V-Ray 2.20.01 released

Dec 16, 2011 by CGP Staff

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The latest update to Chaos Group’s renderer incorporates some notable features such as a hair shader, native support for Ornatrix, ability to use Ptex textures via VRayPTex, V-Ray RT GPU improvements, etc. Read on for more.

V-Ray 2.20.01 hair and fur shader video

New features:
– VRayHairMtl specifically for fur and hair rendering
– VRayOrnatrixMod modifier for direct rendering of Ornatrix hair
– VRayHairInfoTex texture for additional hair shading effects
– VRayPTex texture provides support for PTex files
– MaxScript functions for access to the V-Ray VFB contents
– V-Ray RT: added “Real zoom” option to the ActiveShade quad menu to modify the rendered region (zoom, pan) directly in the ActiveShade window
– MetaSL support in VRayGLSLMtl and VRayGLSLTex

Modified features:
– V-Ray RT GPU: initial support for VRayBlendMtl materials
– V-Ray RT GPU: rendering of VRayProxy objects
– V-Ray RT GPU: support for affect diffuse/specular/reflection for VRayLights
– V-Ray RT GPU: support for simple skylight portals
– V-Ray RT GPU: support for textured area and mesh lights
– V-Ray RT GPU: limited support for the Falloff map
– V-Ray RT GPU: support for Tiles and other procedural textures (through baking to bitmaps)
– V-Ray RT: ability to use the 3ds Max bitmap proxy system for the ActiveShade
– V-Ray RT: support for 32-bit ActiveShade buffer
– V-Ray RT: add a “Reload” button for VRayHDRI that works with V-Ray RT
– Distributed rendering: option to specify a maximum number of render slaves
– Distributed rendering: when a slave completes a DR render, it will automatically try to join other running DR jobs
– ply2vrmesh: added support for .bgeo files in ply2vrmesh
– ply2vrmesh: added -info option to ply2vrmesh to print information about .vrmesh files
– Irradiance map format (*.vrmap) has changed – map files from V-Ray 2.20 cannot be opened by previous V-Ray versions
– imapviewer: added -incremental command-line option and “File > Incremental add” menu item for incremental merge of irradiance maps produced by V-Ray 2.20
– imapviewer: added ability to load and display light cache files
– VRayMtl: added “Affect channels” option for reflections
– VRayGLSL: split into a VRayGLSLTex texture and a VRayGLSLMtl material
– VRayGLSLMtl: support for built-in BRDFs
– VRaySun: added filter color for VRaySun
– VRayMultiSubTex: added option to specify the number of IDs in VRayMultiSubTex
– VRayMultiSubTex: reworked the VRayMultiSubTex texture to use lists of properties, rather than separate parameters
– VRayFastSSS2: ability to save/load illumination maps for VRayFastSSS2 material
– VRayHDRI: add the “time” rollout for controlling IFL files to VRayHDRI
– VRayHDRI: support for tiled mip-mapped TIFF files
– VRayHDRI: optimized VRayHDRI bitmap performance
– VRayIES: expanded the “Use light shape” option for VRayIES to allow the shape to affect light distribution
– VRayBPTracer: support for distributed rendering
– VRayBPTracer: support for the VRayLightSelect render elements
– VRayDisplacementMod: added option to smooth UVs for subdivision displacement
– VRayLensEffects: improved multithreading for VRayLensEffects
– Optimized memory usage and multithreaded performance for dynamic geometry
– Optimized the VRay2SidedMtl material for GI calculations when translucency is greyscale
– Add an option to the VRaySamplerInfo render element and texture to wrap the UVW coordinates in the [0,1] range
– VFB: added ICC color correction to the V-Ray VFB
– VFB: added right-click menu to the items in the V-Ray VFB history
– VFB: right-click menu option to add and edit comments in V-Ray History per image
– VFB: ability to do A/B VFB comparison with a rendered image in the V-Ray VFB
– VFB: the frame stamp is now saved to and loaded from the V-Ray VFB history images
– When writing a raw .exr file, V-Ray will attempt to produce a scanline version of the file instead of tiled one
– Added a glossiness render element, also for texture baking
– Added a Clear option for the Previous render list in the System rollout
– Changed the default image sampler to Adaptive DMC
– Exposed the irradiance map preview mode parameter in the UI
– Reduced flickering of the irradiance map and light cache when “Time independent” DMC option is disabled
– Disable any HSDS modifiers before saving the scene for DR
– SDK: switched to Intel C++ 12.1 compiler
– SDK: shaders can provide their own sampling rays for GI
– SDK: multithreaded expansion of dynamic primitives

Plus a number of bug fixes. The new version is available for download to current owners of V-Ray 2.0 from Chaos Group.