Affiliate Link Generator Copied!

|
1.415.462.1982

5.x Chaos V-Ray for Rhino – Perpetual

EDIT in Admin Edit in WP

Add to Wishlist

Chaos V-Ray for Rhino – Perpetual
 

Downloads

Download demos and trial versions, product documentation, free presets and more.

Chaos Free Trials

You may download a free Demo after logging in.

Real-time and photoreal rendering in one.

V-Ray for Rhino lets you accomplish more than ever before.

Chaos logo

Free 30-Day Trial

Try V-Ray, Phoenix, Vantage, Cosmos, Player, and Scans for free with a 30-day trial.

Tech support included.

The all-in-one visualization solution for Rhino and Grasshopper.

V-Ray for Rhino is a 3D rendering software that combines real-time and photoreal rendering into one complete suite of visualization tools. From architecture to product design, it’s everything you need to bring your next design project to life.

Visualize in real-time.

New in V-Ray 5, V-Ray Vision gives you a live real-time view as you build your model, apply materials, and light your Rhino and Grasshopper designs. Now you can visualize any project in real-time while you design.

v-ray for rhinoTurn your vision into reality.

With photorealistic lights, cameras, and materials, rendering with V-Ray is as real as it gets. Communicate and collaborate with confidence, knowing that your designs look just right.

v-ray for rhino beyondGo beyond rendering.

Introducing all-new tools that let you fine-tune and finish your renders without needing an extra app. Composite to render layers, make color corrections, and instantly adjust the lighting in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer.

v-ray for rhinoSeamless Grasshopper integration.

Visualize your parametric designs on the fly. V-Ray for Grasshopper comes with V-Ray for Rhino and includes a collection of nodes to support V-Ray geometry, lighting, materials, rendering, and animation.

Purchase Additional Render Nodes Here


WHAT’S NEW

Update 2

V-Ray® 5 for Rhino, update 2 packs new tools for you to build designs more effectively, as well as new ways to create stakeholder presentations and engage them. Build detailed scenes without worrying about performance with the new scattering tool. Add stickers or markings to any surface with the V-Ray Decal. Use V-Ray Vision to share your designs through animations or even interactive 3D apps. Plus, take advantage of a number of powerful additions to V-Ray for Grasshopper like Scatter, Chaos Cosmos, IES lights components, and more.

More info can be found on the Details Tab

V-Ray 5

V-Ray® 5 for Rhino now includes a free library of smart 3D content. Plus, take advantage of the new Intel Open Image interactive denoiser, as well as V-Ray Vision and V-Ray Frame Buffer improvements.

Enter the Chaos Cosmos.

Bring designs to life with a few clicks.

Chaos® Cosmos is a brand-new curated library of high-quality 3D content you can use to effortlessly stage interior and exterior scenes. Set the mood and engage your audience with an array of free smart assets covering essential categories such as trees, people, vehicles, furniture, lighting and accessories.

Easily accessible through the new Cosmos browser inside V-Ray, the 3D assets are easy to import and always deliver consistent render-ready quality without the need for any setup.

Learn more about Chaos Cosmos >

Improvements in V-Ray Vision.

  • Transparent material reflections – Surfaces such as glass or water now reflect other scene objects in screen space.
  • Improved anti-aliasing – Finer texture details and small geometric elements like plants or facade ornaments are presented with better clarity with the new Temporal Anti-aliasing method.
  • Triplanar textures and randomization support – Take advantage of the Triplanar texture projection and Stochastic texture randomization features in Vision.
  • Soft Sun shadows – Objects cast soft shadows depending on the Sun Light size multiplier when the new high-quality shadows mode is enabled.

And more.

  • More precision in post – Composite more precisely in the Frame Buffer. By employing mask render elements from V-Ray, you can now color-correct specific areas of your scene.
  • Faster denoising for CPU – Now with the Open Image Denoise engine, you can take advantage of interactive rendering on any CPU configuration.

Key Features

Rendering

Real-time Rendering

V-Ray Vision gives the power to design and refine in real-time to anyone working in Rhino or Grasshopper. Now, you can explore a real-time view of your scene, set up lights and cameras, and apply materials.

CPU, GPU, and Hybrid rendering

V-Ray comes with two powerful rendering engines. You can choose between super-fast GPU and CPU or Hybrid rendering to best suit your project needs and requirements.

DENOISER

Remove noise and dramatically cut the render times. With V-Ray Denoiser, you can denoise each render element in post-production. And with the NVIDIA AI Denoiser, V-Ray delivers instant feedback with less noise, while you design interactively.

INTERACTIVE RENDERING

Render while you design. See results right away as you adjust lights, materials and cameras. You could also look at the denoised image while rendering in the Rhino viewport.

RENDER ELEMENTS

Render separate layers for more artistic control in image-editing software.

V-RAY SWARM

Render with maximum power using V-Ray’s new simple and scalable distributed rendering.

ANIMATIONS

V-Ray for Rhino enables light studies, turntables, and fly-through animation rendering and an optimal way.

LINE RENDERING

Apply contours to your entire scene or to a separate shader with a single click. Intuitively tweak controls to get the desired appearance.

CHAOS CLOUD

Rendering on the Cloud is just one click away.

AUTOMATING SNAPSHOTS & BATCH RENDERS

V-Ray Batch makes it easy to render snapshots from the same project or views from multiple Rhino files all at once.

VIEWPORT RENDERING

An overlay on top of Rhino’s viewport. It is rendered interactively and if scene changes are made, updates the rendered result.

grasshopper workflow

V-Ray for Grasshopper

STRAIGHTFORWARD WORKFLOW. POWERFUL FUNCTIONALITY.

Visualize within the environment you use to model. Use the node system to utilize V-Ray’s powerful functionalities through five Node groups and their components.

FORGET BAKING

Render generative geometry directly in Grasshopper. Work uninterrupted without the need to bake your designs in Rhino as you iterate.

V-RAY VISION IN GRASSHOPPER

Add the Live Link component and observe your design update in real-time while working inside Grasshopper.

CUSTOMIZABLE MATERIALS

Start with the basic preset V-Ray material and modify it from the node or with the Asset Editor. Alternatively, use your own materials from previous projects or just employ the vast material library directly.

CUSTOMIZABLE LIGHTING

Utilize V-Ray lights and customize them to move from realistic to stylized. Easily add numerous light sources to find your models’ best appearance.

ANIMATIONS

Create, render and export animation sequences right in Grasshopper. Animate the movement of the sun or the camera by employing the V-Ray Graph and Timeline components.

SCATTERING

Create a realistically distributed entourage in Grasshopper that materializes in Rhino only after you’re started rendering.

LIGHTING ANALYSIS

Perform a light intensity evaluation of your project and visualize the results on your render.

CAMERAS

Use the V-Ray Camera component to simulate physical camera settings like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Take advantage of Orthographic or Stereo camera parameters to facilitate your workflow.

CLIPPER

Render cross-sections or fast cutaways right in Grasshopper. Convert custom meshes to clippers for render time Boolean effects.

v-ray rhino 5 lighting

 

Lighting

LIGHT GEN

Explore the best lighting for your scene without the need for manual setup. Automatically generate hundreds of natural light versions for your exterior or interior.

LIGHT MIXING

Easily fine-tune any light source in your scene after you’re done rendering. Group them, adjust their brightness and color, and create your best presentation.

LIGHT INSTANCES

Lights can be instanced and controlled as a single light in the Asset Editor.

GLOBAL ILLUMINATION

Render realistic rooms and interiors with V-Ray’s powerful and fast global illumination.

ACCURATE LIGHTS

Render natural and artificial lighting with a wide range of built-in light types. Adaptive Lights mode helps you substantially speed up render times in scenes with many light sources.

IMAGE-BASED LIGHTING

Light your scenes with a single high-dynamic-range image (HDRI) to render faster, cleaner, and more accurate image-based lighting. Use the Adaptive Dome Light and remove the need to set up Portal lights for interiors.

SUN & SKY

Render realistic daylight for any time and any location. Visualize stunning sunsets and sunrises, and control the sun’s position for maximum artistic effect.

LIGHTING ANALYSIS TOOL

This tool makes it easy to visualize the real-world illumination (Lux) values of any scene.

 

v-ray for rhino 5 ui

UI

SMART ASSET EDITOR

Create, edit and manage all of your assets including lights, materials, textures, geometry and render elements all in one place. All assets are structured in an intuitive folder structure.

FILE MANAGER

Manage all of your scene files in one place. Set file paths, create scene archives, and keep track of assets like textures, IES files, and proxy objects.

COLOR PICKER

A powerful color picker, which provides RGB color values and a corresponding Kelvin temperature slider, allows you to save and modify temperature values for every color slot.

FRAME BUFFER

Completely redesigned Frame Buffer upgraded to intuitively handle post-processing tasks like color corrections and compositing among other improvements.

ACCURATE VIEWPORT PREVIEWS

Get an accurate preview of your materials in the Rhino viewport with improved reflections, refractions, bump maps, and more.

POWER UP WITH SCRIPTS

Use RhinoScript and Python to program V-Ray Next to do even more for you, like automating scene management or accessing parameters not shown in the UI.

UNIVERSAL ASSET PREVIEW

Preview your materials, lights, textures, and render elements in a single viewer. Observe how parameter changes affect the appearance of the asset in a specific isolated setting.

TEXTURE INSTANCING

Map multiple material parameters with the same source texture to simplify the shader structure and management.

chaosgroup_vray_rhino camera

Camera

REAL-WORLD CAMERAS

Work like a photographer with controls for exposure, white balance, and depth of field.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Render VR content for popular virtual reality headsets.

INTERACTIVE LENS EFFECT

Instantly add GPU-accelerated glare and bloom for added photorealism. Fine-tune lens effects interactively while you render.

AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE & WHITE BALANCE

Capture the perfect exposure every time. The new Auto Exposure and Auto White Balance camera controls make rendering as simple as point and shoot.

chaosgroup_vray_rhino materials and textures

Materials & Textures

PHYSICAL MATERIALS

Create great-looking materials that look exactly like the real thing.

PROCEDURAL TEXTURES

Texture NURBS models with ease with a rich set of procedurals that don’t require UV unwrapping.

NATIVE MATERIALS SUPPORT

Render an enhanced version of your Rhino materials without converting them to V-Ray shaders.

MATERIAL LIBRARY

Download on demand a vast array of high-resolution materials. Simply drag and drop to bring realistic textures to your models instantly.

MATERIAL METALNESS

The V-Ray Material adds native support for metallic reflections (Metalness) for greater compatibility with PBR materials from applications like Substance Designer.

MATERIAL COAT

Add reflective coating to your material to achieve effects like varnished wood or metallic paint.

MATERIAL SHEEN

Create realistic soft fabrics like velvet, silk, or satin.

RANDOMIZER

With the new UVW Placement randomization options, texture coordinates can be randomized to fix patterns and achieve realistic materials.

WEATHERING AND DIRT

Quickly add dirt, control its spread amount, and position it on the surface of your design.

chaosgroup_vray_rhino atmospheric effects

Atmospheric & volumetric effects

FOG

Give your scenes depth with new realistic 3D fog and light scattering effects.

AERIAL PERSPECTIVE

Add depth to your images with realistic atmospheric effects.

VOLUMETRIC MATERIALS

Realistic material light scattering and translucency.

chaosgroup_vray_rhino geometry management

Geometry Management

PROXY OBJECTS

Add highly detailed and complex objects like grass, trees, and cars with memory-efficient proxy models. Easily add pre-animated 3D objects with animated V-Ray proxies.

PROXY PREVIEWS

Control the look of V-Ray proxies in the Rhino viewport. Select from Whole mesh, Bounding box, Point (Origin), Custom preview, and a new low poly Proxy preview mode.

DISPLACEMENT

Quickly apply surface detail to a single object or a whole group in your scene. Get materials like brick and stone without the need for extra modeling.

GRASS & FUR

Create realistic grass, fabrics, and carpet with V-Ray Fur.

SECTION CUTS

Render quick cutaways and cross-sections with V-Ray Clipper.

V-RAY SCENE IMPORT & EXPORT

Import and render V-Ray scenes from other applications such as 3ds Max, Revit, and SketchUp or share complete ready to render V-Ray for Rhino files.

 

 

 

 


QUICK START: INTRO

It’s now faster than ever to create great looking renders right in Rhino. With new intuitive controls and quick render presets, you can focus on design, not the technical details. With V-Ray 3 for Rhino’s full suite of tools, you can render anything and everything – from quick concepts to your most detailed 3D models.

Architecture

 

Design

Please make sure that your system fulfills these requirements before installing V-Ray. For additional information on hardware, see the Hardware Recommendations article.

ProcessorIntel 64, AMD64 or compatible processor with SSE4.2 support
RAM8 GB RAM and 8 GB swap minimum – recommended 16 GB or more RAM.
Hard Disk SpaceMinimum 2GB, Recommended 12GB (includes additional downloadable content)
TCP/IPOnly IPv4 is supported. IPv6 is currently not supported.
Supported GPUMaxwell-, Pascal-, Turing-, Volta- and Ampere- based NVIDIA card(s) with the latest recommended video driver (for both CUDA and RTX - enabled cards)

V-Ray Vision requires a Graphics card with DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 and Shader Model 5.0 capabilities
Operating SystemRhino 6 (v6.34.21034 or later)Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Professional, and Windows 11
Rhino 7 (7.15.22039.13001 or later)Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Professional, and Windows 11
Rhino 8 (experimental)Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Professional, and Windows 11
  • Customer support is available only for V-Ray 5 and V-Ray Next (V-Ray 4). Earlier versions are no longer supported.
  • Windows 11 is required for running Intel Alder Lake processors.

