V-Ray Changelogs

V-Ray 6 for SketchUp, Update 2

December 2023

More V-Ray Scatter capabilities
Populate your scenes with grass, trees, rocks, and light sources in a few clicks. The updated Scatter tool introduces new scattering modes along grids, curves, and within volumes, as well as area modifiers so you can limit the scatter area. Plus, you’ll find more transformation settings for finer control over your scattered objects.

Chaos Cosmos IES lights import
Cosmos assets with built-in IES light sources are importable and ready for rendering, offering expanded lighting choices from Cosmos.

VFB improvements
Enhance your editing experience with a number of enhancements to the VFB (V-Ray Frame Buffer). The new Chromatic Aberration effect adds color distortion similar to real-world lens imperfections, giving your projects subtle realism. Easily create folders within the layers stack for easier navigation. Quickly create simple backgrounds with the new plain color in the Background layer.

Improved viewport materials
Do you ever use SketchUp viewport screenshots for presentations? Now, you can display procedural textures and their corrections within the viewport, enabling a better design and presentation process.

Better V-Ray scene import
Experience a more seamless .vrscene import process from Enscape and other applications. The UI for materials and textures not originally designed for V-Ray in SketchUp has been upgraded significantly. Additionally, scenes created in Enscape import faster thanks to an improved approach to handling texture buffers.

V-Ray GPU – Enmesh support
GPU users can now take advantage of V-Ray Enmesh, the perfect tool for tiled geometric patterns.

One-click to Chaos Cloud
Enjoy a much more intuitive and faster workflow for rendering scenes on Chaos Cloud in the click of a button.

V-Ray 6 for SketchUp, Update 1

June 2023

Better compatibility with Enscape
A seamless transfer of Enscape’s exposure, cloud and environment settings.

Decal Cylindrical Projection
Apply stickers, labels, or surface imperfections onto cylindrical objects such as bottles, jars, cups, or cans with just a few clicks.

Decal Additive Bump
Effortlessly merge surface and decal bumps and bring your product designs to a whole new level of realism. Create lifelike stickers, labels, embossed logos, lettering, or any other bumpy surface.

Decal Displacement
Use V-Ray Decal to add displacement to any surface for even more realistic effects such as cracked walls, rocks, embossed lettering, and more.

Improved Procedural Clouds
With the new V-Ray Sky contrails layer you can simulate airplane contrails within your design, expanding the possibilities for realism and artistic expression.

Enhanced V-Ray Material
With the new self-illumination parameters you can easily generate emissive and semi-emissive materials.

Extended Animations
New animation capabilities enable you to create and render cutaway animation while respecting object visibility.

Access To More Assets
Enhance your projects with an even wider selection of pre-made patterns. You can now easily browse and import Enmesh presets from Chaos Cosmos.

Mesh Clipper Support
Render intricate cutaways and sections of any mesh object with ease with V-Ray GPU.

Masking For Lens Effects
Choose specific lights and materials to apply lens effects.

V-Ray Light Material Post-Processing
Refine V-Ray Emissive Materials with LightMix and edit self-illuminating objects in your scene even after rendering.

Panorama Image Preview
Fine-tune your spherical renders in 360° directly within the V-Ray Frame Buffer.

Cloud Collaboration Visual Annotations
Visual annotations to easily communicate your ideas — make use of words, lines, arrows, and many more figures to illustrate what you mean.

Cloud Collaboration Versioning
Upload and share different versions of your files for review and enable a smoother decision-making process.

V-Ray 6 for SketchUp

Oktober 2022

V-Ray & Enscape Compatibility
With V-Ray 6 it is possible to directly convert real-time scenes from Enscape and make them as photo realistic as possible. Because Enscape materials, objects, and lights are supported, all design decisions are preserved during the different design stages. This ensures flawless collaboration between designers and visualization experts.

Procedural Clouds
Add just the right clouds to any scene without spending hours browsing through HDRI libraries. The new procedural cloud system is a flexible and memory-efficient way to create any cloudy sky and animate it for impressive timelapse presentations.

V-Ray Enmesh
Create complex geometric patterns on object surfaces to make panels, fences, fabrics, and more in an automated and memory-efficient way.

Finite Dome Light
Fine-tune the scale and add depth to the environment of projects when using image-based lighting with this new V-Ray Dome Light mode.

Distance Texture
Vary effects such as displacement or procedural fur based on proximity for a realistic correlation between elements in a scene. Create a well-trodden path through a procedural lawn or form dark spots under downspouts.

Better Translucent Materials
Render translucent materials like frosted glass or marble faster with the V-Ray Materials improved subsurface scattering mode.

Enhanced Dirt Texture
Place dirt with higher precision by adding or excluding objects.

Iridescent Material
Easily create iridescent materials such as soap bubbles, oil spills, and more with the new Thin Film option available in the V-Ray Material.

More Accurate Reflections
Metals and rough reflective materials are displayed more accurately thanks to a new energy conservation technique.

Pause Your Renders
Pause and resume renders at any time.

Asset Tags
Group assets using the new tag system in the Asset Editor to improve scene organization in complex projects.

ACEScg Color Management
Take advantage of a wider color palette for render output with the industry-standard ACEScg color coding system.

V-Ray 5.2 for SketchUp

November 8, 2021

Scatter
Add hundreds of objects on any surface in an intuitive and memory-efficient way. Users can disperse multiple objects simultaneously and control their size, orientation, and density for maximum realism.

Chaos Vantage Live Link
The most complex scenes can now be explored in pure ray traced real-time with zero setup. Users can navigate and interact with the model’s true lighting and materials, and create animations and images with ease. An NVIDIA® RTX card is required to make the most of Vantage.

Chaos Cosmos Materials
Chaos’ collection of render-ready content now also contains materials, which users can use out-of-the-box and also customize their color, bump, gloss and more.

V-Ray Material Improvements
The new thin-walled reflection control allows users to effortlessly create complex transparent and translucent materials.

Decals
Easily project unique materials onto objects of any shape to create effects like graffiti on a wall, markings on a road, or logos on a product.

More Artistic Control in Post
The V-Ray Frame Buffer now has a sharpen and blur effect to polish final renders.

Render Log
A detailed view of the rendering process making debugging and error reporting easier.

New Possibilities in V-Ray Vision

• Standalone app export – Share a project via an executable file which recipients can open even without having a V-Ray license so they can enjoy the full functionality of V-Ray Vision – including navigation controls, color correction parameters and more!
• Video export in WebM format.
• Sun animations from SketchUp can now be loaded into Vision for lighting studies.
• Preset grass can now be added to any surface for more realistic terrains.
• IES light profiles can now be used for more realistic presentations in Vision.
• And more performance and quality improvements.

V-Ray 5.1 for SketchUp

November 8, 2021

Chaos Cosmos Library
The new curated 3D content library, Chaos Cosmos, brings essential assets from categories such as people, vehicles, plants, furniture and accessories. Herewith users can stage any interior or exterior without the need to spend any time on geometry optimization or material setup—the Cosmos assets are always render-ready and deliver high-quality results.

More Precision in Post
Any mask render element from V-Ray can be used to select and color correct specific areas of the rendered image directly in the VFB.

Faster Denoising for CPU
The new Open Image Denoise engine is perfect for interactive rendering. As it runs on any CPU configuration, users are not constrained to specific hardware.

New Possibilities in V-Ray Vision

• Reflections on transparent materials like water and glass.
• Improved anti-aliasing
• Triplanar textures and randomization support
• Soft Sun shadows

V-Ray 5 for SketchUp

November 2020

V-Ray Vision
You are familiar with the real time preview of your render. But this is new! Now you can visualize your designs in real-time while continue working in SketchUp. Move around your model, apply materials, set up lights and cameras – all in a real-time view of your scene.

Light Mix
Once your render is finished, you can interactively adjust the brightness and color of any light without having to render again.

VRayUVWRandomizer
An irritating and apparent repeating texture is no longer visible thanks to this tool that randomizes texture coordinates and includes Stochastic Tiling

Improved Sun and Sky Model
Render your scene at the perfect light of magic hour. The Improved Sun & Sky model is more accurate, with a better looking sunrise and sunset, even as the sun dips below the horizon.

Optimized V-Ray Core
V-Ray 5 offers a faster and better rendering experience.
New software architecture
Much faster scene loading and scene export thanks to the newly refactored V-Ray backend.

Light Gen Tool
Setup the lighting in your scene by choosing an automatically generated thumbnail in a number of environment lighting scenarios. Choose your favorite look and you’re ready to go!

Post-Processing Directly in V-Ray
A new V-Ray Frame Buffer with built-in compositing, so you can make color corrections, combine render elements and save them as presets to be used in future—all without needing another app.

New Layered V-Ray Material
The V-Ray Material now includes built-in Coat and Sheen layers. Coat makes it easy to create materials with reflective coatings like varnished wood, and Sheen makes it easy to create fabrics like silk, satin, and velvet.

