
Geometry, Material, and Camera tools all in one place. The new Tools menus in KeyShot 9 consolidates access to your favorite tools, allows you to edit geometry faster and adds the new Material Import tool to apply appearances quickly. It’s workflow improvements like this that make KeyShot so enjoyable to use.
Configurator Sub-Components & Thumbnails (PRO)
A whole new level of product options.
Parent and Component models get a new 3rd level of dependency to expand the product options and create larger groups of variations. And now, add custom model and material thumbnails to your Configurator to communicate exact product options.
How Easy is KeyShot?
KeyShot is the fastest and easiest to use 3D rendering and animation software available. In just a few steps you can create amazing looking images from your 3D models that can be used throughout the product development process to make design decisions and quickly create variations of concepts for customer, manufacturing or marketing.
Step 1: Import your 3D model
Import SolidWorks, Solid Edge, SketchUp, Alias, PTC Creo, Rhino, Pro/E, IGES, STEP, FBX, OBJ or 3ds data directly. With the widest 3D format support and many plugins importing your model is quick and efficient.
Step 2: Paint your model
Drag and drop any of the 600+ scientifically accurate material presets onto your model. The real-time view instantly shows how the applied material appears on your model with accurate color and lighting.
Step 3: Choose your lighting
Simply select an environment image (HDRI). As soon as you drag and drop the lighting environment into your scene you will notice the effect of the scientifically accurate real world lighting and how it captures your models, colors and finishes.
Step 4: Adjust your camera
Framing your scene is just as easy as using a real camera. Adjust the angle and distance, control perspective with focal length and field of view settings and easily add depth of field to your scene. Capturing your scene has never been so simple.
Step 5: Enjoy the perfect picture
Now watch as your image renders before your eyes. From start to finish, a simple 5 step process to create incredible images fast and easy in real-time.
Simplify your workflow.
KeyShot is a stand-alone 3D rendering and animation application that operates side by side your 3D modelling application. Rather than putting KeyShot inside the 3D modelling software, we provide a more flexible approach with three levels of integration to import and render your design.
Direct import
KeyShot supports the widest number of 3D file formats out of any rendering software. With importers for over 20+ file types and versions you can be sure your 3D data will be imported accurately into KeyShot. Direct import of the major 3D CAD applications and the generic 3D file formats is included with .obj export available in KeyShot Pro.
Plugins
Our plugins extends the functionality between KeyShot and the 3D modeling application. Depending on the application, this higher level of integration makes it possible for the entire geometry along with its structure, color assignments and camera views to be imported and for KeyShot files to be exported without KeyShot being installed.
LiveLinking™
The plugins also allow our LiveLinking technology to establish a link between your 3D modeling software and KeyShot. This keeps the software separate, allowing you to continue working and refining your model, then send all changes over to KeyShot with the click of a button. All without losing any views, materials, textures or animations already applied.
Third-party support
Beyond direct import, plugins and LiveLinking, many of our partners have taken the steps to build KeyShot integration into their software, extending the functionality within the 3D modeling application. Once the 3D modeling application is installed, users may immediately export their files to KeyShot without the need to install a plugin. Users can apply materials, continue modeling and making updates to the geometry with all changes brought over to KeyShot to continue the rendering process.
KeyShot Animation
Animated visuals. In real-time.
What is KeyShot Animation?
KeyShot Animation is the fastest way to create animated visuals of your 3D models. With the same real-time results you have when creating still imagery, KeyShot Animation allows you to build, light and adjust your animation as you create it. No more waiting. Just animations as fast as you can create them.
Build Faster
The revolutionary, patent-pending KeyShot Animation system brings a whole new level of creating animations quickly and easily to your product development pipeline. KeyShot Animation doesn’t rely on adding and managing keyframes. Instead, apply individual transforms (rotations, translations, etc.) to set up new animations with a click of button, and update materials and lighting as the animation plays.
Individual Transforms
Rather than relying on keyframes to set up an animation, KeyShot Animation uses individual object and camera transforms that can be combined, copied and linked to deliver fully featured animations. These transforms allow you to quickly apply an animation, then adjust the parameters and duration with fewer mouse movements and operations.
Animation Timeline
The KeyShot Animation Timeline is the control center for your animation. Access the Animation Wizard to walkthrough an animation setup. Play, scrub or preview your animation in real-time. See all your individual animations in one spot with the ability to group, mirror, lock, hide or duplicate any animation as needed.
Real-time Interaction
With KeyShot Animation you know exactly what your animation looks like before your render. Set up, edit and playback your animation in real-time ray traced environment. While you edit and playback the animation continue to add materials, explore lighting and adjust cameras.
Advanced Animations
With KeyShot Animation you have the capability to create complex animation scenarios quickly. With fade animations, camera path animations, panorama animations, DOF, Dolly and Zoom animations, and Camera Switch Events, you can quickly create full featured animation all within KeyShot.
Animation Import
Have animations created in other software? KeyShot can handle those too. Import your animations from Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, PTC Creo or import an FBX file directly. Additionally, using a KeyShot plugin with your software allows you to update your model changes in KeyShot as you continue setting up your animation.
All KeyShot Animation Features
With the features in KeyShot Animation, create high-quality, animated product visuals faster than you ever thought possible.
KeyShot Animation includes:
- Individual Transforms: Rather than keyframes, KeyShot uses individual object and camera transforms that can be combined, copied and linked to deliver fully featured animation
- Single Application Environment: Animation capabilities built directly into KeyShot
- Real-time Animation: Setup, edit, and playback inside real-time ray traced environment
- Real-time Interaction: Full interaction with camera, lighting and materials during playback
- Animation Wizard: Step-by-step walk-through for first time users
- Modify: Duplicate, Mirror, Lock, Hide, Group
- Pivot Points: Part Origin or Center, Object Axis, Dynamic Pivot Point
- Motion Blur: Include camera or part blur with the click of a button
- Camera Animations
- Orbit
- Path
- DOF
- Dolly
- Zoom
- Panorama
- Inclination
- Translation
- Camera Switch
- Model/Part Animations
- Turntable
- Translation
- Rotation
- Fade
- Fast preview output: AVI, MPEG
- High quality render output: AVI, MPEG, Flash, individual frames including Alpha channel