SOFIA, BULGARIA — Chaos Group (chaosgroup.com) has released V-Ray 3.3 for Maya, a free update to the fastest version of V-Ray yet. Total improvements since its debut now number over 200, including speed boosts of 20 to 50 percent on most scenes, and better performance for geometry, textures, shading, and volume rendering.
V-Ray 3.3 for Maya features a new Variance-based Adaptive Sampler [VBAS] with better noise detection for cleaner images. By updating V-Ray’s core image sampler, it is now possible to evaluate lights and materials automatically, cutting user set-up time and the adjustments needed for professional design, advertising, television and feature film work.
A major update to V-Ray RT enables final frame production rendering on the GPU. Optimized texture memory, faster resizing and loading of textures, and improved shading have also been added. When coupled with GPU support for hair, subsurface scattering, displacements, tiled textures, and light cache GI, this update becomes a powerful asset for high-level production work.
“V-Ray 3.3 for Maya is our biggest update yet, the equivalent of two service packs in one,” says Vlado Koylazov, CTO of Chaos Group. “V-Ray for 3DS Max and Maya are now at the same level.”
New features include:
Ray Traced Rounded Corners: Generate smooth edges between different objects at render time with no extra modeling.
Blended Triplanar Mapping Texture: Quickly apply seamless textures without UVs.
Stochastic Flakes Material: Create ultra-realistic materials with sparkle effects like snow, sand, and car paints.
V-Ray Falloff Texture: Add falloff and Fresnel effects based on viewing direction.
New Sky Model and Aerial Perspective: Simulate more natural looking skies with the new Hosek sky model, and add realistic atmospheric depth with the aerial perspective volume shader.
V-Ray Clipper with Render-Time Booleans: Create sections and cutaways using any mesh object.
Updated features include:
Faster Volume Rendering: Faster volume rendering with probabilistic sampling;
Supports OpenVDB caches from Houdini 15 and FumeFX; Preview volume grid objects in the Maya viewport.
Improved Global Illumination: More robust reflective GI caustics for better light propagation, and more natural illumination of interior scenes.
Look Development: Now supports look development nodes introduced in Maya 2016 Extension 1.
OpenSubdiv 3.0: Now supports the latest version of OpenSubdiv; Up to 2X faster performance when calculating the subdivided meshes; Added support for color sets.
XGen: Cache XGen collections to V-Ray scene files for better performance;
Added support for displacement, subdivision, and custom attributes through VRayUserColor texture; Added support for frame animation from archive
User Interface: Optimized user interface and default render settings; A video overview of V-Ray 3.3 for Maya is also available.
V-Ray 3.3 for Maya is a free update for all V-Ray 3.x for Maya customers.