Build 5.20.06

Official release, update 2.5

Date – Apr 14, 2022

Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • V-Ray Swarm is updated to version 1.4.7
  • Adaptive Bucket Splitting is implemented. This is a new method for adapting the render bucket size for optimal utilization. The method is enabled by default for both new and old projects
  • The GPU Light Cache preview is no longer missing when the rendered image is bigger than 4040 pixels squared
  • An issue causing the asset preview to fail in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue causing a crash in V-Ray for Grasshopper when interactive changes are applied in rapid succession is resolved
  • The Keep Continuity option of materials using displacement is now respected in Grasshopper
  • An issue leading to black images being rendered, when using Depth of Field with Focus Source based on Rhino and the ‘No focal blur…’ option, is resolved
  • An issue causing .tx material library textures to be missing their viewport previews in specific situations is resolved

 


Build 5.20.05

Official release, update 2.4

Date – Mar 16, 2022

Improvements & Bug Fixes

Integration

  • The minimum required Rhino version is now 7.15
  • Chaos License Server updated to version 5.5.5
  • The viewport preview of disabled Fur and Clipper object modifiers is now correctly disabled
  • A new menu with links to three of the standalone tools that ship with V-Ray is implemented – V-Ray / Tools / External. It contains shortcuts for the GPU Device Select, V-Ray Denoiser and the VRMesh Viewer standalone applications
  • Decal widgets are now automatically created with an offset in the direction of the projector base. This avoids artifacts caused by overlapping faces when the decal is snapped to the surface of another mesh on creation
  • Changes to the UVW transformation of a Scatter host object now correctly affect the Scatter’s density texture placement
  • Changing irrelevant texture mapping parameters of an object no longer causes interactive rendering updates
  • An issue preventing Scatter from updating the guests placement when switching between density textures is resolved
  • A photon emission disk is now displayed for all custom Sun light sources in the scene. This greatly improves the process of choosing the correct radius for the caustic photons emission
  • A scripting method for acquiring the current V-Ray plugin version implemented
  • Information about the project’s unit of measurement is included when scene objects are exported as .vrscene files
  • A number of issues related to OSL materials and textures are resolved. Note that such assets are currently unavailable for creation via the Asset Editor
  • The following parameters are added to the vrayExportVRScene command – StripPaths, HexArrays and HexTransforms
  • An issue preventing the application of geometry modifier assets by drag and dropping them from the Outliner onto scene objects is resolved
  • The viewport previews of .tx texture files are no longer lost in specific situations. Relocating projects that use V-Ray library materials should no longer lead to white materials being displayed in the viewport
  • Downloading a Cosmos asset using the _vrayCosmos command (and its Download argument) is now possible
  • Uninstalling V-Ray for Rhino 8 now correctly removes all associated plugin folders
  • Changes to the UVW transformation of an object now correctly triggers an interactive rendering update
  • Infinite Planes in blocks are no longer rendered with an incorrect transformation
  • The installer now shows more detailed information on why V-Ray can not be installed for a particular Rhino version. There is a clear distinction between Rhino not being installed and not being updated to the minimum required version

V-Ray GPU

  • The GPU light cache no longer becomes slower when the output image resolution is increased
  • V-Ray GPU no longer crashes with scenes that contain materials with SSS or Volumetric translucency and Wrapper materials with the Matte option enabled
  • An issue preventing soft shadows to be cast from Omni light sources is resolved
  • An issue preventing soft shadows to be cast from Directional light sources is resolved
  • An issue causing incorrect Directional light intensity is resolved
  • The 2D and 3D texture preview swatches no longer render black in GPU mode

UI

  • An issue preventing scrolling with the mouse wheel in the Assets Outliner in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue preventing the minimum subdivisions quality parameter to be set correctly for the progressive rendering mode is resolved
  • The AppSDK bin path is no longer incorrectly set on systems where another V-Ray integration is also installed
  • An incorrect upper value limit of the VRayMtl / Refraction / Depth parameter is removed
  • The Cosmos Browser now appears on the left of the screen by default
  • Disabling the legacy Portal Light option of the rectangular light no longer leads to an error
  • Dropdown menu items are no longer being offset on mouse hover
  • A GUID automatically replaces the name of Scatter guests whose names are deleted in the host application
  • Attempting to update or download a Cosmos asset before logging in the Cosmos browser no longer opens a URL with an incorrect port number
  • The asset preview no longer fails due to insufficient rights
  • An issue causing the asset preview to fail in specific situations is resolved

Grasshopper

  • Density Map parameter added to the V-Ray Scatter component
  • All changes to a Grasshopper definition now correctly trigger an interactive rendering update when RTX mode is selected
  • An issue causing a crash upon switching specific render elements in Grasshopper during Interactive rendering is resolved
  • Loading an invalid .vrscene or .vrmesh file in one of the proxy components no longer leads to an exception error

Vision

  • Movement in the Fly navigation mode is no longer horizontally constrained by default. Disable the Free Flight checkbox to back to enable the constraint when needed
  • The Medium shadow quality is selected by default
  • Vsync is enabled by default to avoid tearing when the camera moves quickly
  • An issue causing the Fly navigation mode camera to jump slightly in specific situations is resolved

 

Build 5.20.04

Official release, update 2.3

Date – Jan 28, 2022

Improvements & Bug Fixes

Integration

  • Experimental support for Rhino 8 is added
  • All the default VFB shortcuts are now correctly set
  • An issue causing materials assigned to blocks that are not instantiated in the project to be incorrectly purged is resolved
  • The Decal viewport widget is updated to more clearly show the projection’s orientation
  • The Decal’s creation logic is updated to allow precise initial positioning and orientation. The first selected point determines the lower-left corner of the Decal projection, the second determines the upper right corner, and the third sets the widget height
  • The Decal’s material is no longer duplicated after its deletion is undone
  • Setting the Decal’s material to ‘None’ now correctly triggers interactive rendering update
  • Plane input is now used for positioning and orienting Rectangular Lights in Grasshopper. Legacy definitions can be migrated and will continue working as before
  • The Scatter’s density map is now correctly placed based on the object UVs
  • Camera FOV animations created in Grasshopper are now correctly exported to  vrscene files
  • An issue causing a crash when the V-Ray plugin is manually loaded in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue leading to incorrect results when one of the Dome light options – Affect Specular or Affect Reflections is disabled, is resolved

Script Access

  • V-Ray Python script transaction wrapper implemented. Use the following statement ‘with vray.Scene.Transaction():’ followed by the changes that should be wrapped in a transaction, instead of the previously available ‘BeginChange()’ and ‘EndChange()’ functions
  • Four of V-Ray’s Python scripting API functions are renamed. ‘PluginsByClass()’ that queries plugins by type name is changed to ‘PluginsByType()’; ‘PluginsByType()’ that queries plugins by category name is changed to ‘PluginsByCategory()’; ‘Plugin.Class()’ changed to ‘Plugin.Type()’; ‘Plugin.Type()’ changed to ‘Plugin.Category()’
  • Running one of ‘SaveSettings()’ or ‘LoadSettings()’ V-Ray Python API function now correctly returns a boolean result
  • An issue with the ‘PluginsByCategory()’ and ‘PluginsByType()’ V-Ray Python API functions is resolved. Setting their second argument to True now correctly returns only top-level V-Ray plugins

UI

  • Progressive Caustics implemented. The new mode can be enabled in the Calculation Mode/Disk Caching rollout. In Progressive mode, the caustic effect is produced during rendering (progressive image sampler has to be used). There is no additional prepass required and no photon map is stored
  • A number of new parameters are exposed for the Curvature texture – Mode, Radius, Ignore Bump, Output Gain, Output Lift, Output Gamma, Output Pivot, Output Clamp
  • Backside Projection Decal option implemented. Enable it to see the Decal effect on a backside of a surface
  • Deleting a large number of materials at once is optimized. Deleting all the V-Ray Library materials (more than 300), for example, now takes less than a minute
  • Some of the default internal GPU engine (CUDA/RTX) parameters are updated to decrease memory usage and improve performance. Scenes saved with previous V-Ray versions are automatically migrated
  • All NeUI errors are now correctly logged in the Log Window
  • In issue causing a SettingsRTEngine.gpu_light_cache warning message to appear in the render log is resolved
  • An issue preventing the link in the new version update popup notification to work, is resolved
  • An issue causing the initial state of the SettingsOptions.ray_bias V-Ray parameter to be incorrectly set by default is resolved. The internal value that V-Ray uses now always corresponds to the UI state
  • An issue causing errors to pop up when the Material Library or Light Gen content download is interrupted is resolved. The message type is changed to a warning
  • The current project name is now automatically suggested in the Export V-Ray Scene window
  • The Scatter’s Seed parameter tooltip is updated
  • An issue causing long Scatter guest names to overlap in the guest’s list is resolved

Build 5.20.03

Official release, update 2.2

Date – Dec 21, 2021

Improvements & Bug Fixes

Integration

  • Rhino no longer hangs after using specific Rhino commands while V-Ray is installed and active. The commands that were causing this issue are – Intersect, IntersectTwoSets and Contour
  • Intel Open Image Denoiser engine added to the V-Ray Denoiser’s engines list
  • An issue preventing Grasshopper animations from being sent to Vantage via live link is resolved
  • An issue causing SubD geometry objects to be rendered incorrectly in the V-Ray Interactive viewport is resolved
  • The Render in Project component no longer throws an error when a multi-layered V-Ray material part of the definition is loaded via the Material from File component
  • Proxy Mesh materials are no longer duplicate when a proxy deletion is undone
  • The menu link Help / Plugins / V-Ray for Rhino now redirects to the correct web address
  • All V-Ray-specific Windows 10 Start Menu shortcuts are now located in a V-Ray for Rhinoceros Start Menu group

UI

  • Consecutive errors no longer cause the Log Window to pop up and take focus each time. Only the first error brings up the Log
  • Back to Beauty render element implemented. This is a single render element that expands to all beauty elements for the actual rendering. In the VFB, this render element creates a folder named BackToBeauty visible in the Composite output source containing all elements with their appropriate blend modes. The elements used for the beauty rebuild are – Background, Lighting, Global Illumination, Reflection, Specular, Refraction, Self Illumination, Caustics, Subsurface Scattering and Atmosphere
  • Ambient Occlusion render element implemented. Internally, the render element consists of an Extra Texture render element with a Dirt texture connected to it. The only difference is that its background uses the unconcluded (white) color instead of being black
  • An issue causing the Asset Editor to show that Custom quality is used even though all settings match one of the quality presets is resolved
  • Thin Mode option added to the Dirt texture. When enabled, it enhances the look of thin surfaces by casting less dirt on them. The option makes a difference only for the Inner Occlusion Mode of the Dirt
  • Ignore Bump option added to the Dirt texture. When enabled, bump maps are excluded from Dirt computations. The option is useful, when the bump effect is too strong and may produce undesirable effects such as holes
  • Streaks Density parameter added to the Dirt texture. It controls the density of the procedural streaks
  • The name of the Improved Sky model is changed to PRG Clear Sky
  • Switching the render engine from CPU to GPU and vice versa with the Interactive mode enabled no longer changes the GI engines selection
  • Affect Atmospherics option implemented for the Sunlight. It specifies whether the light influences the atmospheric effects in the scene. The value determines the strength of the effect
  • Atmospheric Shadows option implemented for the Sunlight. When disabled, the atmospheric effects in the scene no longer cast shadows from this light source
  • Switching the render engine from CPU to GPU and vice versa with the Interactive mode enabled no longer changes the primary global illumination engine to Brute Force. If another engine (such as Irradiance Map) was initially active it will remain unchanged
  • An issue preventing the automatic adjustment of the Max Subdivs value when switching between the CPU and CUDA or RTX render engines is resolved
  • An issue causing UI elements to be resized and aligned incorrectly when a material layer name is too long is resolved
  • An issue preventing the VRay Mtl’s parameter contribution detection from functioning correctly in specific situations is resolved. The rollout expand arrow in the VRay Mtl’s properties panel will no longer appear highlighted even though all material parameters in the rollout are set to their default values
  • A CUDA or RTX device can no longer be deselected from the Engine Select Device/s menu if it is the only available one

Core

  • An issue causing a crash when changing the rendered image size during interactive rendering is resolved
  • An issue preventing V-Ray from utilizing more than 64 threads in specific situations on Windows 11 is resolved
  • Decal materials no longer render incorrectly with the GPU engine when the On-demand mipmapping Resize option is enabled
  • GPU kernel compilation times are reduced by up to 60%
  • An issue with the GPU Light Cache leading to a memory leak is resolved
  • Increasing the GI Depth during Interactive CUDA or RTX rendering no longer causes a crash when the On-demand mipmapping texture resize option is also active

Build 5.20.02

Official release, update 2.1

Date – Nov 18, 2021

Improvements & Bug Fixes

Integration

  • An issue preventing in-app EULA acceptance is resolved. The V-Ray installer no longer fails to create and set access to the required directories
  • An issue preventing UNC paths that start with double backslashes (\\networkLocation\…) from being automatically resolved is fixed
  • Rhino decals are now rendered correctly when the CUDA or RTX engine is used. The decal texture is no longer repeated outside of the decal projector
  • An issue preventing the Live Link from functioning correctly in specific projects is resolved. Scenes containing a Cryptomatte render elements can now be viewed and interacted with in both Vision and Vantage
  • The Rhino decal stack order is now respected by V-Ray. A restart of the interactive rendering process is required for any changes to have an effect
  • Creating a V-Ray Decal in the Asset Editor no longer leads to an invalid and invisible viewport gizmo to appear
  • An issue preventing spherical and cylindrical Rhino Decals from being rendered correctly is resolved
  • Scatter now correctly responds to changes of the host mesh’s normals direction
  • The V-Ray menu option Convert to Scatter Host now calls the correct command – vrayScatter
  • An issue causing incorrect rendering of Grasshopper surfaces is resolved. There is no longer need for a meshing node to be placed between the surface and V-Ray Geometry components
  • An issue preventing the Export Animation feature of the Live Link component from working correctly with Vantage is resolved
  • An issue caused by using the ‘Reset to Defaults’ function for a V-Ray material in Rhino’s materials list is resolved. Using the reset followed by changing the material’s type (to Custom for example) no longer leaves a corrupted V-Ray material (one that gets duplicated on application) in the Asset Editor

 

UI

  • The system that establishes a connection between the Asset Editor and the preview render process is improved. This avoids situations in which the preview is not working because of an unstable connection
  • An issue causing the File Path Editor to hang in specific situations when there is a missing file in the list is resolved
  • The Swarm Auto-Discovery option is now disabled by default. This avoids issues causing none of the Swarm tags to be listed, making it impossible to use the Swarm manager
  • An issue causing unnecessary scrolling to be automatically performed in the Assets Outliner is resolved. Selecting an asset in a long list no longer causes incorrect scrolling on systems with custom UI scaling
  • Deleting the Bump attribute of material no longer deletes child textures instantiated in other material slots
  • The Log Window’s filter source labels are improved

Vision

  • Auto-Exposure is now applied when a Standard image is exported
  • Auto-Exposure is now applied when one of the VR Camera Type output options is selected
  • Output file names that contain Unicode characters no longer cause the Video export to fail

 

V-Ray Core

  • The render progress is now always displayed correctly in the VFB’s status bar
  • An issue causing a memory leak with GPU Light Cache is resolved
  • An issue causing a misplaced render region to be rendered after loading images directly from the VFB history is resolved
  • An issue leading to a crash in specific situations when a Cryptomatte render element is used in a project is resolved
  • A number of interactive update issues caused by the new SSS and Volumetric translucency modes of the VRay Mtl are resolved
  • An issue preventing Light Mix from working correctly on GPU when the camera Auto Exposure is also enabled is resolved
  • An issue causing material bump maps to appear reversed when viewed in reflections is resolved

Build 5.20.01

Official release, update 2

Date – Nov 04, 2021

Vision

Performance

  • An optimized system for handling a large number of scene objects is implemented. This improves both scene loading and the interactive performance of Vision
  • Vision now completely stops rendering when there is no user interaction to decrease the load on the GPU
  • Loading of scenes with a medium to high number of complex meshes is optimized. This is done by disabling the scene optimizer which was originally combining meshes with shared materials
  • The internal handling of Vision safe frames is improved. This leads to better performance (higher FPS) in most projects

Lights

  • IES Light sources are now supported
  • A new Ambient Light Mode is implemented. The new mode can be enabled in the Settings panel. It replaces the project’s indirect lighting and reflection environments with a gray color. The value of this color can exceed 1 and is controlled by the Ambient Light Intensity slider. The new mode can be useful in closed spaces for removing the blue tint coming from the sky
  • The intensity of the Direct light source now correctly matches the one in V-Ray
  • Soft shadow for the Direct light source is implemented. Make sure that the High Shadows Quality option is selected in the Vision’s Settings panel to see the effect
  • The enabled/disabled state of Direct lights is now supported
  • Added support for the LightIESMax and LightSpotMax V-Ray plugins. This ensures that scenes containing IES or Spot light sources exported from V-Ray for 3ds Max or Revit can be successfully loaded in Vision
  • Sunlight no longer produces artifacts when the model is viewed from specific angles
  • The appearance of the Spotlight’s Penumbra Angle is improved to better match the V-Ray result

Animation

  • Sun animations are now supported and can be played back in real time in Vision
  • Temporal anti-aliasing is automatically disabled during animation playback to prevent ghosting artifacts
  • An issue causing the animation playback to be interrupted when the camera is stationary is resolved

Materials

  • A new temporal screen space reflection method implemented. Blurry reflections will improve in quality after the camera stops moving. Only opaque materials benefit from this new method
  • The Coat layer of the V-Ray Material is now supported. The Coat amount value is the only parameter which impacts Vision. The coat color, glossiness and bump are ignored
  • There is no longer a problem with transparent (and refractive) materials and specific mesh normals
  • The list of strings for the automatic ‘leaf’ material detection is extended. Vision is now better at determining whether a specific material is used for leaves shading and whether its alpha texture has to be treated as a cutout (ignoring grayscale values)

