After coming out of beta and improving continuously with hotfix and non-hotfix updates, the latest version of Chaos’ V-Ray renderer for Unreal Engine is here. V-Ray 5 for Unreal is now available for $219 (annually) or $80 (monthly).

The new features in V-Ray 5 for Unreal include custom light baking controls, a new Frame Buffer with post-processing controls built-in, a new Coat layer to create materials with reflective coatings, improved pivot points, selective export to V-ray scene, etc.

The company press release follows:

Chaos Launches V-Ray 5 for Unreal
Fully Customizable Light Baking for Enhanced Realism and Speed; Post Processing Now Available

LOS ANGELES – August 12, 2021 – Today, Chaos releases V-Ray 5 for Unreal, a new update to its production rendering plugin designed to import V-Ray scenes, bake lighting and render ray-traced images and animation in Unreal Engine. Now, the V-Ray 5 feature set is accessible to architects and designers, including the most flexible light baking toolset currently available for Unreal Engine 4.

“V-Ray for Unreal has become really popular with artists who need the highest quality light baking for their real-time virtual production and advanced visualization projects,” said Phillip Miller, vice president of product management at Chaos. “V-Ray 5 for Unreal makes that process even easier, opening up custom control over those bakes, while simultaneously cutting render times whenever they leverage network rendering or Chaos Cloud.”

Light baking: more speed, more control

V-Ray 5 offers a new level of control over light baking, augmenting production presets with the ability to completely customize the rendering settings. Users can now fine tune global illumination, sampling and noise levels, so they’re always optimized for the project at hand.

Unreal artists can also render high-quality lightmaps much faster by distributing their rendering across multiple machines and/or utilizing all available CPUs and NVIDIA GPU hardware. A direct link to Chaos Cloud has also been established for easy on-demand rendering and the creation of up to 100 lightmaps at once.

Post-processing, built-In

With new access to V-Ray 5’s top features, artists can now take advantage of the redesigned Frame Buffer with post-processing controls built-in. Designers can now make color corrections, combine render elements and add finishing touches without the use of a third-party image editing application, making it even easier to get the perfect look straight from the renderer.

Other new features include:

• Coat Layer – A new Coat layer has been added to the V-Ray Material for more realistic representations of reflective coatings like coated metal and lacquered wood.
• Improved Pivot Points – When you import objects into V-Ray for Unreal, their pivot points will now remain unchanged.
• Selective Export to V-Ray Scene – Artists can now select a group of objects in their UE scene and export them as a V-Ray scene file and transfer assets to other V-Ray applications.
• Intel Open Image Denoise – For users without an NVIDIA graphics card, the Intel Open Image Denoise can use your CPU(s) to reduce noise during interactive rendering.
• Blue Noise Sampling – Delivers cleaner images with the same amount of samples, which is especially useful when rendering motion blur and depth of field effects.
• Initial Out-of-Core Support – V-Ray 5 adds initial support for the rendering of large scenes that exceed GPU memory.

To see the full V-Ray 5 feature set, please visit the V-Ray 5 for Unreal product page.

Pricing and availability

V-Ray 5 for Unreal is available now. Licensing is available at $219 (annually) or $80 (monthly). It can also be accessed as part of the V-Ray Collection, an annual plan that gives users full access to 15 Chaos products and services for $699/year. A student-based V-Ray Collection is also available for $149/year.