Improved Contour Rendering
The global Contours control gives you more control over linework, making it easier than ever to give your renders an illustrative look.

Dirt and Weathering
All that glitters is not gold… Give your SketchUp models a weathered look with the improved V-Ray Dirt texture. Add dirt and streaks anywhere—in corners or across entire surfaces.

New Documented API
For developers looking to create and connect tools with V-Ray for SketchUp, Chaos Group has added a new fully documented API to make it as easy as possible.

V-Ray Next for SketchUp, Update 2.2

August 12, 2020

The update contains the following improvements:

• Improved matte elements generation
• Applying textures no longer activates SketchUp’s standard Colorize material option
• Better Sunlight caustic photon emission
• Enhanced CUDA engine stability
• Boosted compatibility with some of SketchUp’s most popular plugins, especially ones utilizing V-Ray Proxy Meshes

V-Ray Next for SketchUp, Update 2.1

May 14, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

• Consistent image quality between CPU, CUDA and RTX engines
• Resolved issues with the Undo and Redo features in SketchUp while using V-Ray
• More stable workflows with progressive rendering, .vrscene export, proxy meshes and animations

V-Ray Next for SketchUp, Update 2

March 11, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

SketchUp 2020 Support
V-Ray supports the latest version of SketchUp.
RTX Support — Boost the GPU performance with NVIDIA RTX technology (only available with supported hardware).

Proxies with Materials
Import or create a proxy mesh asset and V-Ray will automatically generate a set of material slots, making it easier to manage materials.

Color Assistant
Choose the exact color with the right hue, saturation and value variation with the Color Assistant, V-Ray Color Picker’s new extension.

Improved Materials
Optimized underlying shading structure of all scene materials, so advanced attributes can now be added or removed without cluttering the material properties.

Unified Installer
Smooth, single-step installation of all the components included in the V-Ray package.

Color Themes
A new “Bright” color theme is now available for the V-Ray user interface.

Partial Scene Export
Export only the current selection as a .vrscene file containing its applied materials, lights and other V-Ray special objects.

VRscans Enhancement
The VRscans material now includes a triplanar texture projection mode, removing the need for UV mapping of objects that use the material.

V-Ray Next for SketchUp, Update 1

October 24, 2019

This update contains the following improvements:

Optimized Interactive CPU Rendering
Interactive editing of scene cameras, lights and materials is more responsive.

Improved User Experience
It’s easier and smoother to use your favorite V-Ray tools, including light creation, Infinite Plane and Scene Interaction.

SketchUp Colorization Support
Make color corrections on standard SketchUp materials and see the effect right away in the V-Ray Frame Buffer.

Color Picker Temperature
The V-Ray color picker introduces a Kelvin temperature slider so you can save and modify a temperature value for every color slot.

Cryptomatte Element
The Cryptomatte render element automatically generates and stores object- or material-based masks — perfect for accurately selecting objects in post-production.

Quick Denoiser Engine Switch
Switch from V-Ray to NVIDIA AI denoising with a toggle in the main renderer rollout.

Updated VFB Lens Effects
Simulate real-world camera lens effects with new procedurally generated dust and scratches.

And More…

V-Ray Next for SketchUp

February 2019

SketchUp Pro 2019 Support
V-Ray Next for SketchUp supports the latest version of SketchUp Pro, version 2019.

Powerful Scene Intelligence
Automatically analyzes your scene to optimize rendering — so you get the best quality in less time.

Adaptive Dome Light
Faster, cleaner and more accurate image-based environment lighting. Up to 7x faster than before.

NVIDIA AI Denoiser
Instantly remove noise while rendering. Based on AI-accelerated denoising technology by NVIDIA.

2x Faster Rendering
Faster rendering with GPU-ready features.

Powerfull Asset Management
Search, select and preview assets (including material setups) all from one location.

A Deep SketchUp Connection
Better scene management and import V-Ray Scenes from other 3D applications.

Efficient Render Control
The new Auto Exposure and Auto White Balance controls will help you get a perfect image every time!

New Masking Methods
Render masks for objects based on RGB colors or material IDs.

New Materials and Textures
The standard V-Ray Material is compatible with PBR metallic reflections that are popular in game engines and other tools such as Substance Designer.

V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp v3.60.03

June 27, 2018

This update contains the following improvements:

Animation Improvements
The way animations are handled internally has been changed, enabling more advanced workflows.

New VRScene Features

• Imported VRScene geometry can be clipped
• VRScene animation playback controls are exposed
• Scatter VRScenes with the Skatter plugin for SketchUp;
• And much more…

V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp v3.60.02

February 20, 2018

This update contains the following improvements:

New Camera Focus Modes
Focal distance can now be determined based on the distance between the camera and target, or a fixed point in 3D space, so focus can dynamically change during batch or animation rendering.

Camera Exposure Toggle
Exposure can now be preserved while changing the distance between the camera and its target.

Multi Matte Render Element
This element works together with V-Ray Object ID assignments to produce RGB color masks perfect for image post-processing.

Use Camera Path Option
This setting calculates the global illumination for the entire camera path and significantly speeds up the process of rendering camera fly-through animations.

User Interface Improvements
Camera settings have been reorganized, some options have been re-designed and simplified, and the layered material, material options and raytrace properties section has been added.

V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp

November 15, 2017

SketchUp Pro 2018 support

Streamlined UI
The entire V-Ray for SketchUp interface is now cleaner and simpler, with better support for 4K monitors.

Viewport Rendering (VPR)
Render live directly in the SketchUp viewport, select and render mutiple regions, and quickly blend between your V-Ray render and SketchUp model using the +/- hotkeys to control opacity.

Powerful GPU & Hybrid Rendering
Faster, more powerful GPU rendering capabilities and V-Ray GPU running on NVIDIA CUDA taking full advantage of all available hardware (CPUs and GPUs).

VRscans
Now compatible with real-world scanned materials from VRscans with over 600 photorealistic, drag-and-drop materials to bring a new level of realism to any scene.

V-Ray 3.0 for SketchUp v3.40.03

June 8, 2017

This update contains the following improvements:

• Updated License Server (v4.4);
• Match Viewport mode has been added to the Render Output;
• Geometry Type icons have been added to the Asset Editors Geometry list, making it possible to identify the geometry type even if a custom name has been used;
• Light Type icons have been added to the Asset Editors Light list, making it possible to identify the light source type and to enable or disable the light;
• Side-by-side stereo output layout has been implemented.

V-Ray 3.0 for SketchUp v3.40.02

April, 13 2017

This update includes the following improvements:

• V-Ray Swarm now also works with macOS
• Denoiser improvements
• Added toolbar controls
• Viewport enhancements

V-Ray 3.0 for SketchUp

March 8, 2017

SketchUp 2017 Support
V-Ray 3 for SketchUp is compatible with SketchUp 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Online Licensing
With online licensing, licenses can be activated in real-time once an order is processed. This option is only available for new licenses.

New User Interface
A designer-friendly user interface for faster workflows.

Material Library
Over 200 drag and drop materials to speed up your next projects.

V-Ray Swarm
A powerful, scalable distributed rendering system that’s simple and fast.

Denoiser
Automatically remove noise and cut render times by up to 50%.

One-click VR
Render VR-ready content for popular virtual reality headsets.

Section Cuts
Easily create quick cutaways and section renders with V-Ray Clipper.

Aerial Perspective
Quickly add realistic atmospheric depth and haze.

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

V-Ray 2.0 for SketchUp, Service Pack 3

September 2013

This update supports the latest version of SketchUp Pro, version 2015.

V-Ray 2.0 for SketchUp, Service Pack 2

October 1, 2014

This update includes the following improvements:

• V-Ray Express: Access to over 200 materials and interchangeable lighting setups for quickly creating realistic studio scenes and lighting models. V-Ray Express is available as a separate download in the V-Ray for SketchUp download section.
• Pack All V-Ray Materials: Archive your V-Ray for SketchUp materials and all external files into a single ZIP file for easy sharing or backup.
• Improved Support for V-Ray Frame Buffer Channel.
• Enhancements and fixes to the Batch Render tool.
• And much more…

V-Ray 2.0 for SketchUp, v2.00.24

March 19, 2014

• V-Ray seamlessly integrates and supports SketchUp Pro 2014;
• The new Batch Render Tool allows the user to render all scene tabs in a SketchUp file with the click of a button;
• When clicking the RT button during an RT render it now automatically refreshes the scene;
• And lots more…

V-Ray 2.0 for SketchUp

September 2013

V-Ray RT
A revolutionary new rendering engine that provides instant feedback and streamlines scene setup. Because V-Ray RT is built upon the same robust core as V-Ray, it is seamless to transition between V-Ray RT and production rendering. V-RAY RT does allow you to switch between CPU and GPU (CUDA cores) rendering in order to give you the full power of your hardware available.