User Interface

  • The Vision toolbar can now be hidden. Use the collapse button that appears when hovering near the toolbar or the F12 keyboard shortcut to toggle the toolbar state
  • Fly mode navigation can now also be controlled with the arrow keys on the keyboard making it much more convenient for left-handed users. PgUp and PgDn keys can be used for moving the camera up and down
  • The Output panel options are rearranged. The Output Mode and the Camera Type parameters are now located at the top since their state controls the remaining parameters availability and behavior
  • The ‘Loading scene’ label is now replaced with just ‘Loading’ to avoid confusion for users unfamiliar with the term ‘scene’
  • A number of tooltips and parameter labels are updated
  • Clicking Cancel in the Save File browser window no longer resets the file type to .png
  • All the parameter panels are now automatically resized to fit in the Vision window. Scroll bar is also implemented to ensure all the parameters are accessible at all times
  • Camera movement is no longer possible while dragging a UI slider

Other improvements & Bug Fixes

  • Videos can now be exported directly from Vision. Select the Video Output Mode to save out a .webm file using the VP8 compression method
  • Standalone / runtime application export implemented. Use the Standalone Application export button on the toolbar to share the project with clients or colleagues via an executable file. Recipients of the file don’t require a V-Ray license and can enjoy the full functionality of Vision – navigation controls, color correction parameters, etc.
  • Preset Grass implemented. Add a V-Ray Fur modifier to any object and make sure that the word ‘grass’ is part of the Fur asset’s name to see grass growing on the object’s surface. The length of the V-Ray Fur determines the length of the grass in Vision (values under a specific lower limit are ignored). Beside the length and material all other Fur parameters are ignored
  • Auto Exposure behavior is improved. The target exposure is now much more balanced in dark scenes
  • Toggling the High-quality Cosmos Assets checkbox now automatically reloads the scene to ensure the option state matches the rendered result
  • V-Ray’s Instancer plugin is now supported in Vision. This ensures that Scatter results can be successfully loaded and previewed
  • The panorama image export is improved. Spherical and cubemap images will show a much higher quality. The camera orientation is also taken into account
  • The error message displayed when Vision fails to initialize is improved. It is now much more precise and can help with debugging various issues
  • The Vision icon is updated. The new icon is visible on the toolbar and is also used for the executable file of the standalone application
  • The default Tonemapping Curve is now set to Disabled. This makes Vision renders more similar to the V-Ray result out of the box
  • An issue causing ghosting artifacts to appear over transparent objects when the camera moves quickly is resolved
  • An issue causing the leaves of merged Cosmos trees to fade in a distance when the Proxy LOD option is disabled is resolved
  • An issue causing bump and normal maps appear flipped in Vision is resolved
  • Zooming in with an ortho camera no longer flips the entire model
  • Vision now correctly loads plugins with non-latin characters in their names
  • Multi Material assignments are no longer incorrect in specific situations
  • An issue preventing the output Size Multiplier from working when exporting animations is resolved
  • An issue causing objects from referenced Proxy Scene files to be misplaced is resolved
  • An issue causing Tri-planar textures to appear darker is resolved
  • Increasing the environment intensity using the multiplier value no longer causes issues in Vision
  • The Save File browser window now correctly lists existing supported files
  • Mipmaps are now generated even for textures embedded in the scene
  • An issue causing choppy camera movement in the fly navigation mode with very slow fly speeds is resolved
  • An issue causing a dark circle to appear on surfaces close and under the camera in specific situations is resolved
  • Cosmos assets are now considered when calculating the camera’s clipping planes. Cosmos assets are no longer cut out when away from regular scene objects

Scatter

  • Scatter implemented. Easily scatter objects from the project (including Cosmos assets) onto the surface of another object. Select an object to be used as a host mesh and click the toolbar Scatter button to begin the process. Objects that will be scattered, known as guests, can then be added using the Scatter UI in the Asset Editor

Decal

  • V-Rat Decal implemented. Project any material onto the scene objects with the help of the Decal viewport gismo. Use the Exclude parameters in the V-Ray Properties panel to restrict the Decal projection to specific scene objects

Materials

  • Thin-walled option added to the VRay Mtl Refraction parameters. Enable it to simulate single-sided refractive surfaces avoiding unwanted refraction distortions. When enabled together with the SSS Translucency mode of the material it simulates thin-walled translucent surfaces such as curtains or leaves
  • Fog Scattering renamed to Translucency to be consistent with the parameter label used in other V-Ray integrations
  • New SSS and Volumetric translucency modes implemented for the VRay Mtl. The previously available Hard and Hybrid models are considered legacy and can no longer be used in new materials. The Volumetric mode can be used for highly transparent materials that scatter light while the SSS one is good for non-transparent materials like skin, wax, marble, etc.
  • The Fog Multiplier parameter is now called Depth (by default). It has an alternative Scale mode when SSS Translucency is used
  • A logic that automatically sets the Color Space (sRGB or Linear) for bitmaps loaded in any of the VRay Mtl layer slots is implemented. Float textures as well as maps used for Bump are assumed to be Linear. The logic is only applied when the map is initially added to a parameter texture slot. Pasting an existing texture in a slots will not use this logic
  • Changes to the Reflection Glossiness of Metallic materials now work even when the Reflection color is not white
  • VRScans loaded with a script now have all of their parameters set correctly

V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)

  • Batch Image Processing implemented. Batch-apply layer presets or color corrections to multiple images using a simple UI. The feature is located in the File menu
  • Log tab integrated into the right fly-off panel of the VFB. Only render process information is displayed in it
  • Color corrections can now be applied explicitly to the Background layer. Select the Background and then add a new correction layer to it
  • A confirmation dialogue is now correctly displayed when the ‘Clear image’ action is performed
  • The elapsed time info is now correctly displayed in the VFB stats panel during bucket rendering
  • An issue preventing V-Ray Next VFB color corrections to be loaded in V-Ray 5.1 and later is resolved
  • All the default VFB hotkeys are reintroduced
  • Color corrections can now be applied to all render channels when an image is manually saved. To enable the option go to the ‘Save all image channels to separate files’ configuration
  • The thumbnails in the VFB’s history panel are no longer duplicated when ‘Use project path’ option is enabled
  • An issue preventing the VFB from being restored (after being minimized) in specific situations is resolved
  • The behavior of the Lookup table correction layer is improved
  • An issue causing a crash when an image with Exposure correction is significantly zoomed in is resolved
  • An icon is now used for the visibility button of disabled layers

V-Ray GPU

  • Textured Spot Lights support added
  • Support for the Lighting Analysis render element added
  • An issue leading to artifacts when Adaptive Lights are enabled during Swarm rendering is resolved
  • An issue causing ‘firefly’ artifacts to appear on refractive materials in specific situations is resolved
  • The Compensate EV option of the Emissive material is now supported with VR cameras
  • The results in MultiMatte render elements now always match the CPU result
  • An issue causing visual artifacts in shadows casted by Fur strands is resolved
  • An issue with the On-demand mipmapping mode and .tx texture files is resolved
  • Light Cache is always calculated on the GPU when the CUDA or RTX engine is selected
  • An issue causing a discrepancy between Spot Lights rendered on CPU and the same light rendered by the GPU is resolved
  • An issue causing incorrect results with invisible lights viewed through blurry refractive surfaces is resolved
  • Dirt textures that are set to ignore invisible objects no longer produce occlusion from invisible lights
  • Metallic objects no longer render black when their reflection color is set to black
  • An issue causing the render process to stop midway when specific output resolution ratio is used is resolved

Cosmos

  • A new material library section added to the Cosmos browser. Choose from a selection of more than 200 render ready materials and import them to the project
  • Cosmos materials import implemented. Each material from the library can be imported directly to the project and edited when necessary. Enable the tri-planar option in the Cosmos browser if you prefer all material textures to use a tri-planar projection placement instead of the default UV mapping
  • The default size of the Cosmos browser is updated to better fit the Cosmos narrow UI
  • A drop shadow effect is added for the Cosmos browser’s navigation menu to visually separate it from background elements using the same color
  • Cosmos login is now performed in the default OS browser instead of in the Cosmos window itself
  • An issue causing unused textures to appear after specific Cosmos assets are merged is resolved
  • An issue causing the Update button next to the asset in the outliner to remain visible even after an asset is updated is resolved

UI

  • Scatter UI implemented. A new UI component that allows picking scene objects is included. It is used for picking guests to be scattered
  • Decal UI implemented
  • An issue causing the host application to crash in specific situations when shutting down the Asset Editor is resolved
  • An issue causing a visual glitch when an Attribute is added to a Blend material is resolved.
  • Assets which are automatically selected are now considered for a consecutive range selection. The automatic asset selection is performed when an asset is created, deleted, imported from the library, etc.
  • A default icon is now correctly used when an asset which does not have a pre-rendered preview is saved to a user defined library (in the left hand side panel) with the drag and drop action
  • An issue causing unnecessary scrolling in the asset parameters panel is resolved
  • An issue causing the random color generation for the Proxy Mesh asset to fail is resolved
  • Setting the refraction Depth / Fog Multiplier value with the slider no longer leads to inaccurate rounding of the parameter value
  • A number of issues causing Light Gen generation to fail are resolved
  • Loading a big number of materials as a batch from the material library (or a set of vrmat files) is now optimized taking significantly less time
  • The Light Gen info tooltip now indicates that a .lightset file is loaded
  • An issue causing the asset preview to stop working is resolved
  • V-Ray Log Window is implemented. The window will automatically pop up when an error is logged. Alternatively the window can be shown manually by clicking its shortcut in the Asset Editor. The new Log window allows filtering the log information based on the source or level, searching in the log, clearing the log data as well as a shortcut to the folder where log files are stored
  • Vropt render settings files can no longer contain material and light assets
  • The NVIDIA AI Denoiser option is automatically disabled on macOS to indicate that it is not supported
  • The Bump attribute’s Object and World space normal options are marked as legacy and can no longer be selected. The same goes for the bump mode of the Car Paint material
  • Right-clicking on a saved color swatch in the Color picker window now deletes the entry
  • Assets selected in the outliner now remain in view when switching between categories
  • An error message is displayed in the Cosmos Browser window in case the Cosmos service is down and needs to be restarted
  • Open Image Denoise is now used instead of NVIDIA AI in Light Gen. This ensures optimal denoising performance and quality independent of the available system hardware
  • The max control range of the Texture Placement / UV Channel parameter is set to 10 which is more convenient than 100 in most cases. Parameter values that exceed 10 can still be set in the number value field
  • An issue causing the remove button of the Swarm’s tags to disappear when the tag name exceeds a specific length is resolved
  • A function that establishes a live link between V-Ray for Rhino and Vantage is implemented. The live link button is on the V-Ray Live Linking toolbar and can be used for starting Vantage and establishing a connection with a single click. The connection can be restarted at any time by clicking the same button once to stop it and a second time to reestablish it. By default, this new toolbar is not displayed and needs to be manually enabled. The same function is available in the V-Ray Rendering menu
  • The vrayLiveLink command allows a connection between V-Ray for Rhino and any external application using the V-Ray Server to be established. To use it start the other application (Vantage standalone or V-Ray for Unreal, for example), set the port it is running on as a command parameter and execute the command

Grasshopper

  • Sun and camera animations from Grasshopper can now be previewed in Vision. Use the Export Animation button from the context menu for the transfer
  • V-Ray Scatter component implemented. Easily scatter objects from the definition (including Cosmos assets) onto the surface of another object
  • The V-Ray Live Link component now includes a Start Vantage button in the context menu
  • V-Ray Spot Light component implemented
  • V-Ray Omni Light component implemented
  • V-Ray IES Light component implemented
  • A number of parameters are added to the Camera component. The list includes White Balance, Auto Exposure, Auto White Balance and Depth of Field Focus. The capabilities of the V-Ray camera in Grasshopper now match the ones in the V-Ray for Rhino camera
  • V-Ray Exposure Value component implemented. Calculates Exposure Value based on ISO, F-Number and Shutter Speed inputs
  • V-Ray Film Sensitivity component implemented. Calculates Exposure Value based on ISO, F-Number and Shutter Speed inputs
  • V-Ray F-Number component implemented. Calculates a F-Number value for a given Defocus value
  • All V-Ray components that produce geometry output now show a viewport preview
  • The Mtl Simple component in Grasshopper can now be successfully exported as a vrmat
  • V-Ray Cosmos component implemented. Easily add and manage Cosmos assets in the definition
  • An issue causing Grasshopper renders to come out black in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue causing a hang when a Material from File is used is resolved
  • Preview modes implemented for the Instancer component. The new options are – Bounding Boxes and Points
  • An issue causing objects produced by the Instancer component to move incorrectly in animations is resolved
  • A number of issues related to UV mapping of meshes referenced from the Rhino project are resolved
  • A new Group parameter is added to the Instancer component. When enabled, all input objects are treated as a group that is instanced at each point. When disabled, input objects are treated as separate items – а single object is positioned at each point

See full release notes here

Build 5.10.06

Official release, update 1.5

Date – Jul 20, 2021

Installation

  • Chaos License Server updated to version 5.5.4
  • Chaos Cloud client application updated to version 1.12.0
  • Cosmos client application updated to version 2021.7.14

V-Ray Vision

  • Cubemap image export implemented. Select one of the new Camera Type options to enable it – VR Cubemap 6×1 or VR Cubemap 6 images
  • An issue sometimes causing an incorrectly lit patch (distorted rectangle) to appear in exported VR Spherical Panorama images is resolved

Light Gen

  • A custom set of HDR images can now be used for scenarios generation
  • An option that allows for scene lights to remain active on scenario application is implemented
  • The custom Sunlight orientation is no longer modified when a HDR scenario is selected

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

Asset Editor

  • Materials connected to an Attribute extension in another material are now correctly listed as sub-assets in the Outliner
  • Materials saved to a custom Library location before a valid preview image is generated now correctly use the default asset icon
  • Added support for OSL material and textures. Such can be loaded from a manually created vrmat containing TexOSL or MtlOSL plugins

Integration

  • Missing Cosmos assets no longer cause a crash or prevent the render process initiation
  • An issue preventing V-Ray Library materials preview from appearing in the rendered Rhino viewport in specific situations is resolved
  • Rendering a region in the viewport (using RenderWindow or RenderInWindow) right after starting Rhino no longer leads to a crash
  • Changing the render engine while the interactive rendering process is running no longer leads to a crash
  • Modifying the Ground Plane’s material no longer leads to a crash
  • All files required by the OSL compiler are now included in the V-Ray’s installation folder. TexOSL or MtlOSL plugins loaded from a manually created vrmat can now be rendered

V-Ray Core

  • Proxy Meshes rendering is optimized leading to significantly shorter render times on machines with many cores
  • The VFB’s Display Correction mode now affects the history image thumbnails

