This is the article and video for you. I did some research to track down the top-searched questions about KeyShot as well as the answer to each question. Click below to watch or skim the article to find my Q to your A.
https://youtu.be/yiysOgd9_hY
No. In February Luxion changed its pricing model to an annual subscription. While advertised as a monthly subscription, Luxion requires users to pay the full 12-month price up-front. Here is the current price options for a KeyShot license subscription:
KeyShot Subscription Add-ons: (at additional cost to the KeyShot Pro)
If you were using KeyShot before February, 2022, KeyShot came in the following price tiers:
When you purchase a KeyShot license, you can also pay $400/yr to keep that license active and receive all version updates.
KeyShot also offers some add-on licenses
If you need a standalone render engine that plays well with CAD or NURBs-based geometry and has a very shallow-learning curve, then KeyShot is a great choice.
Both! KeyShot used to be CPU-based only for many years. In 2020, KeyShot released GPU rendering mode, offering support for NVIDIA RTX graphics cards. While still being developed, GPU mode is highly functional but has not met feature-parity with CPU mode. This means some features won't be supported in GPU mode and appearance of all materials won't be 100% matched when stitching from CPU to GPU mode.
KeyShot animation is available in KeyShot Educational, KeyShot Pro, Pro Floating and Enterprise licenses, but not in KeyShot HD.
Yes, KeyShot does not offer subscription-based payments as of early 2021.
Yes, compared to many other rendering software, KeyShot has prioritized user experience and simplicity over feature depth.
Be sure to hide any geometry behind or under your product, or add a ground plane (crtl+g). By default the ground plane has a ground material applied to it. In your render output settings, make sure to render in PNG format and tick the 'include alpha transparency' checkbox.
If you're using a KeyShot plugin to send your CAD model into KeyShot, you should be able to use the same plugin to send an update using live-linking. The video above demonstrates exactly how this is done at 8:04.
No. Primitive geometry can be added by selecting 'edit>add geometry', but other than that, KeyShot is not a modeling application.
Surprisingly, yes. You can do this by inputting a negative value in the object scale along the axis you wish to mirror along. I demonstrate this in the above video at 10:21.
Yes, KeyShot's stability and feature set is identical from Mac to PC generally speaking.
2022 Update: I'm not 100% sure of the state of the KeyShot for Zbrush integration. Since moving to a subscription-based model, I'm not sure how KeyShot will integrate with Zbrush in the future.
No. Zbrush Pixologic sells a Zbrush to KeyShot bridge. It costs $149. It will allow you to use KeyShot (sold separately) as your default render engine with Zbrush.
Luxion sells a KeyShot for Zbrush HD and Pro license which come bundled with the Zbrush to KeyShot bridge. The KeyShot for Zbrush licenses support many features, but are only to use models from Zbrush. Read more here.
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