Deploy Luxion KeyShot on a virtual machine

This article briefly describes the steps for running Luxion KeyShot on a virtual machine (VM) that's deployed on Azure. It also presents the performance results of running KeyShot on Azure.

KeyShot is a standalone, real-time ray tracing and global illumination program that's used to create 3D renderings, animations, and interactive visuals. It uses photon mapping, an extension of ray tracing, which makes simulation of global illumination in complex scenes more efficient. KeyShot has the following capabilities:

• 3D-paint enabled, so users can directly paint or stamp bump textures, colors, roughness, specularity, refractivity, and opacity.
• Provides physics simulation that allows users to record the physics of an object and apply it as a keyframe animation.
• Allows control over gravity, friction, and bounciness and the ability to adjust the time, quality, and keyframes per second.

KeyShot customers include product and industrial designers, vehicle design companies, jewelers, and architects. It's ideal for the automotive and manufacturing industries.

Why deploy KeyShot on Azure?

• Modern and diverse compute options to align to your workload's needs
• The flexibility of virtualization without the need to buy and maintain physical hardware
• Rapid provisioning
• Fast compute capabilities for GPU-intensive workloads

Architecture

Download a Visio file of this architecture.

Components

• Azure Virtual Machines is used to create a Windows VM. For information about deploying the VM and installing the drivers, see Windows VMs on Azure.
• Azure Virtual Network is used to create a private network infrastructure in the cloud.
  • Network security groups are used to restrict access to the VM.  
  • A public IP address connects the internet to the VM.
• A physical solid-state drive (SSD) is used for storage.

Compute sizing and drivers

Performance tests of KeyShot on Azure used NVadsA10_v5 and NC4as_T4_v3 series VMs running Windows. KeyShot 11 was used in these tests. The following table provides details about the VMs.

Required drivers

To take advantage of the GPU capabilities of NVadsA10_v5 and NC4as_T4_v3 series VMs, you need to install NVIDIA GPU drivers.

To use AMD processors on NVadsA10_v5 and NC4as_T4_v3 series VMs, you need to install AMD drivers.

KeyShot installation

Before you install KeyShot, you need to deploy and connect a VM, install an eligible Windows 10 or Windows 11 image, and install the required NVIDIA and AMD drivers.

For information about eligible Windows images, see How to deploy Windows 10 on Azure and Use Windows client in Azure for dev/test scenarios.

For information about deploying the VM and installing the drivers, see Run a Windows VM on Azure.

For information about installing KeyShot, see the KeyShot website.

KeyShot performance results

Three test case models were used to test the performance of KeyShot on Azure:

Watch configurator

Resolution: 3,556 x 2,000 pixels

Ring configurator

Resolution: 3,556 x 2,000 pixels

Door configurator

Resolution: 3,556 x 2,000 pixels

Performance results for NVads_A10_v5 series

The following sections present the performance results for each model. Rendering times are shown in seconds, for three sample sizes.

Watch configurator

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Ring configurator

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Door configurator

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Performance results for NC64as_T4_v3

The following sections present the performance results for each model. Rendering times are in seconds, for three sample sizes.

Watch configurator

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Ring configurator

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Door configurator

¹ In these cases, the number of GPUs was artificially limited. This VM has four GPUs.

This graph shows the relative speed increases as the CPU/GPU increases:

Azure cost

The following tables provide elapsed times in hours. To compute the total cost, multiply these times by the Azure VM hourly costs for NVads_A10_v5 and NCas_T4_v3 VMs. For the current hourly costs, see Windows Virtual Machines Pricing.

Only model running time (wall-clock time) is considered for these cost calculations. Application installation time isn't considered. The calculations are indicative. The actual numbers depend on the size of the model.

You can use the Azure pricing calculator to estimate the costs for your configuration.

NVads_A10_v5 series

This table shows elapsed times, in hours, for running all three models.

* This number refers to a Standard_NV36adms_A10_v5 VM configuration.

NCAST4_V3 series

This table shows elapsed times, in hours, for running all three models.

Summary

• Luxion KeyShot 11 was successfully tested on NVads_A10_v5 and NC64as_T4_v3 VMs.
• The GPU technology in KeyShot 11 provides excellent processing power on Azure.
• Depending on the complexity of the model, the performance improvement as you increase CPU/GPU varies.

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.

Principal authors:

• Hari Bagudu | Senior Manager
• Gauhar Junnarkar | Principal Program Manager
• Vinod Pamulapati | HPC Performance Engineer

Other contributors:

• Mick Alberts | Technical Writer
• Guy Bursell | Director Business Strategy
• Sachin Rastogi | Manager

To see non-public LinkedIn profiles, sign in to LinkedIn.

Next steps

• GPU-optimized virtual machine sizes
• Virtual machines on Azure
• Virtual networks and virtual machines on Azure
• Learning path: Run high-performance computing (HPC) applications on Azure

Related resources

• Run a Windows VM on Azure
• HPC system and big-compute solutions