Build 5.10.03

Official release, update 1.2

Date – Apr 12, 2021

improvements & Bug Fixes

  • Cosmos client application updated to version 2021.3.22
  • The Chaos login url opened after installation is updated. The online licensing is automatically activated to prompt login right away
  • Added support for the PBR material in Rhino 7. PBR shaders can be rendered directly or converted to V-Ray materials either by changing their Type or using the ‘vrayMtlFromRhino’ command. Note that Displacement only works after the material is converted to V-Ray
  • Scenes created with V-Ray versions older than 1.4, later loaded and saved with V-Ray 5, update 1 no longer lead to a crash
  • Rhino material names are preserved when converted to V-Ray Materials. This applies to both changing the material Type or using the ‘vrayMtlFromRhino’ command
  • Sub-material references are now correctly preserved after the Rename conflict resolution option is selected on import
  • Deleted default environment texture is no longer recreated when opening a project
  • An issue causing the V-Ray data upgrade message to appear every time specific scenes are loaded is resolved
  • It is no longer required to save the 3dm file right after opening it in order to use the Pack Project function
  • The VRay Mtl built-in bump and self-illumination parameters are now used when rendering or converting Rhino materials
  • Changes in an object’s texture mapping are now correctly updated during an interactive GPU (CUDA or RTX) rendering session
  • An issue causing some objects with decals to render black is resolved
  • An issue preventing decals on multiple objects sharing a material from working correctly is resolved
  • Decals from V-Ray Next scenes are now rendered correctly
  • Material or light assets are no longer included in .vropt settings files
  • Changing the current renderer in Rhino while in a V-Ray interactive rendering session no longer causes issues. Setting Rhino’s current renderer back to V-Ray afterwards no longer fails
  • Rhino scripts are no longer wrapped in V-Ray transactions. This ensures that all V-Ray related scene changes are applied immediately and not after the script ends
  • Fixed a bug causing incorrect exclusion mode to be displayed for clippers assigned to multiple meshes

Build 5.10.02

Official release, update 1.1

Date – Mar 25, 2021

V-Ray Vision

  • The Vision window is once again parented to the host application (Windows only). The temporary workaround positioning the window on top of all other windows (always on top) is removed
  • A regression preventing V-Ray Proxy Scene references from being loaded in Vision is fixed
  • Rotating a Proxy Mesh or a Cosmos Asset using a scale different than 1 no longer distorts the object
  • Very small Proxy Mesh scaling factors no longer cause the mesh to appear incorrectly in Vision
  • macOS: Vision can now be used on macOS 10.14 – Mojave or earlier
  • The Tone-mapping Curve option state now persists between sessions
  • Navigation controls now work as expected when running Vision through remote desktop
  • Scene loading progress bar implemented
  • Deleting an object in a heavy scene no longer takes excessive time
  • Geometry scene data loading is optimized making heavy scenes faster to load and view in Vision
  • The Proxy Mesh LOD system no longer causes issues when a layered material is used. This improves Vision compatibility with some 3rd-party assets
  • The FreeImage library used for loading textures in Vision is replaced with OpenImageIO
  • The texture mip-map level variations creation is optimized making it faster to load scenes with many large textures
  • Textures containing built-in mip-maps are now loaded in a more optimal way. This applies to textures from the built-in material library and Cosmos
  • A number of issues related to .tx texture loading are resolved. Textures will no longer appear vertically flipped or with a black band at the bottom
  • The Orbit Navigation mode is improved in various ways. The Vision window size is taken into account when zooming, orbiting and panning to ensure consistency when resizing the app window
  • A number of issues causing an incorrect spherical panorama output are resolved

Cosmos Integration

  • Asset download progress indication implemented. See the Asset Editor section for details
  • Asset upgrade function implemented. See the Asset Editor section for details
  • A number of Cosmos asset issues in Vision are resolved. See the vision section for details

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

Installation

  • Chaos License Server updated to version 5.5.3
  • Chaos Cloud client application updated to version 1.10.0
  • Cosmos client application updated to version 2021.03.15

Asset Editor

  • Cosmos assets Upgrade function implemented. An Upgrade icon appears on the right of the asset name in the outliner when a new version is available on the Cosmos servers. Use it to download the new version and replace the outdated one in the scene
  • Cosmos asset status indicator implemented. A small icon appears on the right side of the asset properties header to indicate whether the paths to the textures and other external reference files used by the asset are valid. Hover over the icon for more detailed information
  • Cosmos asset download progress is now displayed in the outliner. The progress percentage appears while an asset is being downloaded or upgraded
  • Custom camera type user interface implemented. When a non-standard camera type is selected with a script the appropriate UI controls (like FOV and Height) are listed in the Camera settings rollout
  • Camera clipping user interface implemented. When the camera clipping is enabled with a script the appropriate UI controls (Clipping Near, Clipping Far) are listed in the Camera settings rollout
  • Renaming an environment Bitmap texture no longer changes its Texture Placement mapping to spherical
  • An issue preventing VRScan material parameters from being set correctly on load is resolved. Properties like the Coat IOR are derived from the built-in VRScan parameter block and set as soon as the material file is loaded
  • Double-clicking on a Light Gen swatch no longer creates two LIGHT_GEN_DOME lights in the project

Integration

  • 3D Preview for Proxy Mesh, Scene and Cosmos assets placement implemented. Importing a Cosmos asset (or a proxy) activates the placement tool and attaches the preview to the mouse cursor
  • Image preview is now displayed when a Cosmos asset is dragged over the Rhino window
  • The Cloud Batch rendering feature is re-enabled. Use the Cloud button in the V-Ray Batch Window to submit a selection of scenes, views and snapshots together as a batch to the Chaos Cloud. A new web wizard guides through the rest of the process. All the scenes are analysed in advance and potential issues are reported
  • The VFB state is preserved when the Current Renderer engine in Rhino changes
  • Cosmos assets not containing light sources no longer appear in the VFB’s Light Mix list
  • An issue with the WCS (box style) texture mapping used in the Rhino materials is resolved. Scenes containing textures mapped this way no longer crash on render
  • The custom orientation of the Rhino Document Sun in the Asset editor is now synchronized with the manual Sun control in Rhino
  • The ‘Ctrl + [‘ and ‘Ctrl + ]‘ can now be used by default to toggle the side panels of the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB). The VFB is now consistent with the Asset Editor in this regard
  • A number of issues with face material assignment combined with default or unnamed materials in Rhino 6 are resolved. The custom material no longer overrides the unnamed ones when rendered or when the object is exported as a Proxy Mesh
  • Sun animation from Grasshopper can once again be rendered in the Rhino project
  • Duplicating a Plane Clipper in the Asset Editor now makes a copy in Rhino
  • An issue causing some Cosmos asset materials to be duplicated after Merge is resolved
  • Assigning a Python list object to a V-Ray array parameter using the Python syntax no longer leads to a crash
  • Newly created Infinite Plane, Proxies, Cosmos Assets and Lights are now correctly added to the active Rhino layer (instead of the first one in the layers list)
  • The Rhino document no longer gets flagged as ‘modified’ after a Save, SaveAs, New, Export or AutoSave command is used
  • The ongoing viewport rendering process (VPR) is now correctly interrupted when the current renderer is changed in Rhino
  • Importing the ‘rhVRay’ module into ‘RhinoPython’ no longer requires manually adding the V-Ray for Rhino installation directory to Rhino Pyhton’s search directories
  • Photon mapped caustics from the Sun no longer render incorrectly in specific situations
  • Pack Project is no longer allowed before a modified document is saved
  • Deleting a material applied to a Fur or Clipper from the Rhino’s material list during interactive rendering no longer leads to a crash
  • Materials assigned to individual faces are no longer deleted by the V-Ray Purge function
  • Custom camera types (spherical, cylindrical, fish-eye, pinhole, etc.) can now be selected via script. The corresponding camera parameters are automatically displayed in the Asset Editor / Camera rollout
  • Custom camera clipping can be enabled via script. The near and far clipping plane options are automatically displayed in the Asset Editor / Camera rollout
  • Materials assigned to a Proxy Mesh, Clipper, Fur, etc. are no longer duplicated when imported or pasted in a project containing materials with the same name
  • An error is automatically displayed (in the V-Ray Progress window) when a render is initiated and no render node license is available
  • Cosmos assets can now be used with Rhino Nature
  • An issue preventing Cryptomatte’s Material Name masks from being populated in the rendered image is resolved
  • Lighting Analysis render element changes are now automatically updated in the VFB
  • Instanced lights are now presented with unique names in the Light Mix UI (when the Individual Lights mode is used). This avoids issues when the Light Mix adjustments are sent To Composite

V-Ray Core

  • An issue causing a crash when a V-Ray Clipper is cutting specific mesh shapes is resolved
  • The way Sphere Light scale transformations affect the light intensity (in the Luminous and Radiant Power modes) is updated. Scaling up a light makes its dimmer to ensure the combined light emission from the surface remains constant. Note that old scenes with scaled Sphere Lights might render differently

Build 5.10.01

Official release, Update 1

Date – Feb 23, 2021

V-Ray Vision

  • Screen Space Reflections for transparent materials implemented
  • Cosmos assets support added
  • Implemented a Level of Detail (LOD) loading and display system for all Cosmos assets. When available the Medium asset representation is loaded close to the camera. Zooming out fades the model to its Low version. If the Medium representation is not available Vision uses the Low version directly. Enable the High Quality Cosmos Assets option to load their High representation close to the camera. Note that this will increase scene load times and may affect performance
  • Cosmos assets interactive transformations support added
  • The way Automatic Exposure works in Vision is improved. Pitch black areas in the image are now handled more reliably. Image over-exposition is avoided in most cases
  • Temporal image anti-aliasing method implemented. Make sure that the corresponding option in the Settings panel is enabled. This method requires a couple of frames to resolve to final quality but the result is significantly better compared to the old one. Temporal anti-aliasing is automatically disabled during the export of Spherical Panorama images
  • Added support for the Clip Opacity Mode of the VRay Mtl. Make sure that this mode is selected for leaves and other cutouts
  • The Clip opacity mode is automatically enabled for materials whose names contain ‘Leaves_mtl’ and whose opacity is mapped with texture files containing ‘Leaf’ in their name
  • Tri-planar texture support added. Only the One Texture Mode is currently supported. The Randomization parameters are ignored. World is the only Projection Space supported
  • Vision no longer stops responding when picking an output image file location two times in a row
  • Added support for the Stochastic texture randomization parameters of the UVW Placement map. The other randomization modes are not supported yet
  • Super Sampling option removed from the Image Export panel. Use Temporal Anti-aliasing combined with a longer Frame Delay to improve the output image aliasing/quality
  • Frame Delay option added in the Image Export panel. Increase its value to allow accumulative effects to resolve before the image is saved. The Temporal Anti-aliasing for example requires approximately 30-40 frames to resolve to final quality. Note that changing the Frame Delay might increase the image export time significantly depending on your hardware
  • High Quality Cosmos Assets option implemented. Use it if you want to see the High Cosmos representations close to the camera. Vision will fade to the Medium and then Low versions of the model based on the distance between the camera and the object and the area the object occupies on the screen
  • The logic for selecting a UV set for a material is improved. Note that Vision currently supports only one UV set per object
  • A number of issues with Multi Material assignments are resolved. Non-consecutive IDs are now handled correctly
  • The Sun Light Size Multiplier value is now linked to the one in Vision. Changing the sun size in V-Ray will change the Sun disk in Vison’s sky. If the Shadow Quality option in the Settings panel is set to High the Sun size also affects shadows softness
  • Shadows Quality parameter implemented. The Low preset corresponds to enabling the Optimize Shadows parameter available in older versions. It uses a lower resolution shadow map during scene interactions and switches to the full resolution one once the interaction ends. Medium enables high resolution cascading shadow maps with Medium filtering quality. High is similar to Medium but enables High filtering quality for the shadow maps, enabling soft shadows from the Sun Light
  • Soft Sun shadows implemented. Increasing the Sun Light Size Multiplier in V-Ray will now result in softer shadows in Vision as long as the High Shadow Quality option is selected
  • The Vision window is now ordered on top of all other windows (always on top). This is a temporary workaround that prevents a host-app hang caused by the previous window parenting approach

Rebranding

  • Updated installer logos and styling. Installer splash screen implemented
  • Asset Editor and Chaos Cloud toolbar icons updated
  • The About Window is redesigned completely and now matches the UI color theme selected in the Asset Editor Configuration
  • New Chaos Black color theme implemented. It uses the new Chaos brand colors and matches the Cosmos Browser appearance
  • V-Ray icon of the Vision application updated

Cosmos Integration

  • Chaos Cosmos added to the installer. The Cosmos service will be automatically started after the V-Ray installation
  • Downgrade of Cosmos is prevented in the installer. If a newer Cosmos version is already installed, V-Ray installer will skip the Cosmos installation step
  • Cosmos Browser window implemented. It presents a web interface for user account management, asset browsing and import
  • The Cosmos Browser window as well as all other V-Ray specific windows (Asset Editor, File Path Editor, etc.) are automatically hidden when an asset is imported to allow for its easier placement in the scene
  • Importing Cosmos assets in the scene automatically enables an asset placement tool. Placing an asset will keep the tool active making it easier to place multiple asset instances around
  • Drag and drop import of Cosmos assets implemented. It does not hide any of the windows currently open unlike the standard import function
  • Geometry Cosmos assets support added. Such assets are displayed and managed as blackboxes – the object and its materials are hidden in a single item listed in the Asset Editor. Merging the asset with the scene for editing is also an option
  • Merge function implemented for the geometry Cosmos assets. It converts the blackbox asset to a Proxy Mesh with associated materials that can be edited or changed completely. Note that exploding an asset will also remove the Medium geometry representation used in Vision and might affect scene load time and performance (only in Vision)
  • Cosmos asset scene replacement function implemented. Right-click on a source asset in the Asset Editor and select Use as Replacement. Right-click on the one to replace and choose Replace in Scene
  • Added support for light sources as part of Cosmos assets. The lights are by default part of the blackbox asset until it is merged. After that point the light sources become independent and editable
  • Simple light management implemented for Cosmos assets containing light sources. Intensity and Color multipliers are available for changing the contained lights’ appearance
  • Cosmos lights Light Mix support added. When the Group Instances Light Mix mode is used light changes can be transferred to the scene even for blackbox assets
  • Cosmos environment assets support added. The HDR environments are imported as global textures in the Asset Editor that can later be connected to a Dome light or directly to the scene environment
  • Cosmos asset file references are now resolved to the local Cosmos repository when opening a file. This allows users to share scenes without packing the Cosmos assets as they are available for download on both systems
  • Cosmos file references can now be packed (Pack Project). A prompt message appears when invoking it. Packing the assets ensures that textures and other external files referenced by Cosmos assets are collected and included in the archive. As a result, the project will be loaded and rendered correctly on other systems even if the same Cosmos assets are not downloaded there. Use this option when submitting projects to a 3rd-party render farm. Cosmos assets will still be available for download on the destination computer even if they are not included in the archive
  • Use Material Override feature implemented for geometry Cosmos assets. It allows them to be individually excluded from the global material override effect

V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)

  • Stamp layer implemented. It allows showing the render time information on top of the rendered image similar to the stamp in VFB1
  • The Display Correction, Lens Effects and Denoiser layer icons are updated to be more distinguishable from those of the correction layers
  • Integer, Cryptomatte and MultiMatte layer masks added. Each of the mask types require a specific render element to be present in the rendered image. Masking can be done for both Render Element and Correction layers in the Composite image editing mode. Multiple masks can be applied to a single layer
  • Shortcuts editor added to the VFB Settings panel. The default hotkeys can now be reconfigured to better match a specific user workflow or avoid conflicts with the host application

Material Library

  • The Material Library can now be downloaded by users that don’t have permissions to read from the Windows registry. The default library location is used in this case – `C:\%UserProfile%\Documents\V-Ray Material Library`

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

Notifications

  • New V-Ray version notification is now displayed in the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)
  • New V-Ray version notification is now available in the About Window

File Path Resolving

  • The file path resolution logic executed when opening a new file is updated. Files with duplicated names located in different folders are now resolved correctly
  • The file path resolver search depth is increased to five (5 subfolders)

