The Quicksilver hardware renderer uses graphics hardware to generate renderings.
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Main toolbar >
(Render Setup) > Render Setup dialog > Common panel > Assign Renderer rollout > Choose Quicksilver Hardware Renderer as the active production renderer.
One advantage of the Quicksilver hardware renderer is its speed. The default settings provide rapid rendering.
Quicksilver rendering. Time: 4 seconds
The Quicksilver hardware renderer accelerates rendering by using both the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). It is somewhat like having a game-engine renderer within 3ds Max. The main role of the CPU is to translate scene data for rendering; this includes compiling shaders for the specific graphic card in use. Because of this, the first frame you render can take a while, as shaders are compiled. This needs to happen only once per shader: The more often you use the Quicksilver renderer, the faster it will become.
You can render multiple transparent surfaces.
Car rendered with a transparent body to show interior parts. Shadows show transparency as well.
You can render to the non-photorealistic styles also provided by Nitrous viewports.