Chaos updates its renderer with expanded features like geometric tiling and procedural clouds.

Nearly two months ago, Chaos introduced Version 6 of its photorealistic V-Ray renderer for Autodesk 3ds Max. Now, V-Ray 6 is available for Maya users, with many of the same updates. Those include VRayEnmesh for generating complex surfaces at a high level of detail by tiling 3D geometry patterns on objects, resulting in a large amount of geometry at render time that does not impact scene performance negatively.

Also included in the update is the addition of procedural clouds to the V-Ray Sun and Sky system, enabling users to generate custom skies based on technology from Enscape (which merged fairly recently with Chaos). Now artists can create a range of cloud types and weather conditions using ray-traced lighting and volumetric effects.

A new profiler has been added, as well, which enables users to uncover hot spots in the calculation of shaders and volumes. The V-Ray Profiler can be combined with memory tracking for tracking and optimizing projects.

V-Ray 6 for Maya also includes USD improvements, performance updates, improved dome lighting, thin-film materials for creating an iridescent look, easier Chaos cloud collaboration, tools for more accurate reflections, V-Ray GPU improvements, and more.

V-Ray 6 for Maya is available now for Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. V-Ray Solo (on a single computer) costs just under $78 per month; Premium (entire visualization suite) is priced at just under $115 per month; and Enterprise (five seats or more) costs just under $50 per month per license per year. Economical annual subscriptions for Solo and Premium licenses are also available.

This video shows off the new features and updates.