Asset Editor

  • New Intel Open Image Denoise engine implemented. It can be selected from both the quick access menu in the Render rollout and the Denoiser rollout in the advanced settings panel. It is a new denoiser engine perfect for interactive rendering. It does not depend on a specific hardware – runs on any CPU (including AMD models). Can be used as an alternative to the NVIDIA AI denoiser. Make sure to set the Update Effects slider to Rapid for best interactive experience
  • Cosmos geometry asset type implemented. A preview image is loaded for each asset and a set of parameters that control the preview, material override and lights are exposed
  • Cosmos assets download implemented. It is detected if a Cosmos asset is missing in the database and a Download button is displayed in the Outliner
  • Scale parameter implemented for Proxy Meshes. Can be used for quick unit conversions in case the mesh was exported from an application or a project using different scene units
  • Normal Map texture implemented. This is a texture utilized by some Cosmos assets for Normal Map assignment. It can not be created from the UI. It may be created only when a Cosmos asset is merged
  • Explicit Normal bump mode implemented for the VRay Mtl material layer. It can not be selected from the UI but will appear if a Normal Map is used in Cosmos assets (after Merge)
  • Normal Map Flip texture implemented. It can not be created from the UI. Added to handle specific Cosmos materials
  • Self-illumination of the VRay Mtl implemented. It can not be controlled from the UI. Added to handle specific Cosmos materials
  • An issue preventing V-Ray from running on Apple machines with the new M1 CPUs is resolved
  • The Submit to Chaos Cloud icon is updated
  • Chaos Cosmos shortcut added to the Asset Editor Toolbar (in the VFB drop-down menu)
  • Adding a Translucency attribute to a material no longer prevents the Raytrace Properties from functioning correctly on GPU
  • Blend, Bump and Contour materials now work correctly with sub-materials which names start with an underscore (e.g. _Name)
  • An issue with the HDR rotation (Bitmap Spherical Rotate H) value of Light Gen textures is resolved
  • The V-Ray logo in the material library is updated
  • The GPU Memory Management option Resize is now set to Full-size textures by default. This is a temporary solution that avoids artifacts caused by the on-demand mip-mapping mode in specific situations
  • Renaming a material no longer causes index numbers (such as 001) from its name to be removed
  • The Camera Vignetting maximum value limit is removed. Higher than the previously allowed values might be useful in scenes with narrower field of view

Integration

  • V-Ray object properties icon updated
  • V-Ray Render Grasshopper component icon updated
  • Auto Export context menu item added to the V-Ray Exporter component in Grasshopper. Enable it to automatically export a vrscene every time a definition change occurs
  • An issue preventing animated .vrmesh files from being exported by V-Ray for Grasshopper in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue preventing camera animations from the Grasshopper definitions to be rendered in the Rhino project is resolved
  • OS user names with non-latin symbols no longer prevent the installation of the Chaos License Server, Chaos Cloud and Swarm
  • An issue preventing some Proxy Mesh files from generating previews in Rhino 7 is resolved
  • Proxy Meshes part of a blocks are now reliably updated during interactive rendering when the path to the .vrmesh file is changed
  • Converting the contents of a block to a V-Ray Proxy Mesh no longer prevents the objects from being rendered
  • A number of issue preventing V-Ray from working correctly on Windows 8.1 are resolved

Build 5.00.02


Official release, Hotfix 1

Date – Dec 15, 2020

V-Ray Vision

  • Pen tablets can now be used for navigation in Vision
  • Vision can now be interacted with fully through a remote connection
  • An issue with loading 16-bit .tiff textures is resolved

Material Library

  • Custom location for assets library can now be specified. Set the path in the ‘Asset Editor / Advanced Settings / Configuration / Remote Assets / Download Location’. Rhino restart is required for the new location to be used. Releasing the V-Ray license can be used as an alternative
  • The initial assets update check can now be disabled using the ‘Asset Editor / Advanced Settings / Configuration / Remote Assets / Check for Updates’ checkbox. The setting remains disabled even between sessions until manually toggled or until V-Ray is reinstalled. It is recommended that Check for Updates is disabled in case a network location is selected for the assets
  • A correct message now appears in case a lack of permissions is preventing the library from being downloaded or updated
  • A warning icon no longer appears on the left of the ‘Materials’ library entry when the library folder does not exist on disk
  • The default ‘Materials’ library is now automatically expanded to reveal its subfolders on initial load. The user-defined state persists between sessions from then on
  • A number of issues caused by non-Latin characters in the library path are resolved

Light Gen

  • The custom assets library location specified in ‘Asset Editor / Advanced Settings / Configuration / Remote Assets / Download Location’ is also used for Light Gen assets
  • Disabling the ‘Asset Editor / Advanced Settings / Configuration / Remote Assets / Check for Updates’ checkbox also affects Light Gen. It is recommended that Check for Updates is disabled in case a network location is selected for the assets
  • A correct message now appears when a lack of permissions is preventing the HDR environments from being downloaded or updated

Light Mix

  • IES light adjustments can now be applied to the project. Note that the ‘To Scene’ function only works when the Group Instances Light Mix mode is used

Grasshopper

  • Implemented Contours support. Toon Override materials loaded from the Rhino project or vrmat files can now be rendered in Grasshopper. A global contours option will be introduced in a later update
  • Added a context-menu option to quickly set numeric values to V-Ray components’ color parameters

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

Notifications

  • V-Ray Version Notifier implemented. It uses the native operating system notification system to give you information when a new V-Ray update is available
  • A way for disabling the update notifications implemented. To do it disable the ‘Asset Editor / Advanced Settings / Configuration / Update Notifications’ checkbox

Migrations

  • V-Ray Next scenes saved with CUDA or RTX engine selected or the interactive rendering mode enabled are no longer loaded incorrectly in V-Ray 5

Asset Editor

  • The ‘Select Objects in Scene’ function can now be performed with multiple assets selected
  • ‘Data Window’ dropdown menu added to the exr output Image Options. It determines the way the VFB render region selection is handled when an output image is automatically saved
  • The lower limit of the Temperature slider in the Color Picker is changed to 900 to better reflect the starting point at which solid bodies begin emitting visible light
  • An issue preventing the Volumetric Environment settings to be reverted is resolved
  • The advanced camera Shutter Speed parameter value can no longer go below 0
  • An issue caused by quickly adding slots to the Multi-Sub texture is resolved
  • A speed optimization is done for the Material Preview Swatch in case Contour attributes are not used in the selected material
  • The Asset Editor no longer appears blank or empty when opening specific scenes

Integration

  • The ‘Select Objects in Scene’ function can now be performed with multiple materials selected
  • Animated two-point perspective camera no longer mismatches the Rhino view
  • Fixed issue with camera updates during interactive rendering when a fixed focus distance is adjusted
  • An issue preventing images from being saved when the output file path contains non-standard characters is resolved
  • A number of issues caused by OS user name containing non-Latin characters are resolved
  • Enabling material’s ‘Can be overridden’ option during interactive rendering no longer leads to a crash
  • Scene upgrade message once again correctly appears when opening projects saved with V-Ray 4.2
  • Proxy bounding box calculation is optimized. This results in faster proxy preview objects creation in both Rhino and Grasshopper
  • Rhino no longer crashes when a Bitmap texture creation is canceled before a valid file path is selected
  • Separate V-Ray Vision instances can be started for multiple Rhino instances
  • Clippers loaded in a worksession file no longer cause Rhino to hang
  • Adding or removing an attribute during interactive rendering no longer turns black

V-Ray Core

  • Custom operating system display scale no longer causes the VFB to appear outside of the monitor bounds in some situations

New in V-ray for Rhino 5

Build 5.00.01

Date – Nov 19, 2020

V-Ray Vision

General

  • V-Ray Vision real-time viewer implemented. It works like a V-Ray Interactive Rendering session but uses a different engine (rasterizer) to visualize the V-Ray scene. Project changes will be immediately reflected in the Vision viewer. Note that there are still many unsupported V-Ray features and effects
  • Vision toolbar icon and menu entry added. It opens the Vision window and starts an interactive session. If the Vision window is already open the toolbar button just enables the live link

Geometry

  • Standard geometry support added. Only one UV set per object is currently supported
  • Geometry visibility state support added
  • Proxy Mesh geometry support added. Changing the Proxy Mesh file, transformation or material assignments during interactive rendering is also supported
  • Proxy Scenes (.vrscene references) support added
  • Automatic geometry optimization implemented. Small objects sharing a material are automatically merged in Vision to improve performance

Lights and Environment

  • Rectangle, Sphere, Omni, Spot, Sun and Direct lights support added. Note that only the natural Inverse Square light decay is used
  • Dome Light support added. Spherical texture placement is required
  • Multiple Dome lights handling implemented. Vision ignores disabled lights from the scene’s list and picks the first enabled one
  • Support for Dome lights without a texture added. The light color is used in this case
  • Partial Environment Override support added. A maximum of two separate environments can be visualized – one for Background and Refractions and another used for GI and Reflections
  • Partial Mesh Light support added
  • Partial Volumetric Environment support added

Materials and Textures

  • VRay Mtl support added. Note that not all V-Ray parameters have an effect
  • Bump and normal maps support added. The Bump material attribute or the built-in bump parameters can be used to enable the effect
  • Emissive material support added. Mapping the Transparency of the material is also supported
  • Material Translucency support added. This includes the Two Sided material as well as the Translucency material attributes
  • Multi Material support added
  • Basic Layered and Blend materials support added. Note that Multi Materials combined with material layering may produce incorrect results
  • Bitmap texture support added
  • Color Correction texture support added
  • Spline and Bezier Curve correction textures supported
  • Color and Temperature textures supported
  • Mix textures support added
  • Falloff and Fresnel textures supported
  • Global material override support added
  • Automatic mipmap generation implemented for all bitmap textures. It optimizes the rendering speed and removes moire effects when viewing detailed textures in a distance
  • Each new slot added to the Multi-Sub texture now presents an unique random color by default

Camera and Navigation

  • Standard and Orthographic (Parallel Projection) cameras support added
  • Support for Two-Point Perspective cameras added
  • Two navigation modes implemented in the Vision window. Orbit enables camera movement based on orbit, pan and zoom manipulations. In Fly mode the keyboard W, A, S, D, Q, E buttons are used for moving while mouse left click + drag can be used for looking around. The camera is automatically leveled (roll transformation is removed) once fly or orbit navigation is initiated in the Vision window

User Interface

  • Toolbar UI implemented in the Vision viewer
  • Live Link indicator added to the toolbar. It shows whether a live session is ongoing or not
  • Live Link parameters added. Camera and Sun synchronization can be disabled. Click on Vision’s Live Link button to manipulate the live link options state
  • Open button added to the toolbar. Opens an existing .vrscene file for viewing. The button is disabled while in a live session
  • Resolution Mode toggle added to the toolbar. Different modes change the image framing in the Vision window. When Fit in Window is selected the image matches the Vision window size and aspect. When Match Scene Aspect is selected the image matches the aspect ratio specified in the V-Ray render settings. The size of the image is still determined by the window size
  • Camera Navigation Mode toggle added to the toolbar. It switches between Orbit and Fly mode. The ‘Tab’ keyboard key can be used as well
  • Auto Exposure toggle added to the toolbar. Use it to quickly toggle the effect
  • Save button added to the toolbar. Use it to display the Image/Animation Export panel
  • Settings button added to the toolbar. It opens the Settings Panel where various Vision-specific options can be changed
  • Info button added to the toolbar. It shows the Info Panel where some useful keyboard shortcuts are listed
  • Color Correction button added to the toolbar. It opens a panel with various color correction settings
  • Exposure, Saturation, Contrast, Temperature and Tint color correction controls implemented
  • A way for saving, loading or resetting the color corrections implemented

Settings

  • Geometry level of detail implemented. Activating the Enable Proxy LOD option replaces the full proxy mesh with the proxy preview when the object is in a distance or occupies a small portion of the screen. Note that most proxy preview meshes don’t have material ID assignments and hence the first material in the list will be used for the whole preview
  • Shadow optimization implemented. Enable the Optimize Shadows option to use lower resolution shadows while moving the camera. Once the camera stops moving the high quality shadow will be displayed. This option only applies to Sun and other Direct lights
  • Auto Exposure implemented
  • Auto Exposure Compensation implemented
  • Fly Mode parameter implemented. Enables the fly navigation mode similar to the toolbar Navigation Mode toggle
  • Fly Speed and Mouse Sensitivity options added. Both affect only the Fly Navigation Mode
  • Fly navigation mode motion smoothing implemented. Increase the Smooth Movement Delay to explore or present the model in a more fluent manner
  • Automatic Image Based Lighting Sun option implemented. Automatically adds a directional light based on the brightest spot in an HDR environment image. The option has no effect if the project Sun is enabled. It is also not recommended when there is no single distinct bright spot in the image used for lighting

Animation

  • Camera animations can now be transferred to Vision. The animation can be played in real time or exported as a sequence of images. Set up a camera animation using the Rhino native tools or V-Ray for Grasshopper, enable the Animation toggle in the V-Ray render settings and run Vision for a live preview

Image and Animation Export

  • Image and Animation export options panel implemented
  • File path and type controls implemented
  • Spherical panorama image export implemented
  • Image resolution control implemented. Use the Resolution Mode, Resolution slider and the Size Multiplier to change the size of the output images. Adjust the Size Multiplier value to render images bigger or smaller than the one shown on screen
  • Export function implemented. A still image or an animated sequence will be exported based on the Animation checkbox state. The Animation FPS value can be used for animation retiming

Other

  • Quick controls for modifying the Sun position and intensity implemented. Check the keyboard shortcuts in the Info Panel for more information
  • Quick camera exposure controls implemented. Check the keyboard shortcuts in the Info Panel for more information
  • Loading screen implemented. It is displayed when a scene is being transferred to Vision
  • A license error screen implemented. It is displayed when no V-Ray License is available
  • The Vision application is automatically closed after Rhino closes
  • Some of Vision’s preferences are stored between sessions
  • A logic for determining the initial Fly Speed on scene load based on the scene size is implemented
  • Shortcuts for manipulating the Fly Speed implemented. Use ‘Ctrl’ and ‘+’ to increase it and ‘Ctrl’ and ‘-’ to decrease it
  • HDR images bigger than 15K are automatically downscaled when loaded to avoid video memory issues

New V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)

  • The entire VFB is redesigned. The style and appearance of all UI elements is improved
  • Layer Compositor implemented. The right fly-off panel of the VFB now presents a full-featured layering system that can be used for image editing – without the need for a separate post-processing app
  • Image Source control implemented. Choose between RGB, Light Mix or Composite depending on your needs. The RGB mode enables color correcting the Beauty (RGB) image. The Light Mix source allows light intensities and colors to be modified after rendering. The Composite mode lets you access, comp and modify the individual render elements for more advanced post-effects
  • The color correction system is updated. Color corrections can now be added, removed and reordered at will. Multiple instances of the same correction type are allowed
  • Blend Mode as well as Weight controls added to each correction layer
  • Color Channel Curve corrections implemented. Use the new Curves UI to remap the values in the individual R, G and B image channels
  • Filmic tonemap layer implemented. Use the preset curve profiles and their parameters to quickly achieve impressive results
  • Color correction layers can now be applied to individual render elements. For example, changing the saturation of the Diffuse element only is done by selecting it first and then creating a Hue Saturation layer from the menu. The arrow indicates that the correction is applied only to the item below
  • Render element layers can also be grouped and organized in folders
  • Save layer tree preset function implemented. Save layer configurations as part of a preset library. The library can then be referenced by the VFB for easier access
  • Advance VFB configuration implemented. Change visual as well as functional properties of the window and save them between sessions
  • The way the Denoiser and Lens Effects elements are presented is updated
  • Keyboard shortcuts implemented in VFB. Check the VFB Settings / Shortcuts section for more details
  • Four image comparison modes implemented as part of the History panel
  • Render regions can now be moved or resized after they are drawn
  • The render buckets’ colors can now be changed in the VFB Settings window
  • The pixel info is now located in the footer section
  • The pixel info can sample more than one region and print information about the average value. Use the drop-down menu (1×1) to change the sample size
  • Stats tab added in the right fly-off panel. Useful information about the project complexity and size (memory allocation) from a V-Ray standpoint is interactively displayed there
  • Undo and Redo functions implemented
  • Render Interactive button added to the VFB. It behaves the same way as its toolbar and Asset Editor counterpart

