v-ray

V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max – Out Now!

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V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max

The latest version of V-Ray has been released for the 3ds Max platform. With V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, experience new features including Layered Compositor, Material Library and Browser, Light Mix, Material presets and previews, and much more, to streamline your entire workflow.

To find out more about V-Ray 5, join Chaos Group presenters Vlado Koylazov, Lon Grohs and Peter Matanov for a tour of the new features, followed by a live Q&A session.

V-Ray 5 Webinar
Tuesday, June 23rd 2020
6pm BST / 8pm EEST

Register Now

What’s New?

Light Mixing
Using LightMix with the new V-Ray Frame Buffer lets you experiment with lighting changes after rendering to explore lighting possibilities interactively and in real-time.

Layered Compositing
Fine-tune and finish your images directly within V-Ray Frame Buffer, eliminating the need for a separate post-processing app.

Material Manager
Efficiently browse from a library of over 500 render-ready materials including metals, glass, wood and more.

Material Presets
Save time creating common materials with presets for aluminum, chrome, glass and more.

Material Previews
New rendered material swatches show you exactly what your materials will look like.

Coat Layer
Add reflective coatings directly in the updated V-Ray Material, saving you both material creation and rendering time vs. using Blend material.

Sheen Layer
Create soft microfibre fabrics like velvet, satin and silk with the new Sheen options in the updated V-Ray Material.

Texture Randomisation
Add variety to your scene with the new VRayUVWRandomizer map and enhanced VRayMultiSubTex controls.

Stochastic Texture Tiling
Automatically remove texture tiling artifacts with the new Stochastic tiling option on the VRayUVWRandomizer.

Extended V-Ray Dirt
Weathered streaks and dirt in crevices are now easy with the enhanced V-Ray Dirt, which now employs both ambient and inner occlusion.

New Sun & Sky Model
Reproduce the subtleties of twilight when the sun is below the horizon with the new Sun and Sky model.

Existing V-Ray Users

If you’re already using V-Ray Next, you’ll be able to take advantage of upgrade pricing to get going with V-Ray 5. If you’re on V-Ray 3, contact us and we will help explore your options.

V-Ray Collection

V-Ray Collection is the ultimate 3D rendering and simulation toolset. One license gives artists and designers access to 15 Chaos products all with that single license — and total creative freedom and flexibility. With the V-Ray Collection, users can work freely between 3D applications, applying their own mix of photorealistic rendering, fluid simulation and real-time scene exploration to any project.

V-Ray Next for Revit – Update 1 is Here

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V-Ray Next for Revit

Revit 2021 is now fully supported by V-Ray for Revit, and you can leverage even more performance with NVIDIA RTX support.

Download Now

What Else is New?

In addition to Revit 2021 and RTX support, here are the new features you will have access to:

View-specific Settings
Render and maintain multiple views with individual lighting, mood and composition. Whether it’s a bright exterior or a night time interior, you can quickly switch between the two within the same project.

New Grass/Fur Workflow
Create more realistic furry surfaces, such as grass and fabrics, with the new and extended V-Ray Fur workflow.

Sun Animation
V-Ray now adds extra realism to Revit’s Solar Study. Explore and visualise the impact of natural light and shadows on your designs across a variety of time spans.

Batch Rendering
Leave V-Ray to render your project images while you are away. Batch rendering helps you to schedule multiple views for rendering with a click of a button.

Transfer Auto Values
Reduce the amount of time you spend adjusting renders with automatically calculated exposure and white balance values. Values are now displayed in a single click and can be further adjusted manually.

Colour Assistant
V-Ray Colour Picker’s new extension saves time by suggesting a colour shade palette to choose the right colour for your designs

Material Picker
Replacing a Revit material with a V-Ray material has never been easier. Pick a surface in Revit view and instantly locate its material in the Appearance Manager.

