An update to V-Ray 2.0 is now available!

Chaos Group is pleased to announce an update to V-Ray 2.0, delivering outstanding new features and improvements, including enhanced GPU functionality using V-RayRT and new Hair and Fur capabilities.
New Hair and Fur Capabilities•
Render hair and fur with unprecedented quality, control, and speed using the new VRayHairMtl shader and VRayHairInfoTex map.
• Seamlessly render hair created using Ephere's Ornatrix plug-in with the new modifier - VRayOrnatrixMod.

 

V-Ray has become the renderer of choice in big production studios across the world. Feature film productions, multi-million dollar game productions, large and small architectural visualizations have trusted their visuals to V-Ray.

V-Ray Film & Visual Effects Demo Reel 2011

•    General overview of V-Ray 2.0 for Maya

•    V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU (preview on YouTube)
•    Support for dispersion in refractions for VRayMt (YouTube)
•    PTex textures (YouTube)
•    VRayCarPaint material (preview on YouTube)

 

 

Now, V-Ray for Maya enables the rendering of even larger scenes with greater complexity and artists can rely on a faster rendering process. The comprehensive list of features provided by V-Ray for Maya includes true 3D Motion Blur, Sun & Sky procedural lighting system, Physical camera for matching life footage, Environment Fog, a set of Sub-Surface Scattering shaders and many others. With official release of V-Ray for Maya in August 2009 V-Ray rendering solutions confirmed their image of indispensable tool that is always there help artists transform even the most ambitious creative visions into reality for both less time and lower cost without sacrificing quality

Key new Features:-

• Python callback for access to and modification of the translated V-Ray scene before rendering – this powerful feature allows you to directly modify the V-Ray scene before rendering to fit V-Ray seamlessly into your production pipeline; to access the full features of the V-Ray rendering engine and its plugins, even if they are not exposed in the user interface; to add your own custom V-Ray plugins without the need to code Maya plugins and much more.
• Support for the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 - use the new V-Ray 2.0 with the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 to create a wide range of procedural shaders for your projects.
• .V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU - the new interactive technology running both on CPUs and GPUs speeds up the shading and lighting stages of your production. With the new V-Ray 2.0 you can take full advantage of our state of the art interactive renderer. It can also be used for fast off-line rendering with support for motion blur on both CPU and GPU, and displacement, subdivision surfaces, hair and fur on the CPU.
• Faster rendering of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur, proxies, hair etc) - new internal optimizations have led to even faster rendering of dynamic geometry like displacement, proxies, fur and hair etc.
• Faster rendering of render-time subdivision surfaces, VRayFur and Maya hair - the new improved core of V-Ray 2.0 can render VRayFur, Maya hair and render-time subdivision surfaces much faster.
• VRayCarPaint material - create realistic car paint shaders complete with "Base", "Flakes" and "Coat" layers. Full mapping support allows for amazing flexibility and a wide range of effects.
• VRayToon shader - add amazing cartoon-like feeling to your renderings.
• Support for dispersion in refractions for VRayMtl - this option uses the new capabilities for wavelength-dependent raytracing of the V-Ray core and allows you to create stunning close ups of refractive objects with caustics that dazzle the eye.
• Automatic support for both Mari- and Mudbox-style tiled textures - V-Ray 2.0 can automatically load the correct texture bitmaps depending on the UV tiles of the rendered object.
•  PTex textures - with V-Ray 2.0 you can stop worrying about UV coordinates and use PTex textures instead. This state of the art technology allows the artist to be absolutely free in his or her creative process and skip the boring UV unwrapping.
•  Lens distortion through Nuke displacement maps - the VRayPhysicalCamera can use displacement maps from Nuke to completely mach the distortion of your real cameras.
• Option to turn off camera motion blur - V-Ray 2.0 gives you a separate control to enable or disable the motion blur coming from the movement of the camera.
• Support for rendering of Maya fluids - the new V-Ray 2.0 recognizes and renders Maya fluids directly, with full support for GI and light scattering inside the volume.
• Support for the Maya stereo camera in batch render mode - render your stereoscopic animations with V-Ray 2.0 and Maya batch render mode.
• The ply2vrmesh tool can convert RealFlow .bin files to .vrmesh files - with the new version of the ply2mesh tool V-Ray 2.0 users can render very large RealFlow simulations as VRayProxy objects with significantly improved memory efficiency
•  Extended irradiance map viewer tool – allows the incremental merge of irradiance map files to avoid redundant information; preview of light cache files; manual deletion of unwanted samples, and usage of OpenGL display lists for more interactivity.
• Img2tiledexr tool for mass conversion of many common image formats to tiled OpenEXR files
• Output of multi-channel scanline OpenEXR files with data-window - removes the need to manually convert the multichannel OpenEXR files produced by V-Ray to scanline-based OpenEXR files for efficient processing by compositing applications.
• Shutter efficiency for motion blur – render more realistic motion blur with manual control over the camera shutter efficiency.