Dome Light
Provides a simple, artifact-free solution for creating image based lighting. Its powerful importance sampling analyzes HDR images to optimize light tracing and GI precision.

V-Ray Proxy
Indispensable tool for managing scene memory and efficiently rendering massive amounts of geometry. V-Ray Proxy objects are dynamically loaded and unloaded at render time, saving vital RAM resources.

Lens Effects (Glare / Bloom)
Simulate the natural lens effects that occur when photographing highlights.

Retrace Threshold
Reduces Light Cache artifacts and improves the appearance of glossy reflections and refractions when using the time-saving feature – Use light cache for glossy rays.

Sphere Light
Create spherically shaped area lights.

Lights as Components
V-ray lights can now be part of a SketchUp component. This makes it easy to change the design and settings of multiple lights at one time.

Faster Parsing Times
Major speed improvements have been made when processing the SketchUp scene for rendering with V-Ray.

64-Bit Support

SketchUp Pro 2013 Support

V-Ray for SketchUp v1.49.01

January 20, 2011

In addition to compatibility with Google SketchUp Pro 8, the new version includes several bug fixes and changes:

• Roughness is now a new parameter under diffusion (affecting the brightness and glossiness of material reflections).
• V-Ray’s “Default Material” is now called “Standard.”
• TexSky now uses values from the SunLight plug-in, with additional parameters for full control over the sun and sky.
• No more crashes when loading non-existent visopt/vismat files.
• DRSpawner no longer crashes when a computer goes to sleep (Mac OS X).
• Texture paths are now correctly imported.
• Saving as Unicode from the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) is now possible.
• And much more…

V-Ray for SketchUp v1.48.83

June 22, 2010

This version includes the following updates:

• Improved distributed rendering (rendering with multiple computers).
• Enhancements in material editing.
• Fixed issues with locating file and material names.
• SketchUp no longer crashes during V-Ray rendering.
• Resolved a bug in the V-Ray Frame Buffer that prevented scaling.
• Minor fixes in material preview.
• Addressed issues with value fields on non-English operating systems.
• R2P.rb is now correctly located, even when SketchUp is not installed in the default path (e.g., Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp or another iteration with the SketchUp version number).

V-Ray for SketchUp

February 15, 2010

The release of V-Ray for SketchUp on Mac OS X also introduced a new version with features such as:

• More textures.
• Over 10 new procedural textures (computer-generated), including dirt for extra realistic renderings.
• Support for IES profiles for greater accuracy.
• Improved layering of materials.
• Faster scene processing.
• Support for SketchUp transparency and alpha transparency.

V-Ray 6 for Rhino, Update 2

December 11, 2023

More Scattering Capabilities
Effortlessly add grass, trees, rocks, and light sources to your scenes with just a few clicks. The updated Scatter tool introduces advanced scattering modes across grids, curves, and volumes.

VFB Improvements
Enhance your editing process with several upgrades to the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB). The new Chromatic Aberration effect adds color distortion similar to real-life lens imperfections, giving your projects subtle realism. Improve navigation by effortlessly organizing layers into folders within the stack. Additionally, you can swiftly generate simple backgrounds using the new plain color feature in the Background layer.

Better V-Ray Scene Import
Importing V-Ray scenes from Enscape and other applications is now a smoother and more efficient process with the V-Ray scene importer. Experience a significantly improved UI for materials and textures, which were not originally designed for V-Ray in Rhino, and enjoy much faster import of Enscape scenes thanks to an optimized texture buffer management method.

V-Ray GPU Enmesh Support
V-Ray GPU now supports Enmesh, offering GPU users the ability to utilize this tool to effortlessly create tiled geometric patterns.

Improved Viewport Materials
Enhanced viewport materials now showcase procedural textures and their adjustments directly within the SketchUp viewport. This upgrade significantly improves the experience, especially for users who frequently incorporate viewport screenshots into their project presentations.

One-Click to Chaos Cloud
Experience a significantly more intuitive and accelerated workflow when submitting scenes for rendering on the Chaos Cloud. It’s as effortless as clicking a button.

Chaos Cosmos IES Lights Import
Cosmos assets with built-in IES light sources are importable and ready for rendering, offering expanded lighting choices from Cosmos.

V-Ray for Grasshopper
V-Ray for Grasshopper now offers volumetric effects for heightened realism in atmospheric rendering. Achieve lifelike skies with natural atmospheric depth, or incorporate haze and fog with authentic light scattering. Moreover, the latest scatter feature is accessible within V-Ray for Grasshopper, with additional components to simplify scattering setup and configuration.

V-Ray 6 for Rhino, Update 1

June 7, 2023

Better Compatibility with Enscape
A seamless transfer of Enscape’s exposure, cloud and environment settings.

Decal Cylindrical Projection
Apply stickers, labels, or surface imperfections onto cylindrical objects such as bottles, jars, cups, or cans with just a few clicks.

Decal Additive Bump
Effortlessly merge surface and decal bumps and bring your product designs to a whole new level of realism. Create lifelike stickers, labels, embossed logos, lettering, or any other bumpy surface.

Decal Displacement
Use V-Ray Decal to add displacement to any surface for even more realistic effects such as cracked walls, rocks, embossed lettering, and more.

Improved Procedural Clouds
With the new V-Ray Sky contrails layer you can simulate airplane contrails within your design, expanding the possibilities for realism and artistic expression.

Enhanced V-Ray Material
With the new self-illumination parameters you can easily generate emissive and semi-emissive materials.

Improved Compatibility of V-Ray Lights
V-Ray lights now retain changes to their own properties, rather than applying them to the Rhino source, which also improves compatibility with Enscape.

Access to More Assets
Enhance your projects with an even wider selection of pre-made patterns. You can now easily browse and import Enmesh presets from Chaos Cosmos.

Mesh Clipper Support
Render intricate cutaways and sections of any mesh object with ease with V-Ray GPU.

Masking for Lens Effects
Choose specific lights and materials to apply lens effects.

V-Ray Emissive Material Post-Processing
Refine V-Ray Light Materials with LightMix and edit self-illuminating objects in your scene even after rendering.

Panorama Image Preview
Fine-tune your spherical renders in 360° directly within the V-Ray Frame Buffer.

Cloud Collaboration Visual Annotations
Visual annotations to easily communicate your ideas — make use of words, lines, arrows, and many more figures to illustrate what you mean.

Cloud Collaboration Versioning
Upload and share different versions of your files for review and enable a smoother decision-making process.

Textures and Mapping Controls
Achieve breathtaking skies and environments with the newly added V-Ray procedural texture components, like sky, gradients and color and texture mixing. Refine the environment projection and texture 2D mapping to your exact specifications.

Improved Lights
All light components now feature a Unit parameter, such as watts or lumens, which enables you to establish real-world light intensity.

Cloud Rendering
You can now export your Grasshopper designs directly for cloud rendering, including all types of animations.

V-Ray 6 for Rhino

October, 4 2022

V-Ray & Enscape Compatibility
With V-Ray 6 it is possible to directly convert real-time scenes from Enscape and make them as photo realistic as possible. Because Enscape materials, objects, and lights are supported, all design decisions are preserved during the different design stages. This ensures flawless collaboration between designers and visualization experts.

Procedural Clouds
Add just the right clouds to any scene without spending hours browsing through HDRI libraries. The new procedural cloud system is a flexible and memory-efficient way to create any cloudy sky and animate it for impressive timelapse presentations.

V-Ray Enmesh
Create complex geometric patterns on object surfaces to make panels, fences, fabrics, and more in an automated and memory-efficient way.

Finite Dome Light
Fine-tune the scale and add depth to the environment of projects when using image-based lighting with this new V-Ray Dome Light mode.

Distance Texture
Vary effects such as displacement or procedural fur based on proximity for a realistic correlation between elements in a scene. Create a well-trodden path through a procedural lawn or form dark spots under downspouts.

Better Translucent Materials
Render translucent materials like frosted glass or marble faster with the V-Ray Materials improved subsurface scattering mode.

Enhanced Dirt Texture
Place dirt with higher precision by adding or excluding objects.

Iridescent Material
Easily create iridescent materials such as soap bubbles, oil spills, and more with the new Thin Film option available in the V-Ray Material.

More Accurate Reflections
Metals and rough reflective materials are displayed more accurately thanks to a new energy conservation technique.

Pause Your Renders
Pause and resume renders at any time.

Asset Tags
Group assets using the new tag system in the Asset Editor to improve scene organization in complex projects.

ACEScg Color Management
Take advantage of a wider color palette for render output with the industry-standard ACEScg color coding system.

V-Ray 5.2 for Rhino

November 15, 2021

Scatter
Add hundreds of objects on any surface in an intuitive and memory-efficient way. Users can disperse multiple objects simultaneously and control their size, orientation, and density for maximum realism.