V-Ray for Revit is available now at CAD Software Direct

V-Ray for Rhino – Update 2

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V-Ray Next for Rhino Update

V-Ray for Rhino is a highly accurate renderer for McNeel Rhinoceros, enabling designers to predict and present their designs with the highest level of realism and reduce the need of physical prototypes. V-Ray greatly increases Rhino’s ability to handle large scenes and can be used directly within Grasshopper.

V-Ray Next for Rhino is compatible with Rhino 5 and Rhino 6. V-Ray for Rhino is supported on Windows only.

What’s New in V-Ray Next for Rhino?

  • RTX support — Boost your V-Ray GPU performance with NVIDIA RTX technology.
  • Decals support — Add images to paintings, signs, screens and more — plus, Decals work with native and V-Ray materials.
  • Proxy mesh materials — Import or create a proxy mesh asset and V-Ray will automatically generate a set of material slots.
  • Partial scene export — Export only selected objects as a .vrscene file containing geometry and the applied materials.
  • Improved materials — The underlying shading structure of all scene materials has been optimised.
  • Colour assistant — Choose the exact color you need with the right hue, saturation and value variation with the Colour Assistant.
  • Extended script access — The updated V-Ray scripting API provides more options to start a render.
  • And more! Enjoy a new colour theme, a unified one-step installer and numerous V-Ray for Grasshopper enhancements.

V-Ray Next for Rhino – Update 2 is available now at CAD Software Direct.

V-Ray Next for SketchUp – Update 2 Released

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V-Ray Next for SketchUp

The latest version of V-Ray Next for SketchUp is out, and with it comes full SketchUp 2020 support, new features, and optimisations to make your high-quality renders easier and more enjoyable to produce. If you already have V-Ray Next for SketchUp, this update is free and you can update now.

What’s New?

RTX support
Boost your V-Ray GPU performance with NVIDIA RTX technology.

Proxies with materials
Import or create a proxy mesh asset and V-Ray will automatically generate a set of material slots, making it easier to manage materials.

Colour assistant
Choose the exact colour you need with the right hue, saturation and value variation with the Colour Assistant, V-Ray Colour Picker’s new extension.

Improved materials
The underlying shading structure of all scene materials has been optimised, so advanced attributes can now be added or removed without cluttering the material properties.

Unified installer
Enjoy a smooth, single-step installation of all the components included in the V-Ray package.

Colour themes
A new “Bright” colour theme is now available for the V-Ray user interface.

Partial scene export
Export only the current selection as a .vrscene file containing its applied materials, lights and other V-Ray special objects.

VRscans enhancement
The VRscans material now includes a triplanar texture projection mode, removing the need for UV mapping of objects that use the material.

If you want more information about V-Ray, visit CAD Software Direct or give us a call on 01206 804984.

Not sure if V-Ray is for you? Why not request a free V-Ray trial?

Opening Times and Christmas Deals

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Christmas Deals

It’s been another strong year for 3D modeling and rendering. We’ve seen major releases in Vectorworks 2020 demonstrating considerable performance boosts, KeyShot 9 adding GPU rendering and RealCloth, a Maxwell 5 engine re-write built for speed, and so much more than we can list here.

As always, we’d like to extend our sincere thanks to all of our customers and partners for making this another great year, and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. With both the year and decade drawing to a close, it’s time to send off 2019 in style.

CAD Software Direct Opening Times

Our offices are open as normal on December 23rd, so any orders placed before then will be processed as usual. We will do everything we can to get late orders back to you before the break, and there will be limited order processing between Christmas and the New Year. Otherwise we’ll be back to work and sending out orders first thing on January 2nd.

Christmas and New Year Offers – Up to 50% OFF RRP

Vectorworks

25% OFF All Purchases
Offer until December 31st

Vectorworks Offer

Excludes Service Select renewals, Dongles, Shipping, Reinstatements, and Prorated cost of adding to the service select contract.

