Gelato (software)

Gelato

Developer(s)	Nvidia Corporation
Stable release	2.2 Release 1 / May 2008
Operating system	Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux (Red Hat, SUSE or Ubuntu)
Type	3D computer graphics
License	Proprietary, Freeware
Website	Nvidia's Gelato site

Gelato (from Italian language: "Frozen", or "Icecream") is a hardware-accelerated, offline renderer created by graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. It was originally intended for use with its Quadro FX GPU, although a Quadro class GPU is no longer a requirement, as it now also supports GeForce cards. Designed to produce film-quality images, Gelato uses a shading language very similar to RenderMan's. Gelato was first released in April 2004. NVIDIA stated in May 2008 that it will no longer be developing or supporting the Gelato software products .

With the release of Gelato 2.0, and in a push to popularize GPU accelerated rendering (as opposed to the traditional CPU rendering), Nvidia released a free version of Gelato for PCs. Some of the more advanced features on this version were locked out, such as those used for production rendering. This was done to encourage more professional users to purchase the full product. However, on 23 May 2008, Nvidia released Gelato Pro as a free download without any additional license. It does not come with support from Nvidia, but there are user forums.

The original renderer was priced at several thousand United States dollars (USD) per node. In order to boost the adoption of the product by a wider user base, in late 2006, Nvidia decided to split the product up into two versions, a free version called Gelato and a professional version called Gelato Pro, which sold for 1,500 USD per render node. Gelato Pro is now also offered as a free download. The professional version includes the following extra features.

The whole 'Gelato Zone', including Gelato Pro 2.2, was removed from Nvidia's website around the end of July 2008, in favour of the new CUDA-based OptiX ray tracing engine.