Thursday, June 1st, 2023 Posted by Jim Thacker

Chaos releases V-Ray 6 for SketchUp Update 1


Chaos has released V-Ray 6 for SketchUp Update 1, the latest version of the renderer.

The update extends the Enscape-to-V-Ray bridge, and adds support for cylindrical projection in V-Ray Decal, and for rendering cutaway images in V-Ray GPU using V-Ray’s Clipper object.

The new version was released alongside V-Ray 6 for Rhino Update 1, which has similar new features.

Updates to the Enscape bridge and procedural clouds system added in V-Ray 6 for SketchUp
The update extends several of the new features introduced in V-Ray 6 for SketchUp last year, notably the new bridge from Enscape to V-Ray.

The bridge makes it possible to transfer scenes from Enscape, the real-time renderer with whose developer Chaos merged last year, to V-Ray for final-quality rendering.

To that, Update 1 adds the option to transfer “some of Enscape’s visual settings” to V-Ray, including Sunlight, Sky and Camera Exposure parameters, to help match the looks of renders.

The bridge also now supports Linked Models and the new customisable stock assets introduced in Enscape 3.5 last month.

There are also a number of performance improvements and bugfixes, including a fix for an issue with normal maps that resolves “many visual artifacts” when rendering Enscape materials.

The procedural clouds system introduced in V-Ray 6 for SketchUp has also been updated, with the default settings now resulting in clouds visually similar to those in Enscape.

The update also adds new settings for generating contrails.


Updates to V-Ray Decal, the VFB and V-Ray GPU
Decal projection system V-Ray Decal gets support for the Bend function, for cylindrical mapping onto curved surfaces like cans, plus support for bump and displacement mapping.

The V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) gets support for masking for Lens Effects and Denoiser layers, and for separate colour transformations to the Background layer.

In addition, hybrid renderer V-Ray GPU now supports the Clipper object for rendering cutaway images.

Support for more native SketchUp features, plus updates to Chaos Cosmos
Changes unique to the SketchUp edition of V-Ray include support for SketchUp section plane transitions (on Windows only) when rendering animations, along with object and tag visibility states.

Outside the core software, online asset library Chaos Cosmos, available with all V-Ray subscriptions, now includes assets using V-Ray’s new Enmesh geometry replication system.

Pricing and system requirements
V-Ray 6 for SketchUp Update 1 is compatible with SketchUp 2019+, running on 64-bit Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15+. You can find more detailed system requirements here.

The software is rental-only, with node-locked V-Ray Solo subscriptions priced at $466.80/year, and floating V-Ray Premium subscriptions priced at $694.80/year. Find more details in this story.


Read an overview of the new features in V-Ray 6 for SketchUp Update 1 on the product website

Read a full list of new features in V-Ray 6 for SketchUp Update 1 in the online release notes