Sneak peek: V-Ray Next for 3ds Max Update 2

Chaos Group CTO Vlado Koylazov has posted a brief teaser for Update 2 to V-Ray Next for 3ds Max, showing the renderer’s improved ability to handle scenes with high numbers of light sources.

Light Cache GI engine ‘up to 2x faster’ for scenes with large numbers of light sources
The demo above renders on an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX CPU at “approximately six minutes per frame, with the V-Ray denoiser applied on the final sequence”.

According to Koylazov, for a scene with 5,000 light sources, light cache GI is “sometimes up to 2x faster”. Brute force GI is also faster.

The update will also improve the algorithm for selecting the most important light sources in a scene, which should reduce flicker when rendering animations with the new Adaptive Dome Light.

Pricing and system requirements
Chaos Group hasn’t announced a release date for V-Ray Next for 3ds Max Update 2 yet.

The current release, V-Ray Next for 3ds Max Update 1, is available for 64-bit 3ds Max 2013+, running on Windows 7+. A workstation licence and one render node costs $1,180. Rental pricing starts at $470/year.

Read more about V-Ray Next for 3ds Max Update 2 in the description of the YouTube video