Chaos Vantage Live Link
The most complex scenes can now be explored in pure ray traced real-time with zero setup. Users can navigate and interact with the model’s true lighting and materials, and create animations and images with ease. An NVIDIA® RTX card is required to make the most of Vantage.

Chaos Cosmos Materials
Chaos’ collection of render-ready content now also contains materials, which users can use out-of-the-box and also customize their color, bump, gloss and more.

V-Ray Material Improvements
The new thin-walled reflection control allows users to effortlessly create complex transparent and translucent materials.

Decals
Easily project unique materials onto objects of any shape to create effects like graffiti on a wall, markings on a road, or logos on a product.

More Artistic Control in Post
The V-Ray Frame Buffer now has a sharpen and blur effect to polish final renders.

Render Log
A detailed view of the rendering process making debugging and error reporting easier.

New Possibilities in V-Ray Vision

• Standalone app export – Share a project via an executable file which recipients can open even without having a V-Ray license so they can enjoy the full functionality of V-Ray Vision – including navigation controls, color correction parameters and more!
• Video export in WebM format.
• Sun animations from Rhino can now be loaded into Vision for lighting studies.
• Preset grass can now be added to any surface for more realistic terrains.
• IES light profiles can now be used for more realistic presentations in Vision.
• And more performance and quality improvements.

V-Ray 5.1 for Rhino

March 3, 2021

Chaos Cosmos Library
The new curated 3D content library, Chaos Cosmos, brings essential assets from categories such as people, vehicles, plants, furniture and accessories. Herewith users can stage any interior or exterior without the need to spend any time on geometry optimization or material setup—the Cosmos assets are always render-ready and deliver high-quality results.

More Precision in Post
Any mask render element from V-Ray can be used to select and color correct specific areas of the rendered image directly in the VFB.

Faster Denoising for CPU
The new Open Image Denoise engine is perfect for interactive rendering. As it runs on any CPU configuration, users are not constrained to specific hardware.

New Possibilities in V-Ray Vision

• Reflections on transparent materials like water and glass.
• Improved anti-aliasing
• Triplanar textures and randomization support
• Soft Sun shadows

V-Ray 5 for Rhino

November, 24 2020

V-Ray Vision
A real-time revelation for anyone working in Rhino or Grasshopper. Now, you can explore a real-time view of your scene as you set up lights and cameras, and apply materials. V-Ray Vision enables you to speed up decision making and iterations by giving you the ability to:

Explore Your Model

• Collaborate on design decisions
• Easily save images and 360 panoramas
• Export real-time animations

Light Gen Tool
Setup the lighting in your scene by choosing an automatically generated thumbnail in a number of environment lighting scenarios. Choose your favorite look and you’re ready to go!

Light Mix
Once your render is finished, you can interactively adjust the brightness and color of any light without having to render again.

New Layered V-Ray Material
The V-Ray Material now includes built-in Coat and Sheen layers. Coat makes it easy to create materials with reflective coatings like varnished wood, and Sheen makes it easy to create fabrics like silk, satin, and velvet.

Updated Material Library
You can download & use a vast array of high-resolution 4K textures from V-Ray’s library on demand. You can easily browse, test and employ hundreds of render-ready materials.

Post-Processing Directly in V-Ray
A new V-Ray Frame Buffer with built-in compositing, so you can make color corrections, combine render elements and save them as presets to be used in future—all without needing another app.

V-Ray for Grasshopper Improvements
There are a handful of new additions to V-Ray for Grasshopper. Through a V-Ray Vision Live Link component in Grasshopper, design work can be visualized in real-time. With V-Ray Clipper quick cutaways and section renders can easily be created. And the addition of the Stereo Camera effect gives more creative freedom when presenting the final renders.

Improved Sun and Sky Model
Render great looking sunrises and sunsets, even when the sun is below the horizon. Plus, the orientation of the sun can now be controlled directly from V-Ray for creative effect.

VRayUVWRandomizer
An irritating and apparent repeating texture is no longer visible thanks to this tool that randomizes texture coordinates and includes Stochastic Tiling.

Improved Contour Rendering
The global Contours control gives you more control over linework, making it easier than ever to give your renders an illustrative look. Nice to have now that Penguin is discontinued!

Dirt and Weathering
All that glitters is not gold… Give your Rhino models a weathered look with the improved V-Ray Dirt texture. Add dirt and streaks anywhere—in corners or across entire surfaces.

Optimized V-Ray Core
V-Ray 5 offers a faster and more stable rendering experience with an optimized V-Ray Core and improved V-Ray GPU.

New Software Architecture
Much faster scene loading and scene export thanks to the newly refactored V-Ray backend.

New Documented API
For developers looking to create and connect tools with V-Ray for Rhino, Chaos Group has added a new fully documented API to make it as easy as possible.

V-Ray Next for Rhino, Update 2.2

August 12, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

• Improved matte elements generation
• Enhanced CUDA engine stability
• More stability across lights naming
• Improved Bongo animation image output control

V-Ray Next for Rhino, Update 2.1

May 14, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

• Consistent image quality between CPU, CUDA and RTX engines
• Full support for Rhino viewport region rendering commands
• Grasshopper improvements like object animation frames together with the Rhino project and extended script access
• More stable workflows with MultiMatte render elements and displacement in Grasshopper

V-Ray Next for Rhino, Update 2

March 26, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

RTX Support
Boost the GPU performance with NVIDIA RTX technology (only available with supported hardware).

Decals Support
With support for Decals, you can add images to paintings, signs, screens and more. Decals work with both native and V-Ray materials.

Proxies with Materials
Import or create a proxy mesh asset and V-Ray will automatically generate a set of material slots, making it easier to manage materials.

V-Ray for Grasshopper Enhancements
A number of improvements including bitmap textures, vertex colors, virtual reality camera types and many more.

Partial Scene Export
Export only the current selection as a .vrscene file containing its applied materials, lights and other V-Ray special objects.

Improved Materials
Optimized underlying shading structure of all scene materials, so advanced attributes can now be added or removed without cluttering the material properties.

Color Assistant
Choose the exact color with the right hue, saturation and value variation with the Color Assistant, V-Ray Color Picker’s new extension.

VRscans Tri-planar Texture
It’s easy to apply VRscans materials to objects, removing the need for explicit UV mapping.

Extended Script Access
The updated V-Ray scripting API provides more options to start a render. You can save and load settings from a .vropt file for even more control over your scene setup.

Color Themes
A new “Bright” color theme is now available for the V-Ray user interface.

V-Ray Next for Rhino, Update 1

September 26, 2019

This update contains the following improvements:

Enhanced Material Workflow
Create V-Ray materials directly in Rhino’s Materials panel.

Smart Functionality
Support for the Cryptomatte render element, which makes it easier to select objects for post-production.

Superior Grasshopper Support
Create even more advanced animation setups from Grashopper and export V-Ray scenes and geometry files based on Grasshopper definitions.

Performance Optimizations
Speed boost through improved interactive CPU rendering and a new Light Cache algorithm.

And more…

V-Ray Next for Rhino

March 13, 2019

Powerfull Asset Management
Search, select and preview lights, materials, textures and more all from one location.

Efficient Render Control
From the new camera layout to the simplified render controls; you’ll spend less time navigating and more time designing.

Superior Grasshopper Support
Render parametric design directly from Grasshopper without needing to ‘bake’ or export.

New Materials and Textures
The standard V-Ray Material is compatible with PBR metallic reflections that are popular in game engines and other tools such as Substance Designer.

Adaptive Dome Light
Faster, cleaner and more accurate image-based environment lighting. Up to 7x faster than before.

Powerful Scene Intelligence
Automatically analyzes your scene to optimize rendering — so you get the best quality in less time.

2x Faster Rendering
Faster rendering with GPU-ready features.

NVIDIA AI Denoiser
Instantly remove noise while rendering. Based on AI-accelerated denoising technology by NVIDIA.

V-Ray 3.6 for Rhino

february 7, 2018

Powerful GPU & Hybrid Rendering
Faster, more powerful GPU rendering capabilities and V-Ray GPU running on NVIDIA CUDA taking full advantage of all available hardware (CPUs and GPUs).

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

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.

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

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.

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

VRscans
Now compatible with real-world scanned materials from VRscans with over 600 photorealistic, drag-and-drop materials to bring a new level of realism to any scene.

V-Ray 3.4 for Rhino v3.40.02

June 21, 2017

This update contains the following improvements:

• Updated License Server (v4.4);
• Match Viewport mode has been added to the Render Output;
• Geometry Type icons have been added to the Asset Editors Geometry list, making it possible to identify the geometry type even if a custom name has been used;
• Light Type icons have been added to the Asset Editors Light list, making it possible to identify the light source type and to enable or disable the light;
• Side-by-side stereo output layout has been implemented.

