Chaos Group releases V-Ray 3.3 for Nuke
Chaos Group has released V-Ray 3.3 for Nuke, making “200+ updates” previously only available in the 3ds Max and Maya versions of the V-Ray renderer, and further improving its integration with the compositing software.
“When people think of Nuke, they usually don’t think of rendering,” said Vlado Koylazov, CTO of Chaos Group. “Now artists can create a 3D scene using the same nodal workflow used throughout Nuke.”
New features from recent updates to the V-Ray for 3ds Max
Some of the main changes in V-Ray 3.3 for Nuke will be familiar to users of the other versions of the renderer.
The update adds support for the VR camera types added in V-Ray 3.2 for 3ds Max and the new Variance Based Adaptive Sampler added in version 3.3 of both the 3ds Max and Maya versions.
In addition, the Nuke integration now supports V-Ray’s sun and sky system, its physical camera, the VRay2SidedMtl material for thin translucent objects, plus updates to layered materials and render masks.
Deeper integration between V-Ray and Nuke
But just as importantly, the update also lets Nuke users access all of the standalone edition of V-Ray’s render modes – bucket, progressive and the V-Ray RT interactive preview – via the new VRayTranslator node.
The new VRayVRscene node lets Nuke users “import, export and control” files in V-Ray’s .vrscene format, including the option to “preview, instance and transform” them.
Updated 28 April: We asked Chaos Group for more details on what the new node does over V-Ray for Nuke’s existing ability to handle .vrscene files.
They told us that it enables users to import a single .vrscene multiple times, apply transformations to a loaded scene, and enable or disable imported lights. It should also handle geometry-heavy scenes more efficiently.
In addition, users can control V-Ray instanced proxy objects with Nuke particles, and the “improved” VRayVelocity render element now plays nicely with Nuke when generating motion blur as a post effect.
There’s also what seems to be an entirely new node, VRayTexNoise, for generating procedural 3D noise, although we’ve contacted the Chaos Group to confirm that, and will update when we hear back.
Updated 28 April: Kinda. It’s “similar to 3ds Max noise”, according to Chaos Group.
Pricing and availability
V-Ray for Nuke is available now for Nuke 7 and above on 64-bit Windows and Linux. The update is free to registered users.
A new workstation licence, which includes one floating user licence and one floating render node, costs $1,040. The software can render using existing V-Ray 3.x for 3ds Max and Maya render node licenses.