Chaos Group Releases V-Ray 3.1 for Maya

Sofia, Bulgaria – Chaos Group announces in early August the immediate availability of V-Ray 3.1 for Maya.

Free update

The free update also offers more efficient handling of proxy objects, an improved global illumination algorithm, and faster rendering performance.

Vladimir Koylazov, Chaos Group co-founder and lead developer of V-Ray says, “V-Ray 3.1 for Maya is a big release, our team has been hard at work making sure that the speed, memory and workflow optimizations our community has requested are ready for professional use.”

For VR projects, V-Ray 3.1 for Maya adds new stereoscopic camera types that will render 6×1 cube maps and spherical images. The introduction of the Shade Map optimizes stereoscopic rendering.

“When I started building out the new VR and VFX division for Legend3D, I knew V-Ray for Maya had to be a part of it,” said Justin Denton, VFX and VR supervisor at Legend3D. “Working with Chaos Group led to the features we need for our advanced virtual reality projects. V-Ray 3.1 for Maya is a huge update.”

V-Ray RT GPU now supports the following:

• Hair & fur
• Subsurface scattering
• Displacement & subdivision surfaces
• Light Cache GI
• Anisotropic highlights
• UDIM textures
• Texture baking
• QMC sampling on NVIDIA CUDA devices

 Proxy Object improvements:

• Identical proxy objects are now automatically instanced
• Improved viewport previews with mesh simplification options
• Import multiple proxy objects at once
• Support for hair and particle instances
• Support for instancing Ogawa Alembic files
• Mesh viewer utility – to view proxy objects and Alembic files, including subdivision surfaces, particles, and hair

Additional New Features in V-Ray 3.1 

Maya 2016 support

• Full support for new Hypershade Node Editor, Material Viewer, and Lookdev view
• Enhanced Bifrost support – including rendering liquids as isosurfaces without meshing

Workflow & User Interface

• Quick settings
• Light Lister
• Tooltips
• Updated default render settings

Geometry

• Faster rendering of dynamic meshes, proxy objects, and instances
• Faster rendering of hair and fur
• Intel Embree acceleration for hair and fur
• VRayClipper – for cutaways and sections

Lights

• Light meter – new helper object for lighting analysis

Global Illumination

• Updated Light Cache algorithm removes light leaks and improves animation

Volume rendering

• Probabilistic shading for faster volume rendering

Availability

V-Ray 3.1 for Maya is a free update for all V-Ray 3.0 for Maya customers. Download now at chaosgroup.com. For more information and a complete change log, visit V-Ray.com.

About Chaos Group

Chaos Group provides innovative rendering solutions for the media, entertainment, and design industries. For over a decade our flagship rendering software, V-Ray, has set the standard for speed, quality, reliability and ease of use, and it has become the rendering engine of choice for renowned international studios. We proudly support the 3D community through their suite of software solutions: V-Ray for Autodesk 3ds Max, V-Ray for Autodesk Maya, V-Ray for Autodesk Softimage, V-Ray for Rhino, V-Ray for SketchUp, Phoenix FD Autodesk 3ds Max, Phoenix FD for Autodesk Maya, and Pdplayer.