V-Ray 3.0 for Rhino

April 5, 2017

Online Licensing
With online licensing, licenses can be activated in real-time once an order is processed. This option is only available for new licenses.

New User Interface
A designer-friendly user interface for faster workflows.

Material Library
Over 500 drag and drop materials to speed up your next projects.

V-Ray Swarm
A powerful, scalable distributed rendering system that’s simple and fast.

Denoiser
Automatically remove noise and cut render times by up to 50%.

Virtual Reality
Render VR-ready content for popular virtual reality headsets.

Section Cuts
Easily create quick cutaways and section renders with V-Ray Clipper.

Aerial Perspective
Quickly add realistic atmospheric depth and haze.

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

V-Ray 2.0 for Rhino – v2.00.25962

July 24, 2015

V-RayRT GPU

This update contains the following improvements:

• Material previews in “Rendered” display mode are now faster;
• File loading is optimized and much faster;
• V-Ray displacement uses less memory and is faster;
• Added support for HDRLS 5. Painting lights in a scene is easier than ever. Support for HDRLS 4.0 is still available;
• Newly optimized “ignore objects” code to improve diamond rendering
• An issue with Material updates is now fixed;
• Improved stability when detaching from a work session;
• Fixed VFB and mouse freeze;
• Removed bug which led to large files crashing BatchRender.

V-Ray 2.0 for Rhino – Service Pack 2

November 25, 2014

This update includes the following improvements:

• Performance enhancements that speed up DR renders.
• Support for relative paths for bitmap textures.
• An improved batch render tool for easier use.
• The “Sun Modify Light” button now uses the last settings if the light direction remains the same.

V-Ray 2.0 for Rhino – Service Pack 1

October 2, 2014

This update includes the following improvements:

• V-Ray Express Toolbar: Access to over 200 materials and interchangeable lighting setups.
• Batch Render: Queue files and render them in a single batch.
• Display in Viewport: New texture manipulation option gives control over which textures are visible in the Rhino Viewport.
• Pack All V-Ray Materials: Archive your V-Ray for Rhino materials and all external files into a single ZIP file for easy sharing or backup.
• Improved support for V-Ray Frame Buffer Channel.
• New toolbar for Batch Render, Guess Lens Shift, Edit Material, and Focus Point tools.

V-Ray 2.0 for Rhino

December 2013

V-RayRT GPU
You can now take advantage of up to 30 times faster render speed with GPU support for V-RayRT.

V-Ray Express
Quickly apply over 200 materials, create a combination of realistic setups and illuminate your models with preconfigured studio and environment lights.

Rendering Presets
With a collection of interior and exterior rendering presets you can quickly switch between draft and high quality rendering settings.

Camera Presets
Quickly switch between different exposure setups for illumination scenarios, like cloudy sky and interior natural light.

V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino – v1.50.22564

January 9, 2013

This update includes the following improvements:

• When rendering Rhino’s basic materials, V-Ray now uses the alpha in the color texture as transparency.
• The progress window can now be closed.
• V-Ray has highlighted the “Save alpha separate” option in the output settings when render output is automatically saved.
• Nested blocks are now rendered correctly.
• Displacement now works with multi-materials (materials for proxy objects).
• And much more…

V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino – Update

June 21, 2012

This update includes the following improvements:

• More stable Distributed Rendering.
• Real-Time rendering now responds better to events in Rhino; unnecessary refreshes have been removed, and a “lock viewport” option has been added.
• Resolved issues with scene updates.
• Improved scene loading times.
• Enhanced user interface.

V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino

March 2012

V-RayRT
A revolutionary new rendering engine that provides instant feedback and streamlines scene setup. Because V-RayRT is built upon the same robust core as V-Ray, it is seamless to transition between the two.

Dome Light
Provides a simple, artifact-free solution for creating image based lighting. Its powerful importance sampling analyzes HDR images to optimize light tracing and GI precision.

V-Ray Proxy
Indispensable tool for managing scene memory and efficiently rendering massive amounts of geometry. V-Ray Proxy objects are dynamically loaded and unloaded at render time, saving vital RAM resources.

Lens Effects (Glare / Bloom)
Simulate the natural lens effects that occur when photographing highlights.

Dispersion
Provides the ability to trace and refract light based on its wavelength, creating even more realistic results.

Retrace Threshold
Reduces Light Cache artifacts and improves the appearance of glossy reflections and refractions when using the time-saving feature – Use light cache for glossy rays.

Ambient Occlusion
Generates shading based on an object’s proximity, making it an effective solution for enhancing GI details without significantly increasing render time.

VRayDirt
Simulates shading around corners and crevices of objects based on a radial distance. VRayDirt can be used to produce a variety of effects, including ambient occlusion renderings.

Interpolation (Reflections and Refractions)
Accelerates rendering by approximating and caching the effects of glossy reflections and refractions.

IES Light
Uses photometric data to provide accurate light definition.

Sphere Light
Adds a spherical area light to the V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino toolset.

Additional Parameters
Such as roughness for diffuse BRDFs, along with exit color and max. depth for reflections and refractions, provide new levels of control when creating materials in V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino.

Better Rhino Integration

• V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino supports the RDK Sun and can be used in conjunction with the VRaySun/ Sky system.
• V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino supports the 32 and 64 bit versions of Rhino 5.0 as well as the 32 bit version of Rhino 4.0

V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max, Update 2

November 30, 2023

Enscape Compatibility
Effortlessly transfer data from Enscape to V-Ray. Fine-tune and add details to transform real-time designs into sophisticated, high-end visualizations.

MaterialX Support
Complete your USD workflow with MaterialX. Now, you can render and seamlessly exchange shaders across teams using different DCCs or switch tools yourself.

Enhanced USD Support
V-Ray now supports the latest official version of Autodesk 3ds Max USD so you can benefit from the latest functionalities and performance improvements.

Chaos Cloud One-Click Submit
Submitting your renders to the cloud is now easier and more convenient than ever. With just one click, access Chaos Cloud rendering.

Faster .vrscene Export
Exporting complex scenes containing lots of scattering plug-in data can be time-consuming. Now you can speed up your workflow with up to 20x faster exports.

Unified V-Ray Lister
Manage all your lights and cameras from a single location. The V-Ray Lister now offers an enhanced user interface. Explore new features for bulk adjustments, filtering, searching, and more.

V-Ray Enmesh
Tile 3D geometry patterns across objects to create complex surfaces with lots of detail for stunning close-up shots. Enmesh is ideal for creating intricate panels, fences, fabrics, and so much more, and it uses much less memory than displacement or copying by hand.

Faster Animation Rendering
Render image sequences up to 4x faster with V-Ray GPU. V-Ray now caches bitmaps between animation frames, eliminating the need for reloads, leading to a substantial increase in rendering speed.

Groups Hierarchy
Effortlessly distribute multiple objects in groups or within a hierarchy. With Chaos Scatter, complex distributions are simplified to just a few clicks, streamlining your workflow and enhancing overall efficiency.

Altitude
Create even more realistic scatters by controlling the distribution of objects based on surface height. Achieve natural altitude variance in vegetation, or experiment with the value for your desired look.

Look at
Boost realism by adjusting the orientation of scattered items—rotate away or toward a selected object. Choose an axis or tweak the Falloff curve for even more creative freedom.

Chromatic Aberration
Elevate your renders with added realism thanks to the new chromatic aberration post-effect, or explore and craft distinctive looks, directly within V-Ray’s Frame Buffer—no third-party applications needed.

Custom Background Color
When performing color corrections in the V-Ray Frame Buffer, you can now opt for a solid color background instead of loading an image.

Chaos Cosmos IES Lights
Illuminate your interiors faster than ever before. Our ever-expanding library of ready-to-render assets, Chaos Cosmos, now lets you import 3D light models, including realistic IES light profiles, in just a few clicks.

V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max, Update 1

15 februari 2023

Masking for Lens Effects & Denoiser
Choose specific lights and materials to apply lens effects to, or denoise the parts of your image that you’d like to smooth out.

V-Ray Light Material Post-Processing
Edit self-illuminating objects in your scene — even after you’ve rendered.

Decal Cylindrical Projection
Easily add anything from stickers and labels to different kinds of surface imperfections to bottles, jars, cups, cans, rockets, tanks, fire hydrants, or any other cylinder-like object.

Decal Additive Bump
Take your product designs to new levels of realism with lifelike stickers, labels, embossed logos, lettering, and more. Or easily create effects such as spray or paint on a cracked wall, corroded metal, or any other bumpy surface.

Custom Resolution per Camera
Quickly set custom aspect ratios for each of your V-Ray cameras, saving precious frame setup time.

Initial USD Export and USD Stage Support
Export V-Ray lights, materials, modifiers, and more to USD file format.

