Chaos Expands V-Ray 5 for Rhino and SketchUp

Chaos has added new real-time capabilities to V-Ray 5 for Rhino and V-Ray 5 for SketchUp. This is a particularly exciting development for SketchUp users who have access now to real-time ray tracing within SketchUp.

The new update adds dozens of new features to help 3D artists and designers with their visualization workflows.

“Whether it’s real-time ray tracing with Chaos Vantage or game-quality graphics with V-Ray Vision, this new update makes it easier to apply real time to any stage of the design process,” said Konstantin Gaytandzhiev, V-Ray for Rhino and SketchUp product manager at Chaos.

V-Ray 5, update 2 for Rhino and V-Ray 5, update 2 for SketchUp bring dozens of great new enhancements, especially to real-time ray-tracing.

“And the best part is whatever tool you choose, the same lights, materials and scene setups will apply down the line, so designers never lose momentum.”

New Real-Time Advances

V-Ray Vision has been updated. The technology component of V-Ray 5 is designed to serve everything that comes before a final render. It offers real-time views of your scene that updates as you work. The latest update expands on the cores features, with more options for the “always on” viewport. This is what is new:

• Shareable 3D scenes — Users can package their V-Ray Vision scenes for others to experience in real-time 3D on their own machine — no license or additional software required. Just hit export and reviewers can experience your full scene with the full functionality of V-Ray Vision, including navigation controls, color correction parameters and more.
• Video recording — Users can now record their real-time experiences directly to video to easily share walkthroughs and presentations with others.
• Sun animation support — New support for SketchUp, Rhino and Grasshopper sun animations enables quick solar studies.
• Grass support — A grass preset can now be added to any surface to help build realistic terrains in an intuitive way.
• IES lights support — Photometric IES light profiles can now be visualized within V-Ray Vision, adding real-world lighting into any interior.
• Highly efficient instancing — Scenes using multitudes of instances, such as forests, grass fields, packed parking lots and more, can now continue to operate at real-time speeds.

If designers need higher fidelity, they can turn to Chaos Vantage, which can be now directly accessed through a new Live Link. With Vantage, even the most complex scenes can be explored in fully ray-traced real time with no extra setup. Vantage is currently free for all users.

New Capabilities

In addition to general improvements, the new update helps simplify tasks that would otherwise take users hours without these tools. These include:

• Scatter — The new scattering tool is perfect for building believable terrains and detailed scenes, as it can add hundreds to millions of objects and Chaos Cosmos models to any surface — all in an intuitive and memory-efficient way. Users can disperse multiple objects simultaneously while controlling their size, orientation and density for maximum realism.
• Decals — With the new V-Ray Decal, it’s easy to project unique materials onto objects of any shape without any extra mapping work, which makes it perfect for applying graffiti to walls or logos on products. Decals can also be used across multiple materials at once, making it easy to add elements like stickers, dust, stains and scratches to several objects within a scene without disturbing any underlying materials.
• New Chaos Cosmos materials — Chaos’ curated collection of render-ready V-Ray content now includes 200 new high-quality materials that you can use on any project. While each material can be applied immediately, users can also customize them as needed.
• V-Ray Material improvements — Complex realism for transparent and translucent materials is now possible with the updated V-Ray Material. Easily create glass materials for single-sided objects with the thin-walled option or set up translucent materials like plastic or wax with a few clicks through the SSS and Volumetric translucency modes.
• Light Gen improvements — Users can now add their own HDRIs to the hundreds of HDR environments included in the Light Gen library for even more lighting possibilities.

There are also new V-Ray for Grasshopper features:

Several top features are also available for Grasshopper in Rhino. These include:

• V-Ray Scatter component for simplified scattering.

• Chaos Cosmos for quick 3D assets.

• Chaos Vantage Live Link for real-time ray tracing.

• IES, Spot and Omni Light components for more realistic lighting.

• Camera component improvements for fast, automatic exposure setups and more control over depth of field.

To learn more about the new features, please visit the V-Ray for Rhino and V-Ray for SketchUp “What’s New?” pages.

Pricing and Availability

V-Ray 5 for Rhino, Update 2 and V-Ray 5 for SketchUp, Update 2, are now available. Licensing is USD 350 (annually) and USD 60 monthly. Both products also included in the V-Ray Collection, an annual plan that gives users full access to 15 Chaos products and services for USD 699 per year.