LOS ANGELES — Chaos Group (chaosgroup.com) has introduced V-Ray 3.5 for Nuke, a major update to the ray-traced renderer used on films such as Spectre and
The Revenant. The new release offers support for volumetric rendering and deep compositing workflows have greatly expanded V-Ray for Nuke’s core capabilities, adding flexibility to film and TV productions.
Now for the first time, Nuke artists can use the V-Ray Volume Grid node to import and render fire, smoke and other fluid simulations as OpenVDB files from applications like Houdini. This gives compositors direct control over lighting and the final look of volumetric effects for better integration. For more control, volumes rendered in V-Ray for Nuke are fully compatible with deep compositing.
Deep rendering capabilities have also been greatly improved in this update, allowing artists to fully adopt deep compositing workflows. With V-Ray for Nuke deep data can be generated directly in Nuke, helping artists save disk space and file load times.
Volume Grid allows user to import and render volume simulations using industry-standard volume formats, including OpenVDB, Field3D, and Phoenix FD. Deep Rendering offers improved deep rendering capabilities with support for deep volumes, offering full control over 3D depth information. The V-Ray Denoiser automatically reduces noise for cleaner renders. And Light Cache GI helps speed up renders with V-Ray's global illumination method.
Render elements generated in V-Ray for Nuke or rendered in V-Ray Standalone can now be used interchangeably. In addition, all render elements can be cached with a single render. The Triplanar Texture feature allows users to apply seamless textures to complex objects without UVs. V-Ray Falloff Texture provides control an object’s shading effects in relation to the camera. V-Ray Clipper helps create quick sections and cutaways at render time using a clipping plane or mesh object. And V-Ray Spot Light lets users create spotlights with textured projections, barn door controls and soft shadows.
“Deep compositing workflows have gone from being a good idea to the standard in the film and TV industries,” says Jody Madden, chief product and customer officer at Foundry. “Incorporating V-Ray's production-proven rendering capabilities into Nuke's Deep Compositing workflow will save artists huge amounts of time, and that's exactly what we want to achieve when we work with other companies.”
V-Ray 3.5 for Nuke is available now and is a free update for V-Ray 3.x for Nuke customers. A V-Ray for Nuke workstation license can be purchased for $1,040 through select resellers. This includes one floating user license and one floating render node. V-Ray for Nuke can render on existing V-Ray 3.x for 3DS Max and Maya render node licenses.