Chaos Group has released their renderer, V-Ray 3.0, for 3DS Max. V-Ray 3.0 brings Deep Image support. including OpenEXR 2.0, Alembic support, faster ray tracing, and a simplified user interface to 3DS Max users. For the full feature list, visit the new home for the V-Ray community, V-ray.com.
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The video demos look great. I would just like to have them do something in depth on these new features. Overall Vray 3 looks amazing can’t wait to upgrade.
It would appear they are charging for render nodes now. Which is quite the bummer.
According to Vlado, the current business model wasn’t able to maintain the company any longer (which is no surprise seeing how little people had to pay for updates and no costs for renderslaves). After such a long time of excellent service I have no problems supporting the company that’s been supporting us.
Yes, it’s a shame – but if that’s what they need to keep going and keep advancing the renderer it’s better than the alternative.
People complaining about Vlado finally charging for his work, must forget the many many years and updates people got for free, and the amazing level of support the entire vray team always has provided on the stupidly low license fees they have had the last 5 years.
Seeing that they ‘seem’ to have established themselves in not just architecture but also tvc’s and movies these days, I don’t see any of the pricing changes coming with Vray 3.0 to be a surprise.
Anyway, it would bound to happen with the success vray got from early on and im surprised it didn’t happen earlier (vray 2.0 for instance)
But at least one free rendernode should have been included, especially for the freelancers (pc + notebook). That wouldn’t have harmed anyone…
Fair enough. Inversely, I’m kinda surprised that with the success they had with their renderer, their business wouldn’t be in a position to sustain itself. You’re very right about the great support, with alot of free features they probably could have charged for.
I would expect someone freelancing (making a living from it) would be able to afford one render node.
@Steve
Yes, probably… it’s 300 + 100€ for one Node (or + 200€ for 5) for the upgrade… nevertheless I’ll have to wait for the next bigger job instead of buying it instantly. You know the struggles of freelancing 😉
I just want to point that they indeed thought about the freelancer with their new price. A freelancer buying only one workstation license pay now less than before. And there is a avantageous upgrading policy too for currrent owners.
Not to forget. Upgrading from Vray 2.0 with 5 rendernodes is 500eur.
with 10 rendernodes it´s 700eur. That´s more than acceptable for
such an awesome product. If I recall it correctly we were charged
a single time since we bought Vray. As Max we´re used to pay
a lot more.. for a lot less 😉
Looks like they raised the price since beta started. From the original price when it was first announced, I calculated our costs @ $1800US for 3 workstation and 13 render nodes. Now it costs $2200 for that, or $2080 with the suggested package (15 render nodes). Upgrading will have to wait, but I’m afraid they’ll raise the price again.
The only thing that kinda bums me out, or maybe I am still not clear about it but you totally lose out on version 2.0 after 6 months.
Most often no one would think twice about it but if you have to to a job for someone that is still on 2.0 with no plans of upgrading you are kinda out of luck if you need to trade render settings (assuming they will be cross tradable and produce the same result between 2->3)
One thing to consider is with Vray 3 the render nodes are crossplatform. So if you render with max & maya you don’t need a render node license for each.
“* Backward Compatibility: V-Ray 2.x licenses will remain active for a 6-month grace period from the date of upgrade to V-Ray 3.0. A special V-Ray 2.4 build will be available to provide compatibility with V-Ray 3.0 licenses.”
So if your working on a project with others that are on Vray 2X they need to update to at least to V-Ray 2.4 in order to be compatible.
Overall I think the pricing structure is a bit confusing.
Example Upgrades:
”
V-Ray 3.0 Workstation for 3ds Max
+ 5 V-Ray Render Nodes 3.0 690″
So does this mean if I upgrade [1] workstation I get [5] render nodes?
or
Do I get [1] workstation then buy [5] render nodes @690?
To me it seems that it’s not as expensive as some might think if I can upgrade [1] workstation for $690 US which includes [5] nodes that’s just fine.
I’ve just gone for the 5 node upgrade. Cost is very reasonable. I had a test scene ready using irradiance mapping, mblur and depth of field. At 1920 by 1080.
The frame went from 8min34sec to 4min26sec
That is phenomenal performance. I thought the gains were all with brute force, which I don’t use very much, so I’m really glad to have upgraded.