Faster Heavy Scene Loading
Load scenes with lots of textures and geometry faster than before.

Viewport Composition Guides
With composition guides inside the V-Ray Physical Camera, you can cut back on iterations and save render time.

Faster Fog Rendering
V-Ray Environment Fog now renders up to 30% faster.

Compressed Textures Mode
On average, V-Ray GPU uses 50% less GPU memory on assets with 4K textures.

V-Ray Clipper Mesh Mode
Render complex cut- aways and sections using any mesh object.

New V-Ray Material Translucency
Thanks to a new algorithm, translucent objects now render up to 2x faster.

Render Element Support through Refractive Surfaces
V-Ray GPU now also supports Material ID, Cryptomatte, and Multimatte render elements through refractive surfaces.

Visual Annotations
Use visual annotations in Chaos Cloud Collaboration to easily communicate your ideas – add lines, arrows, and many more figures to illustrate what you mean.

Versioning
Upload and share different versions of your files for review in Chaos Cloud Collaboration.

V-Ray Light Custom Decay
Easily create artistic effects with V-Ray Light’s Custom Decay, which allows you to dictate how light transmits based on the source distance.

NVIDIA AI Denoiser Upscaling
Experiment with NVIDIA’s new AI Denoiser that promises to greatly speed-up rendering times.

Enhanced Procedural Clouds
Customize how dark your clouds are, randomize them in countless combinations, and add the final touch with contrails.

V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max

July 11, 2022

New License Model
Render with V-Ray in any host application and benefit from the powerful suite of Chaos products and services with just a single license. More info here.

Chaos Scatter
Create forests, fields, crowds, and more using the new scatter tool. It’s fast and easy, and it lets the user add lots of detail to the scene without using lots of memory. Free Scatter presets are also available in Chaos Cosmos.

V-Ray Enmesh
With Enmesh, the user can think of geometry like a texture — but rather than repeating an image over a surface, it uses tileable geometry. Enmesh is ideal for creating patterns such as fences and fabrics, and it uses much less memory than displacement or copying by hand.

V-Ray Proxy Object Hierarchy
Easily turn on or off an individual object’s visibility or material override with the new V-Ray Proxy hierarchical view. Set custom order by name, and streamline the geometry exchange and custom library workflows.

V-Ray Decal with Displacement
The user can now use V-Ray Decal to add displacement to any surface for even more realistic cracked walls, rocks, embossed lettering, and more.

Chaos Cloud Collaboration
Get rapid, consolidated feedback on the work’s progress. Upload renders to Chaos Cloud Collaboration right from V-Ray’s Frame Buffer, and share work with colleagues and clients to add comments and annotations.

Procedural Clouds
Craft just the right cloudy sky for the environment in just a few clicks with V-Ray’s new procedural clouds system.
New ground projection — Elevate HDRI environment renders with the new, more flexible ground projection capabilities of the V-Ray Dome Light.

Texture Batch Load
Add variety to scenes even faster than before and create shader variations in no time with the new texture batch load option inside VRayMultiSubTex.

Light Mix Light Selection
Easily access scene lights with the option to select them directly from the Light Mix interface.

V-Ray Material Faster SSS
Render translucent materials even faster with a brand-new V-Ray Material SSS mode.

Enhanced V-Ray Material Energy Preservation
Render even more physically accurate rough metals and other reflective surfaces with enhanced V-Ray Material energy preservation.

Thin Film Layer
Create realistic soap bubbles, oil spills, and more with the new Thin Film option in the V-Ray Material.

Faster UI Draw Times
Get a smoother experience when working with shading networks. V-Ray’s materials and textures interface now comes with much faster load times.

Composition Guides Layer in VFB
Fine-tune scenes’ compositions without a separate application. With customizable overlays, the new composition guides layer in the VFB allows the user to easily experiment and enhance image compositions.
VFB Panorama Viewer — Preview spherical panorama renders while rendering, right from the V-Ray Frame Buffer.

V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, Update 2

November 15, 2021

Decals
Easily project unique materials onto objects of any shape to create effects like logos, cracks, stains and more.

Chaos Cosmos Materials
Chaos’ collection of render-ready content now also contains materials, which users can use out-of-the-box and also customize their color, bump, gloss and more.

More Artistic Control in Post
The V-Ray Frame Buffer now has a sharpen and blur effect to polish final renders.

V-Ray Instancer Lights Distribution
More versatile ways of distributing lights in the scene. Instance your lights based on any kind of particle system.

Atmospheric Light Contribution Control
Improved control to speed up your lighting setup. Easily tweak how much an individual light illuminates the environment fog around it.

Extended Material Override
In addition to update 1’s extensive global override functions, you can now preserve a scene’s materials’ original reflection, coat, sheen, and displacement.

Extended V-Ray Dirt
New advanced options in VRayDirt ensure precise and agile control over weathering effects.

Chaos Cloud Updates
An improved cloud rendering experience to speed up project delivery. Displacement is now consistent with V-Ray for 3ds Max, and initial support for SiNi scatter and Anima 4D.

GPU Updates
New V-Ray Material translucency and support for Sparse Volumes using Nvidia’s NanoVDB library are now available on V-Ray GPU.

Initial Support for Pixar’s USD Format
With USD, you can smoothly exchange large amounts of data between DCC tools. And you can reference and render USD files in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

Rendering Animations with Vantage
Render 3ds Max animations with Vantage via live link.

Improved UI Draw Times
Faster UI loading time for most commonly used materials.

V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, Update 1

March 4, 2021

Chaos Cosmos Library
The new curated 3D content library, Chaos Cosmos, brings essential assets from categories such as people, vehicles, plants, furniture and accessories. Herewith users can stage any interior or exterior without the need to spend any time on geometry optimization or material setup—the Cosmos assets are always render-ready and deliver high-quality results.

More Precision in Post
Any mask render element from V-Ray can be used to select and color correct specific areas of the rendered image directly in the VFB.

Faster Denoising for CPU
The new Open Image Denoise engine is perfect for interactive rendering. As it runs on any CPU configuration, users are not constrained to specific hardware.

Multiple Additive Dome Lights
Easily craft lighting from multiple environment sources in a single render and tweak the results with LightMix.

Advanced Material Override
Preserve a scene’s original opacity, bump, refraction and self-illumination, giving even more creative control.

Progressive Caustics
V-Ray’s new progressively calculated caustics achieve real-world reflections and refractions in less time.

Batch Camera Rendering
Optimize the rendering workflow with a vrscene export of all cameras in a scene.

V-Ray Camera Lister
Easier camera management with the new Camera Lister.

Auto-Translation of Physical Materials
Autodesk’s Physical Materials are auto-translated to V-Ray materials without additional conversions.

New V-Ray Material Translucency
Achieve more realistic translucency results with simpler control parameters based on V-Ray Scatter Volume technology.

Improved V-Ray Material in Viewport
Representations of V-Ray materials in 3ds Max viewports are now closer to the final render, giving a better idea of how final results will look.

V-Ray GPU Light Cache
A GPU speed boost. Faster sampling and consistent lighting between IPR and production rendering with Light Cache calculated on V-Ray GPU.

Improved tyFlow Support
Boosted tyFlow support when using Chaos Cloud and V-Ray GPU.

Improved Cryptomatte Support
Improved Cryptomatte support to separate objects by their submaterials.

V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max

June 17, 2020

Light Mixing
Explore lighting possibilities interactively in real-time. Use LightMix in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer to freely experiment with lighting changes after you render, save out permutations, and push back improvements you’d like to have in your scene.

Layered Compositing
The new Layer compositor lets you fine-tune and finish your images directly in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer — without the need for a separate post-processing app.

Material Manager
Efficiently browse from a library of over 500 render-ready materials including metals, glass, wood and more.

Material Presets
Save time creating common materials with presets for aluminum, chrome, glass and more.

Material Previews
New rendered material swatches show you exactly what your materials will look like.

Coat Layer
Add reflective coatings directly in the updated V-Ray Material, saving you both material creation and rendering time vs. using Blend material.

Sheen Layer
Create soft microfiber fabrics like velvet, satin and silk with the new Sheen options in the updated V-Ray Material.

Texture Randomization
Add variety to your scene with the new VRayUVWRandomizer map and enhanced VRayMultiSubTex controls.

Stochastic Texture Tiling
Automatically remove texture tiling artifacts with the new Stochastic tiling option on the VRayUVWRandomizer.

Extended V-Ray Dirt
Weathered streaks and dirt in crevices are now easy with the enhanced V-Ray Dirt, which now employs both ambient and inner occlusion.

New Sun and Sky Model
Reproduce the subtleties of twilight when the sun is below the horizon with the new Sun and Sky model.

Light Path Expressions
Use the behavior of light, rather than just geometry, to produce flexible masks for very efficient compositing. Built-in presets make getting started easy, while scripting is there for ultimate control.

