Introduction
Chaos has released V-Ray 7 for Houdini, a new version of its rendering engine that brings significant improvements and new functionalities. Among them, support for 3D Gaussian Splats stands out, a new volume shader specific to Houdini, and better integration with Solaris, including compatibility with the Copernicus framework.
With this update, Houdini joins other DCC applications such as 3ds Max, SketchUp, and Cinema 4D in receiving V-Ray 7 integration.
Support for 3D Gaussian Splats
V-Ray 7 for Houdini introduces support for 3D Gaussian Splats (3DGS), a new 3D scanning technique that allows detailed reconstructions of objects and scenes from photos or videos.
While there are free third-party plugins to render 3DGS in Blender, Unity, and Unreal Engine, V-Ray positions itself as one of the first applications to integrate this technology natively. Chaos expects this functionality to be highly useful in architectural visualization and visual effects studios, especially for generating detailed background environments.
Improvements in Lighting and Rendering
- Added support for shadows within Light Path Expressions (LPEs), allowing greater control in compositing.
- The V-Ray Sun and Sky system now supports the PRG Clear Sky model used in Corona, generating more realistic lighting effects.
- Improvements in the bright artifacts (fireflies) removal algorithm.
- Update to the Open Image Denoise denoising system with a prefiltering pass.
Improvements in V-Ray GPU
- Initial support for rendering caustics.
- Ability to use system memory for textures, allowing rendering of larger scenes.
- Optimization in the bitmap cache for animations, speeding up rendering by up to 50% in some cases.
- Compatibility with Apple's Metal API, improving performance up to three times on MacBooks with M4 processors.
New Features in the V-Ray Frame Buffer
- New vignette layer to apply effects to the edges of the image.
- Free-form region rendering to define arbitrary areas.
- New filters tab with predefined color correction settings.
New Volume Shader for Houdini
V-Ray 7 for Houdini introduces a new volume shader for effects like clouds and smoke. Unlike the previous version based on the V-Ray VolumeGrid Shader, this new system allows artists to create custom shading graphs to improve control over volumetric effects.
Among its advantages are compatibility with Light Path Expressions, better motion blur handling, and new density and anisotropy attenuation controls. Chaos assures that this optimization improves performance up to six times.
Extended Support for MaterialX
MaterialX compatibility has been expanded, allowing the creation and rendering of most procedural textures from this standard.
Improved Integration with Solaris
- Compatibility with Houdini 20.5's Copernicus framework.
- New V-Ray Yeti node for rendering Maya hair and fur cache files in Solaris.
- Renewed interface for Toon Material and Toon Effect.
- Compatibility with motion blur on hair.
- Support for Apple Silicon in the V-Ray Hydra render delegate.
- Compatibility with Chaos Cosmos, Chaos's online asset library.
Increase in Subscription Prices
- V-Ray Solo: 79 €/month or 480 €/year.
- V-Ray Premium: 112 €/month or 670 €/year.
- V-Ray Enterprise maintains its price unchanged.
V-Ray 7 for Houdini introduces significant advances in performance, compatibility, and visual quality. With support for 3D Gaussian Splats, improvements in shadows and volumes, and more efficient integration with Solaris, this version offers key tools for VFX artists and architectural visualization.