Chaos releases V-Ray 7.1 for Blender
Chaos has released V-Ray for Blender, Update 1 (V-Ray 7.1 for Blender), the first major update to the new version of its ray tracing renderer for Blender.
The update adds two key features missing from the initial release: support for Blender’s Geometry Nodes system, and one-click conversion of Cycles materials for rendering in V-Ray.
Other changes include support for Blender 4.5 LTS and the new OpenPBR material standard.
A new edition of V-Ray integrated directly inside Blender
Released last month, V-Ray 7 for Blender makes it possible for Blender users to render with V-Ray from the current version of the open-source 3D software.
Unlike the legacy plugin, which exported scenes to V-Ray Standalone, it integrates V-Ray directly inside Blender, with V-Ray available for interactive rendering in the 3D viewport.
It supports Blender’s hair system, and has “initial support” for rendering materials and nodes from Cycles, Blender’s principal built-in production renderer.
Users can also create, edit and manage V-Ray materials, textures and geometries inside Blender via the V-Ray Node Editor, using a workflow similar to Blender’s native node editors.
Now supports Geometry Nodes out of the box
To that, V-Ray for Blender, Update 1 adds two missing features often requested by users during the original public beta period.
One is support for Geometry Nodes, Blender’s procedural modeling and scattering system.
Users can now render Geometry Nodes set-ups “out of the box”, without the need to bake out the geometry first.
New Cycles-to-V-Ray material converter
The other is automated conversion of materials authored for Cycles, Blender’s native production renderer, for rendering in V-Ray.
Conversion can be done on a scene-wide basis, via a new Convert Materials option in the V-Ray menu, or on a per-material basis, via a Convert to V-Ray Material option in the shader graph.
You can see the workflow in the video at the top of the story: according to Chaos, the new V-Ray shaders generated are visually “virtually identical” to their Cycles counterparts.
Support for Blender 4.5 and OpenPBR
Other changes include support the new OpenPBR open material standard.
Developed by Autodesk and Adobe, and overseen by the Academy Software Foundation, OpenPBR is intended to streamline look development for VFX, with materials developed for one application displaying near-identically in others that support it.
In addition, V-Ray for Blender now supports Blender 4.5 LTS, the current stable version of the software, and there are a number of smaller feature updates and bugfixes.
Updates to the Chaos Cosmos library included with subscriptions
Outside the core application, over 3,100 scanned real-world materials have been added to Chaos Comos, the library of stock 3D assets included with V-Ray for Blender subscriptions.
In other editions of V-Ray, all users can load and render the materials, but you need at least a V-Ray Premium subscription to edit the original scan data.
We’ve contacted Chaos to confirm whether this is the case with V-Ray for Blender subscriptions, and will update if we hear back.
Price, system requirements and release dates
V-Ray 7.1 for Blender is compatible with Blender 4.2+ on Windows 10+ only. It supports GPU rendering with NVIDIA GPUs only. The software is available rental-only.
V-Ray for Blender subscriptions include a named-user license of V-Ray for Blender, the Chaos Cosmos asset library and Chaos Cloud rendering, and cost $33/month or $199/year.
V-Ray for Blender is also available through existing V-Ray subscriptions, which provide access to all of the other current V-Ray integrations, plus a range of other tools and services.
V-Ray Solo subscriptions cost $84.90/month or $514.80/year, while V-Ray Premium subscriptions cost $119.90/month or $718.80/year. You can find more details in this story.
Read an overview of the new features in V-Ray 7.1 for Blender on Chaos’s blog
Read a list of new features in V-Ray 7.1 for Blender in the online documentation
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