Blue-Noise Sampling
Achieve better noise distribution with fewer samples.

Native ACEScg Support
Select industry-standard ACEScg for rendering with automatic color space adjustment for textures, dispersion, sun & sky, and light temperature colors.

Initial Out-of-Core
Initial out-of-core implementation to handle your largest scenes.

V-Ray Next for 3ds Max, Update 2

June 13, 2019

This update contains the following improvements:

• Debug Shading – Easily isolate textures, materials and geometry to help debug large shading networks in V-Ray IPR and V-Ray GPU IPR.
• V-Ray Toon shader – Quickly add cartoon and cel-shading effects to your 3D projects.
• V-Ray GPU support for alSurface material – A general-purpose shader with layered SSS and glossy fresnel reflections on V-Ray GPU.
• Memory tracking – Optimize your scenes with the new memory usage report for textures and objects.
• And more…

V-Ray Next for 3ds Max, Update 1

December 18, 2018

This update contains the following improvements:

New Viewport IPR
Keep working while you render.

New Lens Effects
New glare and bloom lens effects.

GPU Bucket Rendering
Accelerated multi-GPU performance and distributed rendering, plus support for Cryptomatte render elements.

New GPU Dispersion
In V-Ray GPU, render highly accurate light refractions that split into their component colors.

Faster Fog with GPU
Quicker, better sampling of environment fog to rapidly add depth to scenes with V-Ray GPU.

Mimic Rolling Shutter
Emulate the warped motion blur effects common in digital video and cell phone cameras.

New Glint & Glitter Controls
The V-Ray Physical Hair material adds new Glint and Glitter controls for better highlights.

Improved Lighting Render Elements
Improved lighting passes provide artifact-free results independent of light sampling.

V-Ray Next for 3ds Max

May 29, 2018

Powerful Scene Intelligence
Automatically analyzes your scene to optimize rendering — so you get the best quality in less time.

Adaptive Dome Light
Faster, cleaner and more accurate image-based environment lighting. Up to 7x faster than before.

Point & Shoot Camera
Perfect renders are as easy as taking a snapshot with new Automatic Exposure & White Balance.

2x Faster GPU Rendering
Fast new GPU rendering architecture with support for more of your favorite high-end production features.

GPU Volume Rendering
V-Ray GPU now supports blazing fast rendering of volumetric effects like smoke, fire and fog.

NVIDIA AI Denoiser
Instantly remove noise while rendering. Based on AI-accelerated denoising technology by NVIDIA.

Lighting Analysis
Accurately measure the light levels in your scene using new lighting analysis tools.

Physical Hair Material
Render more realistic-looking hair with accurate highlights and melanin color controls.

V-Ray Switch Material
Apply several materials to the same object and select the one you want at render time.

V-Ray Plugin Material & Texture
Load any texture or material that’s available in V-Ray Standalone and render it in V-Ray Next.

Denoised Render Elements
Denoise individual render elements for added control in compositing. Supports animation.

Layered Alembic Workflows
Supports Alembic 1.7 and layers for efficient handling and updating of Alembic data.

V-Ray 3.6 for 3ds Max

June 28, 2017

3ds Max 2018 support

Hybrid Rendering
V-Ray GPU CUDA now renders on CPUs as well as GPUs, to take full advantage of all available hardware.

NVIDIA NVLINK
Supports shared GPU memory across NVLink compatible graphics cards.

Full Light Select Render Element
Now with full support for GI, reflections and refractions for accurate light mixing in post.

Cryptomatte
Automatically create ID mattes with support for transparency, depth of field, and motion blur.

V-Ray 3.5 for 3ds Max

12 april 2017

Online Licensing
With online licensing, licenses can be activated in real-time once an order is processed. Only available for new licenses.

Interactive Production Rendering
Fully interactive production rendering with immediate feedback on both V-Ray CPU and GPU.

V-Ray Scene Node
Import and render complete scene files created in any V-Ray application.

Glossy Fresnel
New, physically-accurate reflection model adds realism to any scene.

Resumable Rendering
Ability to stop and continue rendering at any point, preserving work and saving time. Supports both progressive and bucket rendering.

Live VR Rendering
Render directly to Oculus Rift or HTC Vive with full GPU acceleration. Visualize changes within the headset as they are made in 3ds Max.

Interactive Lens Effects
GPU-accelerated glare and bloom effects that can be enabled and adjusted while rendering. Compatible with V-Ray Denoiser.

Forest Color Support
Color variation support in Forest Pack by iToo Software. Available for V-Ray CPU and GPU.

alSurface Material
General-purpose shader by Anders Langlands includes built-in SSS controls; popular for skin.

MDL Materials
NVIDIA’s universal material format is now supported by V-Ray, allowing designers to apply MDL materials authored in programs like Substance Designer to their assets and scenes.

V-Ray 3.4 for 3ds Max

June 8, 2016

• Compatibility with 3ds Max 2017;
• A new V-Ray Denoiser cutting render times by up to 50%;
• GPU rendering improvements;
• Control over the color of atmospheric haze;
• Support for top/bottom VR output;
• V-Ray Light Cache calculations are up to 15% faster;
• V-Ray RT improvements;
• Improved usage of GTR / GGX materials;
• V-Ray Frame buffer updates.

V-Ray 3.3 for 3ds Max

22 december 2015

• Render most scenes up to 20-50% faster;
• A new variance-based adaptive sampler – a new algorithm that makes renders quicker to setup and removes the need to set subdivisions for lights and materials;
• Ray Traced Rounded Corners – for perfectly smooth edges at render time;
• New Sky Model and Aerial Perspective – for realistic natural-looking environments;
• Triplanar Mapping – for simple, UV-less textures;
• Improved V-Ray Clipper with Render-time Booleans – for cutaways using any arbitrary mesh;
• Stochastic Flakes – for more realistic materials like snow, sand, and car paints.

V-Ray 3.2 for 3ds Max

June 12, 2015

• 3ds Max 2016 support
• Two new VR cameras with output to Oculus Rift and Samsungs Gear VR
• New V-Ray RT GPU features, including QMC sampling with nVidia CUDA, displacement and Texture baking
• Add or remove distributed rendering nodes on the fly
• Improved Global Illumination
• New preview types of proxy objects
• Faster rendering of hair and fur

V-Ray 3.1 for 3ds Max

February 4, 2015

• V-Ray RT GPU now supports VRayDirt and VertexColor
• VRayMetaBall supports Maxscript vertex color source
• VRayProxy disables Force first map channel option by default
• .vrmesh viewer adds a slider to control point size of particles
• .vrmesh viewer enables OpenGL point smoothing when point size is greater than 1.0

V-Ray 3.0 for Max, Service Pack 1

December 11, 2014

This update contains the following improvements:

• V-Ray RT GPU now supports hair and fur, subsurface scattering and light cache;
• New Microfacet GTR / GGX BRDF, perfect for hard surfaces like metal;
• New VRayInstancer geometric plugin for instancing objects using ParticleFlow systems;
• Added support for OpenSubdiv objects in Alembic files;
• A number of V-Ray Frame Buffer improvements;
• Updated to Embree 2.3; Embree can now accelerate V-Ray Proxy objects, instances and Hair Farm / Ornatrix hair and fur.

V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max

February 3, 2014

Artist-Friendly Controls
Designed with new and experienced users in mind, V-Ray 3.0 offers a simplified user interface with fast access to common settings. Render set up is now faster and easier with V-Ray 3.0’s Quick Settings. Artists can choose from a variety of production presets and fine tune quality with slider controls. And a new V-Ray Toolbar puts all popular V-Ray tools in one place

Faster Ray Tracing and Rendering Performance
Optimizations to V-Ray’s ray tracing core make rendering in V-Ray 3.0 significantly faster. Depending on scene complexity beta users are reporting speed increases up to 5X.

Faster Feedback
Using a powerful path-tracing engine, V-Ray 3.0’s new Progressive Image Sampler delivers instant feedback to artists and makes look development faster and more intuitive. An improved V-Ray Frame Buffer adds Lens Effects and advanced color corrections for Contrast, HSL, and Color Balance.

Production-Focused Tools
New tools designed to give artists more control and flexibility include Max Ray Intensity, Probabilistic Light Sampling, Reflection/Refraction Trace Sets, and Render Mask to specify exact render regions with an object selection or image mask.

Advanced Characters and Creatures
Improvements to character and creature workflows include Faster Hair Rendering, Ray Traced Subsurface Scattering, and a new VraySkinMtl shader. MARI UDIM and Autodesk Mudbox UVTILE support have also been added.

V-Ray 2.4 for 3ds Max (v2.40.04)

June 13, 2013

Compatibility with 3ds Max 2014
V-Ray now seamlessly integrates with Autodesk 3ds Max 2014.