Light Mix

  • Light Mix render element implemented. It extracts light’s contribution and stores it in a separate element. Lights can also be grouped based on the mode in the element parameters. Use the Light Mix source mode in the VFB to change light intensities after or even during rendering
  • Individual Lights mode implemented – Each light instance is stored on a separate element/layer
  • Group Instances mode implemented – Light instances are grouped together
  • Layers mode implemented – Lights are grouped based on the Rhino layer they are associated with
  • Light IDs mode implemented – Lights are grouped by their V-Ray Light ID assignment. Change the ID in the V-Ray light properties panel in Rhino
  • The Rhino Document Sun is listed separately in all Light Mix group modes

Light Gen

  • Light Gen (Generator) tool implemented. It automatically generates a big number of lighting variations for the currently active project. It can illuminate exteriors or interiors with natural light using the V-Ray Sun & Sky system or a Dome Light (named LIGHT_GEN_DOME) for an image-based lighting (IBL) setup. The resulting lighting scenarios are presented as thumbnails that can be interactively applied to the project.
  • Exterior Sun & Sky mode implemented – The scene will be lit with the V-Ray physical Sun & Sky system
  • Exterior HDR (IBL) mode implemented – The scene will be lit with a Dome light and one of the high quality HDR images that come prepackaged with the software
  • Interior Sun & Sky mode implemented – This mode is best used for illuminating closed spaces with openings letting some natural light in. A pre-pass stage picks the most notable light angles and then the scenarios are generated
  • Light Gen preset management implemented. Light Gen results can be saved and loaded with no need for re-generation. Use the results screen Save button to save a .lightset file and load it back at a later stage using the Load button in the generate screen. Note that the HDR images used by the tool might change in the future which will deprecate previously saved .lightset files
  • On-demand download for the HDR images implemented. All the images are downloaded the first time Light Gen is started. They are then stored locally (as part of the V-Ray Library) and reused in consecutive sessions. Note that custom V-Ray Material Library location specified in V-Ray for 3ds Max will also be used for storing the HDR images used by Light Gen in V-Ray for Rhino
  • An HDR content set check is performed for every new session. In case some of the assets are missing or have been updated on the Chaos servers the updated content will become available for download. Each file is validated separately to avoid unnecessary downloads
  • A notification system is implemented. Info and error notifications will pop up in case something goes wrong with loading Light Gen preset files (.lightset). If, for example, the HDR images used in a specific lightset are missing locally but are available on the Chaos servers a notification with a direct link to the download screen will appear
  • Generation can not be initiated while there is an ongoing render process or a Vision live session

V-Ray Sun & Sky

  • Improved Sky Model implemented. Reproduce the subtleties of twilight when the sun is below the horizon with the new Sun and Sky model
  • Custom sun orientation controls added. Use the new widgets to override the host apps sunlight angle. The custom sun orientation is also used by the Light Gen tool
  • Interactive preview for the custom Sun orientation implemented. Change the sun horizontal or vertical angle while receiving visual feedback in the light preview swatch

Contours

  • Global Contours control implemented. Apply contours (V-Ray Toon) to the entire scene with a single click
  • New Toon Material implemented. It exposes new controls and fixes some of the issues of the old V-Ray Next shader
  • New Contour material attribute implemented. Easily add contours to existing scene shaders without the need of material re-assignment
  • Inner Line Control added to the global Contours as well as to the material properties
  • Contours render element implemented. It stores a mask for both the global and material based contours in a separate render element. Note that the contour color and exposure compensation are ignored
  • The Compensate EV option of all contours is enabled by default

Materials

  • VRay Mtl Coat layer implemented. Add reflective coatings directly in the updated V-Ray Material, saving you both material creation and rendering time vs. using Blend/Layered material
  • VRay Mtl Sheen layer implemented. Create soft microfiber fabrics like velvet, satin and silk with the new Sheen options in the updated V-Ray Material
  • VRay Mtl built-in Bump layer implemented. There is no longer need to add Bump attributes to a material – use the built-in parameter section instead
  • Glossy Fresnel is now enabled for all materials and no longer available in the UI
  • The Normal opacity mode option is removed. Stochastic is used for all materials that were using it which ensures faster render times in scenes with many opacity-mapped objects
  • Metallnes and Use Roughness options added to the VRay Mtl parameters. Use them if you have Metallness and Roughness textures prepared
  • PBR material layer removed. The PBR and regular VRay Mtl functionality is combined and the two separate shaders are no longer needed
  • Highlight Glossiness parameter removed. This simplifies the material control and increases realism
  • An indicator highlighting which rollout options affect the final shader is added to the VRay Mtl layer. Rollout carets become blue in case the parameters inside contribute to the look of the material

Textures

  • Multi-sub texture randomization options implemented. Select one of the Random modes (Get ID from) and change the Hue, Saturation and Gamma values to achieve variation. Note that a single slot and one texture can be used together with the randomization parameters despite the number of scene IDs
  • Dirt texture Streaks implemented. Weathered streaks and dirt in crevices are now easy with the enhanced V-Ray Dirt, which now employs both ambient and inner occlusion
  • External Mapping Source support added for all textures. Use it to easily instance Texture Placement parameters between unique textures
  • UV Randomization implemented. Select a custom Texture Placement source for any texture and connect the new UVW Placement map. There is a randomization section to help you achieve procedural variations
  • Stochastic Texture Tiling implemented as part of the UVW Randomizer. Automatically remove texture tiling artifacts with the new Stochastic tiling option of the UVW Placement asset
  • Added support for .tx file format for bitmap textures
  • A way for displaying .tx texture files in the Rhino viewport implemented

Material Library

  • The built-in material library is updated in various ways to take advantage of all new functionality in V-Ray 5
  • All the materials in the library now use GGX BRDF type. The Glossiness as well as the GGX Tail Falloff values are adjusted accordingly
  • Materials previously using the Bump attribute now use the built-in Bump
  • Materials previously using Reflection Coat layer now use the built-in Coat
  • Fabric materials previously using Diffuse Coat layer now use the built-in Sheen
  • Textures that require identical texture placement in the scope of the material now use a single instanced UVW Placement map
  • The randomization feature of the UVWPlacement is utilized where appropriate to avoid visible texture repetition patterns
  • The resolution of all library textures is increased up to 4K
  • The library is now downloaded on demand. With the increased texture resolution it is no longer practical to have it as part of the installer
  • The library assets/textures are now shared with V-Ray for 3ds Max. If the maps have been downloaded by 3ds Max already they will be reused by V-Ray for Rhino and vice versa. If a custom library location has been specified by V-Ray for 3ds max, V-Ray for Rhino will also use it
  • A library content check is performed for every new session. In case some of the assets are missing or have been updated on the Chaos servers the updated content will become available for download. Each file is validated separately to avoid unnecessary downloads

Asset Preview

  • GPU (CUDA) Asset Preview mode implemented. Select GPU from the menu to activate it. It shows a more accurate preview in case V-Ray GPU is used for the final project rendering
  • The engine selection (CPU / GPU) for the Asset Preview Swatch is now preserved between sessions
  • GPU Preview Devices option added to the Configuration settings. Use either the global GPU Devices configuration or just the CPU in CUDA mode. The second option is preferable when all the GPU computational resources are required for rendering
  • Custom texture preview scene selection implemented. Choose between 2D, 3D, Environment, Falloff and Dirt scenes depending on the situation. If, for example, an environment texture is being color corrected, the Environment scene can be selected for the Color Correction map for a more accurate preview
  • Each asset preview render is temporarily stored for the active session. This temporary preview will be saved out with the asset without the need of re rendering

Updated Displacement Workflow

  • New Displacement object modifier implemented. Select an object in the scene and apply Displacement using the V-Ray toolbar button. The same can be done via the new displacement parameters in the V-Ray object properties panel in Rhino. This new workflow is clearer and much closer to the V-Ray Core displacement handling
  • The Displacement material attribute is now deprecated. It will be removed in the future. It is recommended to use the object modifier instead
  • Displacement section added to the V-Ray Object Properties panel

V-Ray GPU

  • 2D Displacement is now supported
  • Cellular textures are now supported
  • Wrapper material’s ‘Environment Projection’ matte mode is now supported
  • Out of Core memory management implemented in an experimental state. It enables evicting triangle meshes out of the GPU memory when they are no longer needed in order to make room for other resources, once the renderer has run out of memory. This option is available only for CUDA and is not yet supported for RTX
  • Textures slotted in a Tiles texture now render correctly on GPU
  • V-Ray Infinite Plane mapping is no longer rendered incorrectly on GPU. The scale of the Plane widget now correctly affects the texture size

Grasshopper

  • Live Link component implemented. It interactively shares the input V-Ray scene on the port specified. V-Ray instances running in other applications can make use of the data. This component is most commonly used for V-Ray Vision sessions inside Grasshopper. Right click and select ‘Start V-Ray Vision’ to do so.
  • V-Ray Vision support added. Use the Live Link component to open the Vision window or start a session
  • U and V size parameters added to the Light Rectangle component
  • Shape parameter added to the Light Rectangle component. Choose between Rectangle and Disk
  • Instancer component objects can now be successfully rendered as part of the Rhino scene with the help of the Render in Project component
  • V-Ray Clipper component implemented. Use it for section cuts or procedural boolean mesh intersections
  • Stereo camera mode implemented. Choose one of the ‘Side by Side’ or ‘Top Bottom’ options in the V-Ray Camera component to enable it
  • Material edits in the Asset Editor now correctly update during an interactive rendering session in Grasshopper
  • Directionality parameter added to the V-Ray Rectangle Light component
  • Relative texture paths containing ‘..’ (parent directory) are now resolved correctly

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • Full support for Rhino 7 implemented
  • A new scene management system is now in place to ensure stability. It also makes finding and solving technical issues much easier and safer
  • Dome lights created in the Asset Editor are now automatically instantiated in the scene
  • Blue Noise sampling implemented. When enabled, reorders the DMC samples in screen space to produce a more pleasing result for low sample counts
  • V-Ray Scene export window implemented. It exposes some useful options when exporting the project. The file reference paths can now be stripped (made relative). HEX compression can be disabled for both transformation and mesh parameters
  • Scripting documentation updated. A new example tab is added showing how the new Python Wrapper Module can be used. This is a short and intuitive alternative to the standard Python syntax
  • Environment Fog light list is now respected even while adaptive lights are enabled
  • The V-Ray Sun no longer disappears when changing Environment Fog parameters during interactive rendering
  • A number of issues with decals rendering are resolved
  • The V-Ray Live Link Grasshopper component name and descriptions are updated
  • Nested bitmap textures are now correctly displayed in the Rhino viewport. V-Ray ignores the procedural maps and shows the first bitmap it finds within the texture shader main texture slot
  • The visual style of the V-Ray installer is updated
  • A number of issues preventing materials with special characters in their names from being loaded (from vrmats) are resolved
  • Pack Project now archives Rhino materials’ textures together with the V-Ray ones
  • Regions can now be manually selected in the viewport when using the ‘vrayRenderWindow’ command
  • The logic for loading sequences of files in the Batch Render tool is improved. Multi-file selection can now be successfully recognized as a sequence and loaded as such
  • A number of issues with the V-Ray Python script API are resolved. Setting plugin parameter values no longer leads to errors in specific situations
  • An issue related to changing Texture Mapping of objects during an interactive RTX rendering session is resolved
  • The scene name parameter exported for Nodes and lights in a vrscene file, also used by the Cryptomatte render element, is improved
  • Lock Camera Orientation button added to the V-Ray Utility toolbar. Use it to temporarily lock the camera position and orientation during interactive rendering. The new command ‘vrayLockCamOrientation’ can be used as an alternative
  • The Shape and Diameter parameters of IES lights now correctly update during Interactive Rendering
  • Lens effects no longer prevent the Denoiser from updating the VFB image
  • Lens effects are no longer incorrectly masked by the image alpha
  • A File Path Editor shortcut is added to the Asset Editor’s toolbar
  • Changing the active asset category in the Asset Editor no longer collapses previously expanded asset trees
  • The number of interactive rendering updates when dragging the handle of a Curve Correction texture is reduced
  • The animation settings toggle is no longer grayed out during interactive rendering mode. This allows animations to be viewed in Vision without having to switch to production rendering mode beforehand
  • Added support for Proxy Scenes in Rhino Nature

 

V-Ray Next, Update 2.2

Date – Aug 10, 2020
Download – Build 4.20.03

Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • Chaos Group License Server is updated to version 5.5.0
  • V-Ray Swarm is updated to version 1.4.4
  • Chaos Cloud client application is updated to version 1.7.5
  • The Chaos Group License Server web page now automatically opens after successful V-Ray installation
  • The Material Random Color render element now correctly generates unique colors for materials passed through a Two-Sided shader or ones using the Translucency attribute
  • Coat layers (Diffuse or Reflection) added to a material that has no other base layer no longer display the full set of VRay Mtl parameters
  • CUDA hybrid rendering in bucket mode no longer leads to the exception in V-Ray Core when NVLink is used
  • A separate alpha image file is no longer saved out for Bongo animations when the output file format supports an alpha channel. Selecting .bmp, .jpg or .hdr will still result in the creation of a separate file since this data can not be stored in the original file. The same applies to the ‘SaveRenderWindowAs’ rhino command
  • V-Ray light instances no longer get automatically renamed in Rhino. This improves both various user workflows as well as 3rd party plugin integrations
  • The V-Ray Material From Project component in Grasshopper now accepts integer or string value inputs

V-Ray Next, Update 2.1

Date – May 05, 2020

Download – Build 4.20.02

Installation & Licensing

  • The Chaos Group License Server is updated to version 5.4.0

Workflow Improvements

  • The quality slider presets are updated. The quality of the rendered image is now consistent between all the engines (CPU, CUDA and RTX) and sampler types (Progressive and Bucket)
  • The quality slider presets count is increased to six. The new preset labels are ‘Low’, ‘Low+’, ‘Medium’, ‘Medium+’, ‘High’ and ‘High+’. All provide better quality than their older counterparts.
  • The Maximum Subdivisions Image Sampler parameter is now visible at all times (for GPU and also in progressive rendering mode). The value used for GPU rendering is always double the CPU one to ensure consistent quality
  • The Embree related optimization parameters are automatically hidden when the GPU engine is selected. They have no effect in this case
  • The Aperture (F-Number) slider limit is removed. Values from 56 up to 985 will result in Defocus slider values between 0.1 and 0.001 to be displayed
  • Introduced a confirmation window when deleting or purging assets from the Asset Editor. Using the Shift + Delete keyboard keys removes selected assets without confirmation
  • Added full support for the _RenderBlowup, _RenderWindow, _RenderInWindow and _RenderPeviewInWindow Rhino commands
  • A new vrayRenderWindow command is implemented. It exposes three modes – Region, Cropped and Cropped Blowup. The vrayRenderBlowup command is removed – use vrayRenderWindow instead
  • A Python script wrap module is implemented

Grasshopper

  • The quality slider presets of the V-Ray Renderer component are updated. The quality of the rendered image is now consistent between all the engines (CPU, CUDA and RTX) and sampler types (Progressive and Bucket)
  • A new ‘Render Animation in Rhino’ function is added to the Render in Project component. It renders each Grasshopper animation frame state together with the Rhino scene. Object animations are fully supported
  • The Material Preset component’s Color parameter can now be textured with a V-Ray Bitmap
  • An issue causing specific Grasshopper animations frame ranges to be sent incorrectly to the Rhino project is resolved
  • Polysurface objects referenced in Grasshopper and rendered via the V-Ray Geometry component no longer have faulty UV texture coordinates
  • A number of issues related to displacement rendering in Grasshopper are resolved
  • Animation rendering, exporting animated proxies or scenes is now possible with a C# / Python script component