Maxwell Render

20% OFF A New Licence
Offer until January 6th

Maxwell Render Offer

Realflow

50% OFF New Licences, 30% OFF Plugin versions
Offer until January 6th

RealFlow Offer

Rhino 6

15% OFF RRP on Rhino 6 Licences and Upgrades
Offer until January 2nd

Rhino Offer

15% OFF the V-Ray + Rhino Bundle
Comes with FREE Affinity Photo
Offer until January 2nd

V-Ray Rhino Bundle Offer

£50 OFF A New ZBrush Licence
Offer until January 2nd

ZBrush Offer

£50 OFF A New Artlantis Licence
Offer until January 2nd

Artlantis Offer

If you have any questions or would like further information, give us a call on 01206 804984 or send an email to contact@cadsoftwaredirect.com

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from all of us at CAD Software Direct!

Corona for SketchUp – What Happened?

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Corona for SketchUp

While the latest news surrounding Corona for SketchUp may have been announced way back in 2018, we are still seeing search activity on Corona for SketchUp. Here’s a little bit about what happened, and some alternative suggestions.

In early 2018, the team behind Corona admitted that the SketchUp plugin was not successful due to a small team of developers undertaking work before moving on to other projects. Little progress was made and some development roadblocks surfaced, which combined with limited manpower dedicated to the plugin, pulled the project to a halt.

It was around this time as well that Chaos Group released version 3.6 of their highly successful V-Ray for SketchUp plugin. After seeing where their own project was at, and comparing it to Chaos Group’s offering, the Corona developers decided it best to concentrate their efforts into Corona for 3ds Max and Corona for Cinema 4D – especially as the Corona team have since joined to become part of Chaos Group themselves.

It is a possibility that a unified API for Corona and V-Ray, or a universal export format may appear at some point, but this is far from an official plan so don’t hold out hope on this one.

Corona for SketchUp Alternatives

Fortunately, there are a wealth of renderers for SketchUp.

V-Ray for SketchUp offers easy photo-realistic rendering for artists and designers in architecture, interior design, film and games design as well as visual effects and much more.

Maxwell Render is available as a plugin for SketchUp as well as a standalone package. Maxwell Render provides unbiased rendering for stunning lighting and realism.

KeyShot is a standalone render that can be used with SketchUp files. This is ideal for photo-realistic product shots.

If you’d like to know more about which render is best for you, contact us or find out more at CAD Software Direct.

V-Ray Next for Revit is Here

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V-Ray Next for Revit

Revit is the latest platform to be upgraded to V-Ray Next, as it has now been announced that V-Ray Next for Revit is available! Architects can now get more creative, using dozens of new features and improvements to produce photo-realistic imagery faster than ever before.

V-Ray Next for Revit is available as a perpetual licence, monthly or annual subscription.

What’s New?

  • New Asset Editor – Create, edit, save and manage V-Ray materials all in one place. Advanced materials give designers even more control when fine-tuning their designs, simplifying the process of recreating real-world materials with complex surfaces.
  • Appearance Manager – Basic Revit assets can now be switched to photo-realistic V-Ray assets at render time to keep BIM models unaffected and clean. 
  • Better Entourage – With .vrscene linking, architects can now quickly populate visualisations with high-quality entourage from any V-Ray product, giving designs a more custom look.
  • Randomise Objects – Add variety to plants and trees by randomising the scale and rotation of V-Ray Proxy and V-Ray Scene instances.
  • Lighting Analysis – Easily evaluate real-world lux values from daylight and fixtures to determine the true illumination levels of a design.
  • Speed Boosts – Rendering speeds are now up to 50 percent faster in V-Ray Next. Improvements to GPU rendering offer another 200 percent, further extended through V-Ray’s new Adaptive Dome Light, which can show improvements up to 2x.
  • Auto Exposure & White Balance – The V-Ray Physical Camera can now set the correct camera exposure and white balance automatically, offering picture-perfect renders every time.
  • Real-Time AI Denoiser – No-input denoising eliminates image noise almost instantly to give an immediate sense of lighting.
  • New Lens Effects – Add an extra touch of photo-realism with the fully redesigned camera lens effects. Simulate real-world bloom and glare; add lens dust and scratches; or get feedback in the Aperture Preview for more refined control.
  • Improved Toolbar – Redesigned icons and features make for a more intuitive user experience.
  • Revit Decals – With full support for Revit Decals, users can now easily render paintings, signs, screens and more.
  • Settings & Work-Sharing – V-Ray settings can now be saved within a Revit project, making it easy to adopt and share the same render settings across teams and projects.
  • Direct Render Saves – A streamlined workflow now allows for direct saves to a Revit project from the V-Ray Frame Buffer.
  • Background Image – Stunning light setups can now be combined with custom background images through a merged dialog, making it easier to separate out different elements of a lighting simulation.