Support for MultiScatter in V-Ray RT
The new service pack enhances integration between V-Ray and MultiScatter, allowing users to effectively render millions of polygons with V-Ray RT.

Modified Default Settings for VFB’s sRGB Button, “Don’t affect colors” Option, and “Gamma” Value
V-Ray’s default settings have been adjusted for a linear workflow from the outset.

V-Ray 2.3 for 3ds Max (2.30.01)

May 14, 2012

This update includes a comprehensive list of improvements, such as:

• Support for 3ds Max 2013.
• Motion blur is now supported in V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU.
• Optimized interactive rendering using NVIDIA CUDA™ in addition to OpenCL.
• The reflection/refraction of the VRayWrapperMtl now includes a matte option.
• Reduced memory usage for dynamic geometry (proxies, displacement, etc.).
• And much more…

V-Ray 5 for Revit, Update 2

February 2, 2022

This update contains the following improvements:

Linked Replacements Control
Total creative control over V-Ray material and object replacements in the BIM model’s linked files from within the host project. Reuse previous work and achieve visual consistency.

Scatter
Add hundreds of objects on any surface in an intuitive and memory-efficient way. Users can disperse multiple objects simultaneously and control their size, orientation, and density for maximum realism.

Chaos Vantage Live Link
The most complex scenes can now be explored in pure ray traced real-time with zero setup. Users can navigate and interact with the model’s true lighting and materials, and create animations and images with ease. An NVIDIA® RTX card is required to make the most of Vantage.

Chaos Cosmos Improvements

• Chaos’ collection of render-ready content now also contains materials, which users can use out-of-the-box and also customize their color, bump, gloss and more.
• Object’s Material parameters such as color can now be changed or you can completely replace a material to get the desired look.
• All Cosmos family items are now conveniently organized into a separate sub-tab of the Families tab, making it easier to access and distinguish them.

V-Ray Material Improvements
The new thin-walled reflection control allows users to effortlessly create complex transparent and translucent materials.

More Artistic Control in Post
The V-Ray Frame Buffer now has a sharpen and blur effect to polish final renders.

V-Ray Vision Improvements

• Standalone App Export – Share a project via an executable file which recipients can open even without having a V-Ray license so they can enjoy the full functionality of V-Ray Vision – including navigation controls, color correction parameters and more!
• Native sun studies from Revit can now be loaded into Vision for lighting studies.
• Preset grass can now be added to any surface for more realistic terrains.
• IES light profiles can now be used for more realistic presentations in Vision.
• Ambient Light Mode to give a brighter presentation of scarcely lit spaces like interiors without direct sunlight.
• And more performance and quality improvements.

V-Ray 5 for Revit, Update 1

February 2, 2022

This update contains the following improvements:

Easy Lighting Experimentation
Create natural lighting variants with the Light Gen tool.

Revit Material Conversion
Promote Revit materials to V-Ray materials and take advantage of the advanced material workflows.

Batch Rendering on the Cloud
Multiple views can now be submitted for simultaneous Chaos Cloud rendering.

Network Storage Support for Cosmos
Save Cosmos models on shared storage, including mapped drives, UNC paths and services like Google Drive, Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive.

More Cosmos Assets
The Chaos Cosmos library has now more than 850 assets with the addition of new furniture, accessories, lighting fixtures, vehicles, 3D people, and two new content partners.

Faster Denoising for CPU
Take advantage of fast interactive rendering on any CPU configuration with the Open Image Denoise engine.

Improved Aerial Perspective
More control over realistic atmospheric effects for exterior images.

V-Ray 5 for Revit

March 2, 2021

Real-Time Visualization
V-Ray Vision gives users a realistic real-time view of their model as they develop it. They can rapidly iterate, make better design decisions and communicate more effectively with stakeholders working on the project.

Render-Ready 3D Assets
V-Ray comes with a curated asset library — Chaos Cosmos. Users can effortlessly create real-world context for their model’s interior and exterior by adding high-quality entourage from essential categories including furniture, acce- ssories, lighting, vegetation, vehicles and people.

Post-Processing inside Revit
No need for a separate app for compositing or color corrections — they can be handled with V-Ray and saved as presets for future projects.

Realistic Displacement for Revit Materials
In V-Ray 5, displacement is not limited to V-Ray materials — it’s an asset of its own that’s easy to apply to native materials.

Sketch ideas with a Click
The new global Contours setting gives a sketch-like look to concepts. They can be applied to the whole model or used selectively to highlight certain objects.

New Lighting Capabilities
The new Light Mix feature can be used to experiment with all the light sources in a scene after it’s been rendered. Lights can be grouped, their brightness adjusted and their color changed to find what best fits the space.

Randomization for Realistic Textures
The UVW Placement asset randomizes texture coordinates and colors of V-Ray materials to make them appear as they would in the real world. And, with Stochastic Tiling, repeating patterns are a thing of the past.

Single Material Setup for Repeating Proxies
In V-Ray for Revit, materials must be assigned every time a proxy is added. With the V-Ray Asset Editor, users can specify the materials once, save them and populate their scene without setting up proxies again.

More Creative Freedom with the Sun & Sky
Studying a design’s interaction with natural light has never been easier. With more control over the sky generation parameters and access to our improved sky model, sunrises and sunsets will look better than ever.

Coat and Sheen Layers
The V-Ray material is upgraded with two new layers. With the Coat layer, it’s easy to create polished surfaces. Utilizing the Sheen layer quickly produces realistic fabrics such as velvet, satin or silk.

Improved Material Library
The render-ready Material library saves users time with access to over 500 high- resolution 4K textures such as glass, metal, wood and many more.

Dirt & Weathering
Weathering effects can be added to any surface of a model with the improved V-Ray Dirt texture.

V-Ray Next for Revit, Update 1

May 14, 2020

This update contains the following improvements:

• Support for Revit 2021
• Leverage the GPU power with NVIDIA RTX card support
• Multiple views with individual lighting, mood and composition
• Batch Rendering – Render multiple project images while you are away
• Extra realism with Revit’s Solar Study
• Automatically calculated exposure and white balance values

V-Ray Next for Revit

December 17, 2019

New Asset Editor
Create, edit, save and manage your V-Ray materials all in one place with the new Asset Editor.

Appearance Manager
Set basic Revit assets to automatically switch to more realistic V-Ray assets at render time.

Randomize Proxy Objects
Add variety to your scene entourage by randomizing the scale and rotation of V-Ray Proxy and V-Ray Scene instances.

V-Ray Scene Linking
Link render-ready V-Ray scene files (.vrscene) from your favorite V-Ray applications, complete with geometry, lights and materials.

Lighting Analysis
Easily visualize real-world illumination values (lux) with the new Lighting Analysis render element.

Revit Decals
Add images to paintings, signs, screens and more.

Auto Exposure and White Balance
The V-Ray Physical Camera can now set the correct camera exposure and white balance automatically.

Faster Rendering
On average, V-Ray Next for Revit has been optimized to render twice as fast as the previous version. And with the new Adaptive Dome Light, image-based lighting is now faster than ever.

Settings and Work-Sharing
V-Ray settings are now stored within your Revit files, making it easy for you to adopt and share the same render settings across teams and projects.

Improved Denoising
A new NVIDIA AI Denoiser uses artificial intelligence to remove noise in an instant.

V-Ray 3.7 for Revit

June 19, 2018

Fully Interactive Rendering
Now with support for live geometry changes, you can render your full scene while you design.

Revit 2019 Support
Now compatible with Revit 2019 and its new Opaque, Transparent, Metal and Layered material types.

V-Ray 3.6 for Revit

february 12, 2018

Faster Scene Export
With new optimizations and smart caching, translation and rendering of complex scenes is now up to 4 times faster.

New Asset Browser
View all materials and proxy objects, and select and edit multiple materials.

Powerful GPU & Hybrid Rendering
Faster, more powerful GPU rendering capabilities and V-Ray GPU running on NVIDIA CUDA taking full advantage of all available hardware (CPUs and GPUs).

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

V-Ray Proxies
ArchVision RPC objects can be used as stand-ins for V-Ray proxy objects in your Revit scene to render high resolution models of trees, cars, people and other entourage.

V-Ray Grass & Fur
Render realistic grass and fur.

VRscans
Now compatible with real-world scanned materials from VRscans with over 600 photorealistic, drag-and-drop materials to bring a new level of realism to any scene.

V-Ray 3.5 for Revit

july 12, 2017

Revit 2018 support

Adaptive Lights
Fast new lighting algorithm that can cut rendering time by up to 7X in scenes with many lights.

Material Library
Over 500 fully customizable, photorealistic materials.

Aerial Perspective in V-Ray GPU
Interactively render atmospheric depth and haze to distant objects and buildings.

Material IDs
Easily render object masks and speed up post-production in your favorite image editing application.

V-Ray Swarm
Use any networked computers as render nodes, including Mac and Linux machines.