Other Changes & Bug Fixes

  • Randomize Material ID Colors now works as expected
  • The Multimatte Materials render element now works as expected
  • Render regions can now be specified prior to any rendering
  • A number of tooltips, as well as some Grasshopper component descriptions, are updated
  • Decreasing the V-Ray interactive viewport (VPR) size with the vrayVPRSettings command no longer causes issues
  • An issue with the appearance of Rhino materials rendered in V-Ray is resolved
  • An issue caused by proxy mesh manipulations while the vrmesh file is on a network drive is resolved
  • The precision and default range of the Camera / Effects / Vertical Lens Tilt slider are updated
  • The default range of the Camera / Effects / Vignetting slider is decreased

V-Ray Next, Update 2

Date – 17 March 2020

Installation & Licensing

  • V-Ray AppSDK updated to version 4.3
  • V-Ray for SketchUp, the Chaos License Server, V-Ray Swarm and the Chaos Cloud client app are now installed in a single step. Configuring each sub-installer individually is still an option
  • Chaos License Server updated to version 5.4.0
  • Chaos Cloud client application installer updated to version 1.6.5
  • Added support for Rhino WIP (v7.0)

Workflow Improvements

  • RTX support implemented. The engine selector now presents three options – CPU, CUDA and RTX. The image results produced by the new engine are identical to the ones rendered in CUDA mode (previously called GPU). No scene adjustments are required. Going back and forth between the two engines will only modify what devices are used, so there’s minimal effort to compare the two to see which works best for your scene. The new engine takes advantage of the RT Cores (dedicated to ray-tracing calculations) of the new NVIDIA RTX cards which leads to average speedup of 40%
  • Partial Proxy Scene export implemented. Export only the selected objects as a .vrscene file containing geometry and applied materials. Lights and V-Ray objects, such as Fur, can also be included
  • A set of material slots is automatically generated as part of every Proxy Mesh asset. Use the slots to assign materials to the Proxy without having to rely on a Multi Material
  • Proxy Mesh assets using the new built-in material system (described in the previous point) now automatically store the materials when saved to the library (or exported as .vrmat files)
  • ‘Use Mtl Override’ option added to the Proxy Mesh asset. It disables the global Material Override effect for all material slots using plain colors
  • Proxy Scenes are now by default affected by the global Material Override. To disable this behavior uncheck the new ‘Use Mtl Override’ option
  • Material Random Color render element is implemented. It generates randomly colored selection masks based on the material assignments in the scene.
  • Unlike the Material ID Color element, it does not require adding Material ID attributes to all scene materials
  • Automatically calculated exposure and white balance values can now be applied to the scene camera. Use the Auto Values controls to get the most recent results and apply them to the camera
  • The Advanced Camera / Bokeh parameters have been updated and made more user friendly. The additional parameters are no longer grayed out when the Blades option is disabled
  • SpotLight Cone and Penumbra angle sliders’ min and max values are now correct
  • The UI of the Configuration settings section is improved
  • Right-clicking on any color or number input field now provides the option to reset them to their default value
  • A new option allowing color space control of all color sliders is available in the Asset Editor’s Configuration settings rollout
  • Implemented material attribute icons for easier recognition
  • Tri-Planar Projection texture placement mode added to the VRScan material. It works similarly to the Triplanar texture and removes the need for UV mapping of the shaded objects
  • Rhino decals are now supported in V-Ray. They work for both native and V-Ray materials
  • Add the native Rhino Search Paths to the list of locations used by V-Ray’s auto-resolve logic
  • Loading projects with a large number of textured materials is optimized. The more materials the scene contains, the more significant the speedup is
  • Animation Source switch implemented. Choose between native Rhino recordings and Grasshopper animations

Theme

A new Bright color theme can now change the appearance of the Asset Editor, File Path Editor, Color Picker and the Progress Log windows. The UI Color Theme selector is located in the Configuration settings rollout. The theme selection persists between sessions. Note that it does not affect the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)

Color Assistant

Color Assistant extension added to the V-Ray Color Picker. It presents hue, saturation and value variations of the current color to help with picking the exact color that is needed. Adjust the range values for more subtle or more pronounced variation. Right-click on any of the Assistant suggestions to regenerate variations using it as reference

Materials

  • Some common material settings have been redesigned as Attributes. Attributes are sets of options that can now be created or removed for each material.
  • An ‘Add Attribute’ button is added next to the ‘Add Layer’ one below the material preview. The list of attributes includes – Translucency (Two Sided), Bump, Displacement, Raytrace Properties, Override and Material ID. New materials are created lean with the option for other attributes to be added later.
  • This way the scene shaders are optimal for both management and rendering
  • The new Translucency attribute can be used instead of the Two Sided material keeping the shader structure simple. This also simplifies material/texture size management when dealing with translucency
  • The Generic material layer names are improved. The V-Ray BRDF is renamed to VRay Mtl, Metallic – VRay PBR, Diffuse – Diffuse Coat, Reflection –
  • Reflective Coat, etc. The Refraction layer is removed. Use the VRay Mtl instead
  • There is a unique icon for each material layer. This is useful visual indication for the layer type in case the layer name is changed
  • Newly created scene materials now use an optimized underlying shader structure. Displacement, Material ID and Render Stats attributes are no longer added to every material. If any of the attributes is required it has to be manually added from the ‘Add Attribute’ menu
  • All the built-in library materials use the new shader structure and will perform in an optimal way. Irrelevant (unused) attributes like Material ID, Raytrace
  • Properties or Displacement are removed. They can be manually added when needed

Grasshopper

  • The UV channels of Rhino objects referenced in the Grasshopper definition are now preserved
  • V-Ray Bitmap component implemented. It allows material texturing to be done directly in V-Ray for Grasshopper. The component also enables UV channel selection and texture placement modifications
  • Vertex Color mode added for the Bitmap component. Use it to colorize materials with the vertex colors of a mesh
  • Proxy Meshes loaded in Grasshopper now display a bounding box preview in the Rhino viewport
  • A new Bounding Box output added to the Proxy Mesh and Scene components. Use it to precisely position proxies in the scene
  • The V-Ray Timeline component can now be resized
  • Grasshopper animations exported to Rhino no longer override the existing Rhino animation (recording). Use the Animation Source switch in the V-Ray
  • Animation settings to select the one to be rendered
  • Grasshopper camera animations sent to Rhino can now have animated focus distance
  • Color or texture variations can now be introduced among V-Ray Instancer items. Use a Multi-Sub texture in ‘Random by render ID’ mode connected to the material to achieve it
  • The Render in Project component now correctly sends the Infinite Plane to Rhino
  • The animation preview of the V-Ray Timeline component can now be interrupted with the Esc key
  • ‘Look Through Camera’ context menu function added to the V-Ray Camera component
  • The V-Ray Light Rig Dome no longer loses its texture when disabled and then re-enabled
  • Connecting a V-Ray Geometry component to the Infinite Plane geometry input no longer causes issues
  • Disabling the Camera no longer interrupts the interactive rendering process
  • The V-Ray Material Simple component now exports vrmat files correctly
  • A number of issues with the V-Ray Instancer component are resolved
  • Embree is now used for Fur rendering in Grasshopper. Proxy Scenes with Fur will render faster
  • A number of issues related to interactive rendering scene updates are resolved
  • The ‘Manage Collection’ option can now be used for the Material from File component
  • The Material from File component no longer allows file path changes while this data is derived from an input
  • Displacement can now be applied to Grasshopper objects. Use a Material from Project component referencing a project material with displacement enabled
  • A number of issues related to loading Library materials in Grasshopper are resolved

Script Access

  • A new Render() method is implemented. It is the better alternative to starting a render using the Rhino command. Set its parameter ‘timeout = -1’ to ensure the call is synchronous
  • No extra plugins will be fetched when attempting to retrieve material assets
  • A way to start V-Ray rendering in Grasshopper via C# or a Python script is implemented
  • A way for saving .vropt files via script or command is implemented

Other Changes & Bug Fixes

  • Material using a diffuse texture blended with the diffuse color via the Diffuse Multiplier are now displayed correctly in the Rhino viewport
  • Information about the V-Ray version and the render mode is now stored in a new .vrscene ‘plugin’ called ‘InfoRenderEngine’
  • Changing an IES Light’s file now correctly triggers an interactive update
  • The Rhino ground plane can now use a Wrapper material
  • Light Cache map files can now be manually saved
  • Light Cache map files are now correctly displayed in the Irradiance Map Viewer tool
  • Modifying a custom Sunlight during interactive rendering no longer breaks its connection to the Sky in the environment
  • Changing a 3rd party placeholder materials to a V-Ray shader no longer causes a crash
  • A number of issues related to asset naming are resolved. Names differing only by special characters no longer cause a conflict when rendered
  • Bitmap textures are displayed in the viewport even when wrapped in procedural maps. If for example a Color Correction is used the slotted Bitmap will still be visible on the viewport material. Note that the color corrections will have no effect on the preview
  • Proxies, Clipper, Fur or Mesh light created within a block are no longer deleted upon subsequent block editing
  • Rendering in the viewport no longer produces black image when the Stereo toggle is enabled
  • Opening a Rhino Template containing a V-Ray Dome light no longer causes a crash
  • The V-Ray icon in the Rhino properties panel is updated
  • Blend material changes now reliably trigger an update during interactive rendering
  • Resolved an issue with rendering of Lights, Clipper and Fur in Rhino 5
  • The initial path of the default V-Ray studio environment texture is no longer incorrect
  • Initializing a batch render job with no V-Ray for Rhino license available no longer leads to a crash
  • Render with Chaos Cloud added to the V-Ray / V-Ray Rendering menu
  • Importing a Proxy Mesh during Interactive rendering no longer leads to a crash
  • The render state in the Asset Editor no longer hangs after a render with VR camera and parallel projection is initiated
  • Converting a Directional Light to a Sunlight via command now works as expected
  • Alt + drag duplication of a light no longer hides the original until the action is completed
  • A number of issues related to RPC objects are resolved. Asset textures gamma is now correct
  • Resolved an issue with rendering when the license has been released prior to activating the V-Ray UI
  • Starting a production or interactive rendering from the Rhino toolbar no longer prevents both Asset Editor and the render process from launching
  • A number of issues related to the batch rendering of vrscene files are resolved

V-Ray Next, Update 1.1

Date – Nov 05, 2019

Download – Build 4.10.02

Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • Chaos Cloud client application installer updated to version 1.6.0
  • V-Ray no longer prevents Rhino from accepting images dragged over its viewport
  • Vrmesh, vrscene and alembic files can now be drag and dropped directly from Windows explorer to the Rhino viewport. A proxy reference geometry is automatically created in the scene
  • Layer visibility changes during interactive rendering now correctly affect sub-layers object visibility
  • Embree now automatically optimizes fur and motion blur rendering. Enabling the Embree checkbox will ensure that both fur strands and motion blurred frames are rendered in an optimal way
  • A number of small improvements are introduced to the default V-Ray Settings
  • Displacement parameter changes now reliably update during interactive rendering
  • Rhino ground planes using a Wrapper or an Override V-Ray material are no longer rendered black
  • Dropdown menus in the V-Ray object properties panel are now correctly sized on systems with custom display scaling (mostly affecting high DPI systems)
  • Modifying a custom sunlight during interactive rendering no longer breaks its connection to the V-Ray Sky environment map
  • The anti-aliasing filter type and size are no longer reset when a project is saved and then re-opened
  • The way Rhino camera parameters are translated to the V-Ray camera is optimized and improved
  • Batch rendering a sequence of vrscene files no longer outputs image files with double frame numbering
  • VFB Color corrections and lens effect properties are automatically reset when Rhino is restarted. Only the VFB history settings are preserved
  • Proxy viewport mesh previews are now correctly recreated on Snapshot restore
  • VFB dropdown menus no longer sink behind the main window on Windows 7 and 8.1
  • Converting unnamed Rhino materials to V-Ray ones no longer causes a crash
  • Restoring snapshots with hidden V-Ray proxies (mesh or scene proxies) no longer causes a crash
  • V-Ray now correctly renders non-repeating (disabled tiling) Rhino textures
  • Selecting objects in a parallel projection view no longer causes random interactive updates
  • Replacing one Rhino material with another one by drag and dropping it now correctly updates the scene during interactive rendering
  • Modifying unassigned materials no longer causes interactive updates
  • The camera lens shift is no longer ignored after Rhino camera parameters are manually adjusted

V-Ray for Grasshopper

  • The Light Rig Dome no longer produces differences between the background directly visible to the camera and parts viewed through refraction
  • The V-Ray Exporter component’s Open function now works with animated file sequences
  • Proxy mesh loading in Grasshopper is optimized
  • An issue preventing the Material from File component context from appearing is resolved
  • Incorrect output connections are no longer established when upgrading old V-Ray light components
  • Improved precision when picking the current frame of the Timeline component

V-Ray Next, Update 1

Date – Sep 25, 2019

Download – Build 4.10.01

Improved Speed and Quality

  • Improved interactive rendering performance on the CPU
  • Improved CPU utilization during Light Cache calculation for large output image resolutions
  • Hash Map Light Cache mode is enabled. This new default Light Cache calculation mode resolves most common artifacts and is more optimized and stable when used in animations
  • Objects duplicated using block instancing are rendered in a more optimized way

Workflow Improvements

  • V-Ray AppSDK updated to version 4.20.01
  • Added support for Cryptomatte render element. It automatically generates and stores object or material based masks which can be exported in a multichannel OpenEXR file. This removes the hassle of creating dozens or hundreds of Multimattes.
  • Light source deletion is now undoable
  • The ‘Visible’ checkbox is removed from the Rhino properties panel for Fur, Infinite Plane, Mesh Light, and Clipper objects. Use the toggle in the asset properties to achieve the same effect
  • Built-in support for the Rhino Ground Plane geometry implemented. Enabling the Ground in Rhino automatically enables a V-Ray Infinite Plane object that matches the scene’s ground position and material
  • V-Ray Infinite Plane assets can now be enabled or disabled in the Asset Editor via their icon buttons or the toggle in their Rhino object properties
  • The viewport display of highly reflective V-Ray materials is improved. Bitmap textures can be viewed and positioned even for materials that have a reflection map applied in V-Ray. In such cases, the Reflection color value still affects the viewport material appearance
  • Using a custom viewport texture in a material now automatically disables some of the shader effects to make it easier for the object UVs (texture position) to be manipulated
  • Saving and restoring Rhino Snapshots with V-Ray material assignments and variations is now supported. Make sure to enable the Rendering/V-Ray checkbox to use it
  • The step for the camera EV number field is decreased to 0.5. Click on the field and use the Up and Down keyboard keys to update the value using this new increment
  • Slider handles can now be selected and manipulated using the keyboard Left and Right or Up and Down keys
  • The Linear Workflow material option is removed and its behavior is automatically matched using standard shading techniques (and gamma correcting textures in some situations). Scene materials that had the option enabled in the past will render as expected. This option is no longer needed for V-Ray 2 materials to be correctly loaded
  • Increased number precision of the Spline and Bezier Curve textures point positions
  • An automatic connection between the Color Picker’s color values and the Kelvin slider temperature is implemented. This allows for a temperature value to be saved and modified separately for every color slot
  • Lighting Analyses render element property changes automatically update the VFB result. No re-rendering is required
  • The File Path Editor user interface is improved. The window no longer has maximum size limits. The footer buttons now use labels instead of icons which makes their functionality clearer
  • The V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) UI scales correctly based on the OS display scaling factor.
  • The Custom Opacity Source material parameter now uses a checkbox instead of a toggle in the UI
  • Drag & drop can now be utilized for applying Asset Editor materials to scene objects or layers
  • A Denoiser engine switch is now available in the main Renderer rollout. Switch from V-Ray to NVIDIA AI denoising without navigating to the Denoiser advanced parameters panel
  • The Update Effects slider is now located in the Renderer rollout for easy access
  • Camera Motion Blur toggle is implemented
  • The ‘vrayCamGuessVertical’ command can no longer be executed while an orthographic view is active
  • Proxy meshes copied from another session during Interactive Rendering are now correctly displayed and rendered
  • A number of issues with window ordering in Windows 7 and 8 are resolved. The VFB no longer goes to the background when focused
  • Project names containing a full stop character no longer prevent the Pack Project function from being executed correctly
  • The ‘Tools / Randomize Material ID Colors’ function randomizes all scene Material ID colors and not only the ones initially set to black
  • VFB regions drawn during production rendering are disabled
  • Loading render settings presets or resetting to the default one during rendering is no longer allowed
  • The Translucency rollout of the V-Ray BRDF is renamed to Fog Scattering to better reflect what the options in this section do
  • The Bump Delta Scale parameter is automatically hidden when the Normal Map mode is selected. The delta scale option has no effect in this case
  • Scene upgrade prompt window implemented. When a Rhino scene saved with older V-Ray version is loaded a window letting you know that the V-Ray data will be upgraded appears. It clearly states that after the scene is saved with the new version it can no longer be loaded in a previous one