V-Ray Next for Revit is available now at CAD Software Direct as a perpetual licence, monthly or annual subscription.

Maxwell 5 Launches Today

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Maxwell Render 5

The physically-correct, unbiased spectral engine at the core of Maxwell not only produces beautiful images, but also lighting-accurate simulations. You may have heard in the past that Maxwell achieved such high quality by being quite slow, something Next Limit themselves will admit.

With Maxwell 5, the story has changed. A fully rewritten multi-GPU core now delivers final results in minutes and accurate previews in mere seconds.

With the latest version now released, anybody who pre-ordered their upgrade can now download it from their Next Limit Customer Portal.

As an added bonus, the pre-order offer has been extended to November 4th, so you’ve got a little longer to lock in your upgrade price if you haven’t already!

Plugins Available

Plugins Coming Soon for Download

Maxwell 5 Features

V-Ray Importer

Additive Materials in GPU

Lights Group

GPU FIRE

Multi-GPU

With multiple GPUs working in parallel, you’ll get the most accurate renders available on the market without compromise on speed.

Cloud

A brand new Cloud Rendering Service gives you access to some of the most powerful machines available to speed up your render times and productivity. Easily dispatch cloud render jobs straight from Maxwell to free your computer from high CPU loads so you can get on with more important things.

Visit CAD Software Direct to find out more about Maxwell 5, or contact us if you have any questions.

Webinar: V-Ray for Education

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V-Ray for Education

Join this free V-Ray webinar to discover the art of rendering and the career opportunities that lie ahead.

3D Artist Yordan Zarev will host a free student webinar to introduce you to the world of 3D rendering. Join him to discover what rendering is, how it is used in a number of different industries and the fascinating career paths it opens up.

Topics covered will include:

  • What is rendering? 
    You’ll learn what rendering is and be shown what you can achieve with the help of lights and materials. You’ll also get a glimpse of how various industries utilise the power of V-Ray, Chaos Group’s renderer.

  • V-Ray in Education
    Get invaluable insight on how to start with a full set-up without any previous knowledge. Learn how Chaos Group and their trusted partners are helping the education community.

  • Rendering as a tool, rendering as a career
    Learn why rendering skills are important for job hunting, your career opportunities and how to secure your dream job.

 

Session 1
Tuesday 4th June – 10AM – 11AM BST
Register Now

Session 2
Tuesday 4th June – 7PM – 8PM BST
Register Now

V-Ray – Behind the Scenes at Zaha Hadid Architects, Blur Studio and WeWork

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Total Chaos

Total Chaos Masterclasses are an incredible opportunity to find out about the technology and techniques the world’s leading studios use to create astonishing content every day.

On May 16, Chaos Group welcome professionals to Sofia, Bulgaria for three Masterclass tracks. Pick from design, VFX or architectural visualisation and deep-dive into industry practices from the likes of the world-renowned Zaha Hadid Architects, Love, Death & Robots VFX firm Blur Studio and startup-nurturing coworking company WeWork — plus many more.

Tickets are selling fast, so secure yours now.

Get Your Masterclass Ticket

 

You can also become a V-Ray Certified Professional (VCP) by attending one of the V-Ray Certification exam sessions. Located in the same venue as the Masterclasses, they’ll run between 5.30 PM and 8 PM.

The VCP exam is now available for both V-Ray 3.0 and Next.

Get Your VCP Exam Ticket