[0x1] ships IrayForMaya
Originally posted on 2 April. Scroll down for updates.
German developer [0x1] has released IrayForMaya, its native implementation of Nvidia’s GPU-accelerated iray renderer inside Maya, originally previewed at Siggraph last year.
Does what it says on the tin
The project integrates iray as an independent renderer inside Maya, in much the same way that it is currently available in 3ds Max, in both CPU and GPU rendering modes.
The first release supports an extensive range of iray features (GI, IBL, caustics, DoF, motion blur, light-emitting geometry), including the new Light Path Expressions for outputting custom render passes.
The implementation also supports Maya’s UVs and shader networks.
The beta release has already been used on a number of interesting projects, such as Foodscape, the CG short by Hinge Digital shown at the top of this story. You can read a detailed making-of blog here.
Pricing and availability
IrayForMaya is available for Maya 2014 on Windows. A Linux version is in development. To make use of its GPU-accelerated features, you’ll need an Nvidia graphics card with at least 2GB of video memory.
The software is priced per ‘render resource’ (all the CPUs in a machine, or one individual GPU).
A workstation licence, including three render licences, costs €650 (around $900); and a floating licence, including five render licences, costs €950 ($1,310). Extra floating render licences start at €90 ($125).
Updated 2 July: [0x1] has released IrayForMaya 2015. Additional features in the updated version of the software include a new Sun and Sky lighting model and a new IES light emitter.