Materials

  • The native Rhino RDK material system is used for our internal V-Ray materials management. This resolves a number of issues and limitations when shading a scene
  • V-Ray material can now be created in the Rhino Materials panel. Every material created in the Asset Editor will also automatically appear in the Rhino list. Converting a Rhino material to a V-Ray one and vise-versa can now be done by changing its Type
  • V-Ray materials can be assigned to layers using the native Rhino approach
  • The V-Ray-side material conflict handling is removed. The Rhino material conflict handling is used instead
  • The logic for converting Rhino materials to V-Ray shaders is improved
  • The obsolete commands vrayApplyMaterial and vrayMtlEnable are removed

V-Ray for Grasshopper

  • Context menu for selecting an existing Standard or Named scene view is added to the Camera Component
  • V-Ray Exporter component implemented. It exports vrmesh or vrscene files based on the GH definition
  • V-Ray Graph component implemented. This is an advanced value remapping utility component that exposes a bezier curve editor. Combine it with the V-Ray Timeline to create more advanced animation setups
  • The Render Animation function is separated from the standard Render one in the V-Ray Renderer component
  • A simpler way for loading library materials in the V-Ray Material from File component is implemented. Right-click on the component to find the materials list
  • Individual light components can now be connected directly to the Renderer. The need for adding an in-between light rig component is removed
  • A preview graphics for the V-Ray Light Rig Sun System component is added
  • An issue with Proxy Scene preview scaling is resolved
  • Grasshopper animations now correctly use the current Rhino viewport camera position
  • Orthographic cameras are now supported in V-Ray for Grasshopper. Increase the Orthographic Zoom Factor value of the Camera component to see the effect
  • Proxy Scene previews are now correctly scaled in the Rhino viewport
  • The Renderer Quality presets now exactly copy the common V-Ray presets used in the Asset Editor
  • Rendering of thousands of Proxy Meshes instances is optimized and significantly faster. A single auto-generated material is used for all instances
  • Connecting geometries to the Renderer component during interactive rendering no longer causes issues (objects no longer disappear)
  • Deleting a V-Ray Render in Project component or closing the definition itself now correctly removes the Grasshopper objects from the Rhino scene
  • Connecting a single material to a V-Ray Proxy Mesh component that has multiple face IDs (multiple material slots) automatically removes the auto-generated materials. A single material is used for all mesh faces until additional shaders are connected
  • The V-Ray Timeline can now successfully play lengthy animations in the viewport. The process no longer hangs in the middle of the playblast
  • Both the File and Option Picker components (used to control V-Ray specific parameters) are now correctly scaled on high-dpi display system

Animation

  • Camera focus distance changes can now be rendered in animation
  • A number of issues with Bongo animation rendering are resolved
  • Setting up a Rhino animation no longer removes the V-Ray Interactive viewport display mode option in Rhino 6

Other Changes & Bug Fixes

  • A number of issues related to the Can be Overridden option are resolved. It now functions correctly during interactive rendering
  • Two sided materials with nested multi sub textures no longer cause a crash during interactive rendering
  • Drawing a region during interactive rendering on the GPU after a linked Grasshopper document is updated no longer causes a crash
  • A number of issues with HDR Light Studio interactive environment rendering are resolved
  • Textures with localized names are now properly displayed in the viewport
  • Deleting all scene objects during interactive rendering no longer breaks Material Override’s functionality
  • Layer visibility changes are now correctly handled during interactive rendering
  • The Batch Render tool can now load and render scenes using the GPU engine
  • Spot Light’s cone and penumbra angle parameters are now correctly migrated for V-Ray 2 scenes
  • The Rhino sun is now automatically disabled when setting V-Ray as a current renderer for the first time
  • The Use Irradiance Map Option is removed from the V-Ray BRDF and re-introduced into the Wrapper material
  • The Cutoff and Energy Preservation parameters are removed from the V-Ray BRDF Advanced Options rollout
  • Resolved an issue with newly created Proxy Mesh materials
  • Lights created in the Asset Editor during interactive rendering are now automatically enabled
  • Consistent material IDs get assigned when the same alembic (.abc) proxy file is loaded more than once
  • Some legacy materials and textures are migrated to their current equivalents (Legacy Noise, Angle Blend Material, Falloff ASGVIS, etc.)
  • Loading specific .vropt (V-Ray Options) files in the Asset Editor no longer causes errors
  • Material conflicts caused by linked blocks no longer have to be resolved twice when opening the project
  • The Bump material asset icon (in the Assets Outliner list) no longer changes after the scene is saved and reopened
  • Hidden Lights can now be toggled during interactive rendering

What’s New in v3.60.03? 3 July 2018

Optimizations & Workflow Improvements

  • The V-Ray Batch rendering tool can now load and render ‘.vrscene’ files. Vrscene sequences can also be loaded and managed as a single item in the Batch Render jobs list
  • Improved V-Ray support for native Rhino materials. The new material options available in Rhino 6 like ‘Fresnel reflectivity’, ‘Reflection polish’, ‘Trans. clarity’ as well as the preset material types (Glass, Metal, Paint, etc.) are now rendered correctly without the need for converting the Rhino material to a V-Ray shader
  • The utility function ‘Convert Rhino Material’ has been improved. Rendering a Rhino material and then converting it to a V-Ray shader will no longer change its appearance
  • The V-Ray for Rhino plugin information has been updated. A V-Ray logo icon has been used for the V-Ray plug-in entry in Rhino 6
  • The new animation API available in Rhino 6.4 has been utilized for V-Ray animation setups. The animation recording prompt window will no longer appear in Rhino 6. Camera and Sun animations will be automatically available for rendering once the Rhino set up has been finalized
  • The Material Conflict prompt window now displays info about the conflicting material and its origin file. The default conflict action and prompt toggle options are now saved per project and persist between sessions.V-Ray Fur viewport preview strand length is now based on the length parameter to give a better representation of what the rendered geometry will look like
  • Implemented Fur widget application dialog box
  • Changing a V-Ray Proxy input file now automatically changes the number of sub-material slots of its Multi-Material shader
  • 3dm files created with the ‘Export Selected’ Rhino function include only the associated V-Ray materials

V-Ray for Grasshopper

  • Implemented V-Ray Proxy component. Load any .vrmesh file and use it in the Grasshopper definition. Connecting an array of Plane Transformations to the Proxy component will produce multiple instances of the same geometry. It is now possible to use V-Ray for Grasshopper as a Proxy scattering tool
  • Connecting a list of colors to a V-Ray Preset and Simple materials will output a material with multiple instances and the input colors distributed in between them
  • Grasshopper Mesh/Vertex Color data will be passed as a UV mesh channel if specified. Vertex color information can now be sampled and used for shading purposes
  • The V-Ray Render in Project component automatically sends light sources created in Grasshopper and connected to a Light Rig to the Rhino scene
  • Implemented viewport preview for the V-Ray Camera
  • Implemented viewport preview for the V-Ray Rectangle and Sphere lights
  • Scene changes made by the V-Ray Instancer component will result in immediate update during Interactive Rendering
  • Display ‘number of objects’ message for V-Ray multi-item components

Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • V-Ray AppSDK updated to version 1.24.02
  • Chaos License Server (previously known as V-Ray License Server) updated to version 5.1.1
  • A number of issues with the Two Point Perspective Rhino camera type have been resolved
  • The ‘Enter/Return’ key can now be used to confirm/apply parameter changes made in the Rhino light properties panel
  • Batch Render now works properly with different Rhino language packs
  • Fixed Rhino 5 crashes caused by empty sub-material slots
  • Fixed an issue with vacating Proxy sub-material slots during Interactive rendering
  • Linked blocks and their associated assets are now included when using Pack Project
  • Override Material settings now works correctly during Interactive Render
  • Loading a new Rhino project and then closing it no longer shows the Save Changes prompt window
  • Fixed a number of issues with incorrect projection mode used in Batch Render for jobs including named views and animation
  • Selecting or deselecting a light source no longer triggers an update during Interactive Rendering
  • Improved rendered Rhino viewport performance while manipulating materials in the V-Ray Asset Editor

What’s new in V-Ray 3.60.02

Rhino 6 Compatibility

  • V-Ray is now fully compatible with Rhinoceros 6
  • Implemented a minimum host application version requirement during installation. V-Ray for Rhinoceros 6 is built to run on the official Rhino 6.2 version or later. This is now accounted for in the installer
  • Updated V-Ray Interactive viewport mode. Selections can now be viewed on top of the rendered image

Other Improvements & Bug fixes

See full release notes

What’s new in V-Ray 3.6

MORE POWERFUL GPU RENDERING
Faster, more powerful GPU rendering adds support for on-demand mip-mapping, aerial perspective, displacement, subsurface scattering, matte/shadows, and more.

HYBRID GPU+CPU RENDERING
V-Ray GPU running on NVIDIA CUDA can now take full advantage of all available hardware, including both GPUs and CPUs.

ADAPTIVE LIGHTS
In scenes with many lights, the new Adaptive Lights mode can help you speed up render times by up to 700%.

LIGHT INSTANCES
Lights can now be instanced and controlled as a single light in the Asset Editor.

STREAMLINED UI
The entire V-Ray for Rhino interface has been updated and streamlined for a more intuitive, user-friendly workflow.

FILE MANAGER
Manage all of your scene files in one place. Set file paths, create scene archives, and keep track of assets like textures, IES files, and proxy objects.

V-RAY COLOR PICKER
New color picker allows you to select color values in Screen sRGB (0–255) or Rendering (0.0–1.0) color space.

V-RAY SCENE IMPORT
Import and render V-Ray scenes (.vrscene) from other applications such as 3ds Max, Revit, and SketchUp.

FOG
Give your scenes depth with new realistic 3D fog and light scattering effects.

NEW TEXTURE MAPS
Fine-tune the look of your scene with new gradient, color temperature, and procedural noise texture maps.

2D DISPLACEMENT
Quickly add surface detail without extra modeling using the new optimized 2D displacement. It’s perfect for architectural materials like brick and stone.

ANIMATED PROXY OBJECTS
Easily add pre-animated 3D objects like walking people and trees blowing in the wind with animated V-Ray proxies.

PROXY PREVIEWS
Control the look of V-Ray proxies in the Rhino viewport. Select from Whole mesh, Bounding box, Point (Origin), Custom preview, and a new low poly Proxy preview mode.

IMPROVED DENOISING
The V-Ray Denoiser is now easier to set up and you can refine settings even after you render.

ANIMATIONS
V-Ray 3.6 for Rhino introduces a new simplified workflow for rendering light studies, turntables and fly-through animations.

V-RAY FOR GRASSHOPPER
V-Ray for Grasshopper is now quicker and simpler with new preset lighting and material setups. Grasshopper objects can be rendered directly as part of the Rhino scene without baking geometry.

CLOUD RENDERING EARLY ACCESS PROGRAM
Chaos Group’s seamless cloud rendering service debuts in V-Ray 3.6 for Rhino.

NOW COMPATIBLE WITH VRSCANS
Access to over 650 photorealistic, drag-and-drop materials. Learn more

What’s new in V-Ray 3.40.02

NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVED UI ADDED: V-Ray for Rhino 3.40.02 includes upgrades to the license server, user interface, light sources, and many more improvements. Your V-Ray for Rhino experience will be easier and smoother. This update is free for V-Ray 3.x for Rhino customers.

Highlights include:

  • License Server updated to version 4.4.
  • Match Viewport mode added to Render Output/Aspect Ratio drop-down menu. This matches the rendered image to the viewport’s aspect ratio.
  • Geometry Type icons added to the Asset Editors Geometry list. The icons identify the geometry type even if a custom name has been used.
  • Light Type icons added to the Asset Editors Light list. These icons identify the light source type, and enable or disable the light.
  • Side-by-side stereo output layout implemented.
  • Directionality parameter added to the Light Rectangle light source. This allows you to narrow the light and focus its direction.
  • Object as Clipper allows you to clip with a custom geometry (nurds or mesh).

What’s New in V-Ray 3.0 for Rhino

  • New UI: Designer-friendly user interface for faster and easier workflows.
  • Material library: Select from over 500 drag and drop materials to speed up your next project.
  • V-Ray Swarm: Render with maximum power using V-Ray’s new simple and scalable distributed rendering.
  • Denoiser: Automatically remove noise and cut render times by up to 50%.
  • Virtual Reality: Render virtual reality content for popular VR headsets.
  • Section cuts: Render quick cutaways and cross sections with V-Ray Clipper.
  • Aerial perspective: Add depth to your images with realistic atmospheric effects.
  • Grass & fur: Create realistic grass, fabrics and carpet with V-Ray Fur.
In Depth: why Should I use V-Ray?

In Depth: Why Should I Use V-Ray?

V-Ray is a powerful 3D rendering system that was built for designers, architects, and jack-of-all-trades. Learn about how artists use V-Ray.

More...
V-Ray 5 Creating Materials

Why V-Ray 5 Removes the Challenges of Creating Materials

Christopher Nichols explains the process of quickly creating materials with the new simplified Asset Browser and material presets in V-Ray 5.

More...
chaos group v-ray logo

Introduction to V-Ray Next Compilation

This is a compilation of the Introductory tutorials for V-Ray Next including 3ds Max, Revit, Sketchup, Rhino, Unreal, Modo and Houdini.  Most of these tutorials also have downloadable assets.

More...
v-ray next for rhino intro tutorial

Introduction to V-Ray Next for Rhino

Here are 2 tutorials to help you get started with V-Ray Next for Rhino.  One is designed for architects and the other for Designers.  Both tutorials also have a link to step by step instructions and tutorial assets.

More...
understanding metalness

Understanding Metalness in PBR workflow with V-Ray Next

Chaos Group has added a Metalness parameter to the V-Ray standard material in an effort to better support a PBR workflow in V-Ray Next.

More...
Chaos V-Ray for Rhino – Perpetual

Setting up a Remote Dongle Server for V-Ray

“If you’re a V-Ray user, there’s no doubt you get a bit paranoid about losing your dongle, especially when out in public.” - Dave Gigard

More...


California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Opt-Out IconYour Privacy Choices Notice at Collection