v-ray | next

v-ray is a piece of software which renders computer generated 3D scenes in high quality with or without photorealism. it’s one of a handful high-end tools for this purpose. i’m familiar with another rendering software, → arnold, which has been integrated in the 3D computer animation package → maya. lots of my → tutorials in 3D involve arnold.

trivial looking computer generated scene

i installed the tryout version of → v-ray next the other day and did some preliminary tests. the scene above for example can be rendered in a short time with depth of field and other real camera properties such as ISO, shutter speed, bokeh and vignette. see the image below.

the scene rendered with v-ray

i have too little experience with this tool, so this is not a review. v-ray is well known in the industry and delivers excellent results. no doubt about that. i just want to point out two problematic things:

a) at one point i was not able to render a sequence of images – because my PC was offline. bugging me every moment when i launch a rendering job to go online in order to see if i have a valid license is a bit over the top. data privacy, friends!

b) the icons which come with the installment are, sorry to say this, terrible. below you see the main icon row in the maya shelf. they don’t stick to a colour space, they are not self explanatory. they beam me back to 1993 when the first browsers appeared, with more or less unuseable icons. i do not know why the chaos group who programmed v-ray spent so little time thinking about the importance of icons.

useless icons