Chaos releases V-Ray 7.4 for Houdini
Chaos has released V-Ray 7.4 for Houdini (V-Ray 7 for Houdini Update 4), the latest version of the Houdini edition of the renderer.
The update adds native parallax interiors, support for relighting Gaussian splats, updates to volume rendering and the Vantage render delegate, and tighter support for Solaris.
At the time of writing, the product website hasn’t been updated, but according to the release notes, Update 4 was released earlier this month.
V-Ray’s new parallax interiors system, shown here in the 3ds Max edition of the renderer.
Parallax interiors add visual depth to rendered buildings
New features in V-Ray 7.4 for Houdini include native parallax interiors, for adding realistic interior depth to rendered buildings without the need to create any actual internal geometry.
When applied to a window on the exterior facade of a bulding, the new VRayParallaxTex texture give the illusion of a 3D interior behind it.
The workflow removes the need to use third-party OSL-based parallax shaders.
Relight 3D Gaussian Splats inside V-Ray
Support for 3D Gaussian Splats, introduced in V-Ray 7 for Houdini, has been extended, with new controls for relighting splats inside V-Ray.
Updates to existing features
Other updates to existing features include a new quick caustics option in VRayMtl.
There are also new control options for rendering volumes, including a Multiple Importance Sampling option for Volumetrics, following the ‘re-imagined’ Volume shader in V-Ray 7.2.
For denoising renders, the hardware-agnostic Open Image Denoise has been added as an option alongside NVIDIA’s OptiX and Chaos’s own denoiser.
Vantage, Chaos’s real-time ray tracing renderer, now available as a viewport render delegate within Houdini, now supports the MaterialX open material standard.
Better support for Solaris and USD workflows
V-Ray 7.4 also improves support for Solaris, Houdini’s look dev and shot layout environment.
Changes include support for the Stereoscopic Camera, night sky controls for the V-Ray Atmosphere LOP, and better handling of motion blur.
There are also updates to USD workflows, including support for OpenPBR.
Price and system requirements
V-Ray 7.4 for Houdini is compatible with Houdini 19.5+, running on Windows 10+, RHEL 6.2 and CentOS 6 Linux, and macOS 10.15+. It is available rental-only.
V-Ray Solo subscriptions cost $89.15/month or $540/year. V-Ray Premium subscriptions cost $129.90/month or $778.80/year, up $10/month or $60/year since the previous release.
Read a full list of new features in V-Ray 7.4 for Houdini in the online release notes
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