 

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The next version of the V-Ray rendering engine will come not only with a number of great new and handy features but will also include V-Ray RT – the interactive rendering tool by Chaos Group and its GPU version. V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max will perfectly combine the V-Ray for 3ds Max production renderer, plus V-Ray RT on CPU and V-Ray RT on GPU and will become a complete rendering solution for the needs of every production pipeline.

An update to V-Ray 2.0 is now available!

Real-time Rendering Improvements

• Incorporate VRayProxy objects, texture-mapped area and mesh lights, Simple Skylight portals, and the VRayBlendMtl into an ultra-fast V-RayRT GPU workflow.
• Pan and zoom within V-RayRT's ActiveShade window using "Real Zoom."
Next-Generation Texturing
• Experience the benefits of Ptex, an innovative texturing method eliminating the need to assign UVs, using the new VRayPTex map. (Ptex is created by Walt Disney Animation Studios®)
V-Ray Frame Buffer Enhancements
• Load ICC profiles directly into the V-Ray Frame Buffer to ensure consistent color.
• Access to the V-Ray frame buffer from MaxScript.
• Right-click to access a new menu with important VFB features.
MetaSL Support
• Load textures and materials created in the meta shading language, MetaSL, using the new VRayGSLTex map and VRayGLSLMtl shader.

Download the V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max update today! or purchase V-Ray  for 3ds Max from our Online store

                                                          

Major features

• V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU interactive renderers are included as part of the V-Ray installation;
• VRayCarPaintMtl material with accurate flakes simulation;
• VRayDistanceTex texture that measures distances to arbitrary mesh objects;
• VRayLightSelect render element to extract the contribution of individual lights;
• VRayDRBucket render element to show which machine rendered a given bucket in DR mode;
• VRayLensEffects render effect for producing glow and glare with support for obstacle images and diffraction;
• VRayExposureControl plugin for proper exposure of regular viewport and camera views;
• VRayStereoRig controller for easy stereoscopic setup;
• Shade maps for faster rendering of stereo images, DOF and motion blur through the VRayStereoscopic helper;
• Dispersion in the VRayMtl material, utilizing the new support for wavelength-dependent ray tracing;
• Support for bidirectional path tracing for accurate unbiased lighting solutions;
• Directionality parameter for rectangle V-Ray lights to turn them into (textured) spot lights;
• Dynamic loading of tiled OpenEXR textures through the VRayHDRI texture;
• Command-line tool for mass conversion of textures to tiled OpenEXR files;
• V-Ray specific light lister;
• Integration of the various V-Ray components in the 3ds Max "Create" menu;
• Tools for calculating and rendering accurate camera distortion through .lens files;
• Support for MetaSL shaders.

