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Chaos Group has long had one of the leading rendering software pieces in the market, but it is poised in 2018 to take advantage of the ability of GPUs and CPUs to work in tandem to maximize one another’s potential.

V-Ray for Maya, which has been a part of major entertainment motion picture projects such as Stranger Things, Spider Man: Homecoming, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, is receiving a hybrid rendering upgrade. For high-end video effects production, that means that GPUs and CPUs will not (to as significant of a degree) limit the performance of one another.

Powerful rendering technology already exists but getting software to work together with hardware has been a tough obstacle. NVIDIA’s CUDA-powered GPU rendering technology works simultaneously with CPUs to help streamline multi-threaded rendering tasks, but only if the software is willing to do the same.

V-Ray for Maya takes full advantage of NVIDIA’s hardware setup and gives designers and artists the flexibility to choose what technology renders their scenes. But that’s not all – the V-Ray 3.6 update also comes with a few extra performance boosts:

  • NVIDA NVLink – Allows for shared GPU memory on graphics cards compatible with NVLink technology, which has the potential to eliminate recurring memory errors while rendering.

  • MDL Support – Gives V-Ray users access to the NVIDIA universal material format, broadening the range of material-creation software usable in Maya.

  • Viewport 2.0 Changes – V-Ray now supports lights in Viewport 2.0, which helps streamline light setup and improves support for environmental reflections and V-Ray-specific materials.

  • Cryptomatte Addition – Generates ID mattes automatically to help speed workflow; allows quick access to sweeping changes in such effects as transparency, depth of field, and motion blur.

  • Full Light Selected Render Element – Improves accuracy of light mixing by allowing for single or multiple lights to be selected and rendered individually.

These changes have been made to answer to rapidly evolving workflows in the entertainment industry. V-Ray 3.6 is another major step toward total rendering efficiency for major projects and is helping push the industry toward a universal standard. Check out our advice on GPU rendering with BOXX