Enhanced features

• Faster rendering of VRayProxy objects;
• Support for proper motion blur of Thinking Particles;
• Proper blending of gizmos for VRay Environment Fog;
• Improved raytracing precision in certain cases;
• Render history for the V-Ray VFB;
• Load and compare images directly in the V-Ray frame buffer;
• Support for rendering of VRayProxy objects as point clouds;
• Better representation of V-Ray lights in the new hardware viewport for 3ds Max 2010 and later;
• Retrace threshold for the light cache

V-Ray RT

V-Ray RT is a production-ready interactive raytracing technology. Created with the busy and rigorous 3D artist in mind, this topnotch raytracing technology allows immediate interaction between the user and the virtual environment.
V-Ray RT follows the user's actions while working on the scene and automatically and progressively generates a photorealistic preview of the scene. V-Ray RT fully supports: Interactivity, Animation, Illumination, Global illumination, Shading effects, Texturing, Camera effects, Color mapping, and Distributed rendering.

Please note that V-Ray RT is an "add-on" to the V-Ray Advanced package and NOT a stand-alone product. In order to take advantage of the rendering capabilities of V-Ray RT, the user must have a working installation of V-Ray 1.50.SP3 or later. The customer's existing V-Ray dongle can be reprogrammed to contain the extra
V-Ray RT license or they may purchase V-Ray and V-Ray RT and a license for both will be shipped on a single dongle for that order.

If you have any questions about the V-Ray RT or V-Ray Advanced package, please call Leigh on 082 926 0412 or 021 421 5501.

View the V-Ray Video

 

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Pdplayer is an advanced image sequence player supporting multi-layered sequence playback for the 3D, CG and VFX industry. Its incredible speed and ease of use make it an exceptional tool for review and quality control. Additionally, Pdplayer is capable of displaying .VRIMG files with embedded render elements.

This way you can preview and composite your V-Ray renderers much faster and easier than before.

Save your money, save your time, increase your pipeline..

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The new grid based simulator for fire, smoke and haze Phoenix Fluid Dynamics is officially released

Phoenix Fluid Dynamics is the latest product released by Chaos Software. The software perfectly combines a grid based simulator with outstanding rendering capabilities. In addition to the usual uniform fluid behavior, Phoenix FD is capable of simulating a whole array of additional processes like pressure decay, thermal radiation cooling and mass-temperature dependence. 
Fluids are substances that continually deform, such as liquids, gases, plasma etc. Phoenix FD lets you simulate these fluids in 3ds Max. The simulation is stored in a finely subdivided 3D box, or grid, where each cell contains the fluid's properties at that location. These properties include temperature, mass and velocity. During the simulation Phoenix will transfer cell contents from cell to cell according to velocity over time, and also change the properties in the cells according to physical rules. The resulting simulation is then used for rendering

 

 

The industry’s top rendering solution available as a standalone product for Autodesk 3D products.

Mental ray^® Standalone software is a high-performance rendering engine for generating images, from stylised to photorealistic. Although mental ray rendering technology is featured in certain Autodesk applications: Autodesk^® Maya^® 2012, Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® 2012, Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® Design 2012 and Autodesk^® Softimage^® 2012 software, the standalone version is best suited for larger-volume rendering projects.

Mental Ray

Mental ray Standalone is an offline rendering product. It works independently of Maya, 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design and Softimage software through a command-line interface, or acts as the foundation of a distributed rendering solution when used with Maya, 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design or Softimage. mental ray Standalone is used primarily when additional rendering capabilities are required beyond the built-in mental ray capabilities of these Autodesk applications. mental ray is typically used in an internal render farm setup and can be used to supplement and accelerate interactive rendering (for example, Maya software’s interactive photorealistic rendering).

mental ray® Standalone 2012 software delivers new features and enhancements designed to help studios to produce higher-volume, higher-quality renderings for today’s complex film, television and design visualisation productions in less time. With accelerated performance and enhanced quality, support for advanced shaders plus extended use of open file formats, mental ray Standalone 2012 offers a professional solution to artists and developers seeking to get more from their renderer. Furthermore, mental ray Standalone 2012 continues to take advantage of hardware advances to power its innovative iray^® interactive rendering technology, with support for new GPUs.

RenderMan for Maya 4.0

RenderMan® for Maya® 4.0 is the latest version of Pixar's advanced rendering plug-in for Maya, featuring Pixar's award-winning RenderMan renderer.Highlights in version 4.0 include a series of significant performance enhancements, which should be immediately apparent on many scenes.