--- title: "V-Ray Next, Beta 1" canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VRHINO/116131280/V-Ray%20Next%2C%20Beta%201" format: markdown --- *Beta Release* **Date** – December 11, 2018 **Download** – [4.00.b1](https://download.chaosgroup.com/?product=47&platform=51)   ## **Installation** ---   Implemented unified V-Ray for Rhino installer. Use the installation wizard to choose either: - V-Ray for Rhino 5 - V-Ray for Rhino 6 - their simultaneous installation   ## **Improvements ** --- ### Improved Speed and Quality** **   - A large number of render speed/performance optimizations are introduced. V-Ray now renders twice as fast on average. - The internal shader structure used in V-Ray for Rhino is updated and modernized. This improves the render speed, GPU Engine feature support, and V-Ray Cloud compatibility. - V-Ray is now using the new Rhino 6 RDK API. It enables the use of the new material system introduced in Rhino 6 and some additional render related features. - The internal V-Ray geometry exporter is enhanced. It speeds up the initial scene loading time and makes the interactive renderer more responsive. ### Optimizations & Workflow Improvements    - Implemented NVIDIA AI Denoiser. Instantly remove noise while rendering. Based on AI-accelerated denoising technology by NVIDIA. The new engine is a perfect solution for denoising while Interactive Rendering. Set the Update Frequency parameter to 100% to get the most interactive feedback possible. - Adaptive Dome Light option added and enabled. It improves the render speed in scenes illuminated by Dome Light (Up to 7x faster than before). Lighting interiors using Dome is now a valid option and significantly improves interior scene setup efficiency. - Automatic Exposure implemented. It relies on our adaptive learning techniques to render a perfectly exposed image. By looking at the entire scene V-Ray automatically determines the proper exposure just as a modern camera would, but with one added advantage: V-Ray can automatically adjust the ISO value without changing the F-stop or shutter speed, which allows you to control depth of field and motion blur separately. - Automatic White Balance implemented. It uses the same techniques as Auto Exposure to remove any warm or cold light tint that is coming from the Sun or the skylight. - Denoised Render Elements. Denoise individual render elements for added control in compositing. Enable the Denoise checkbox for the elements you want to take advantage of the feature. - The Rectangular light now has U and V Size parameters exposed in the Asset Editor. They directly affect the viewport widget of the light. Changing the size this way affects all component instances in the project. Scaling the light component can still affect the size of each individual instance. The combination of both enables many efficient workflows. - The Sphere light now has a Size parameter exposed in the Asset Editor. It directly affects the viewport widget of the light. This Size parameter works similarly to the U and V Size parameters of the Rectangular light. - The Size parameters of the lights allow light size changes without affecting the light intensity. Change the light Units to Radiance Power (W), for example, to take advantage of this workflow. - Global textures (not used in a material) can now be saved with the Rhino project. - The V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) Lens Effects UI is simplified. The workflow for setting up these effects is streamlined and made more versatile with the addition of some new options (as the Saturation control). - Lighting Analysis render element implemented. It provides visual representation of the lighting intensity in the rendered frame. It maps Illuminance and Luminance information as color gradient or a grid of measured values onto the frame. - Material ID Number render element implemented. It masks objects in the scene based on their shader 'Material ID / ID Number' value. The selection masks with use automatic integer color assignment. The channel uses no anti-aliasing. It is supported by the GPU render engine. - MultiMatte Materials render element implemented. It creates red, green, and blue selection masks based on the material ID Number assignments of an object. A single MultiMatte can only store 3 masks - R, G and B. To account for that, we'll analyze the scene at render time and automatically create the necessary number of elements based on the number of unique IDs that is specified. - Added support for bitmap texture sequences. Enable the Sequence toggle and use the options in the Bitmap parameters to load a sequence of images during animation. - Mesh Lights can now be instanced similarly to the other V-Ray light sources. Hold down ‘Alt’ and move the light mesh to make an instance. The properties of the original and newly created lights are shared. When working with instances, the ‘Select Instances’ and ‘Make Unique’ options become available in the Light properties panel. - Implemented purging of lights and geometries. Use the Asset Editor footer button to delete any Mesh Light, Fur, or Clipper items that are not applied to a scene object. - Lights, Proxy Meshes, Proxy Scenes, Fur, Infinite Plane, or Clippers can be created directly in the Asset Editor. Newly created lights are automatically placed at the scene origin point. Assets such as Fur or Clippers can be applied to an existing scene object via the drop-down menu in the V-Ray properties section of the Rhino object properties panel. - Rhino materials that are applied to layers can now be converted to V-Ray shaders with the ‘vrayMtlFromRhino’ command. Select one of the objects inheriting the material and execute the command. - Improved V-Ray Clipper workflow. The viewport widget used for Clipper assignment and selection is no longer necessary, therefore removed. Rhino properties Clipper section UI is improved and made more intuitive. Use the icon buttons and drop-down menu to easily create, assign, or remove Clipper properties from any scene object. - Improved V-Ray Fur workflow. The viewport widget used for Fur assignment and selection is no longer necessary, therefore removed. Rhino properties Fur section UI is improved and made more intuitive. Use the icon buttons and drop-down menu to easily create, assign or remove Fur properties from any scene object. - Duplicating an object by holding down the ‘Alt’ key and moving it (or copying it as an array) automatically assigns the Clipper or Fur properties of the original. Make Unique and Select Instances buttons can be used afterwards. - Fur strands in the viewport are now positioned on faces instead of vertices. - Batch Render jobs can now be submitted and rendered on the V-Ray Cloud. - Tooltips added to all Batch Render window footer buttons. - Prompt window, which allows you to save current project, is displayed on Batch Render start. - Face material assignments are now supported. - Implemented Apply to Layer / Active Layer function. Assigns the material to the Current Rhino layer. Use it as alternative to searching for the layer name in the context sub-menu. - The Apply to Layer sub-menu now expands in width when one of the fly-off panels is open. This makes it easier to search for layers with long names. - Basic / Advanced properties switch added to the material and light assets properties list. The Basic mode hides some of the roll-outs and individual parameters enabling quick material edits. The Advanced mode reveals all available properties for fine tweaking and for adjusting some of the more advanced shading effects.   ### Interactive Viewport Rendering (VPR)    - V-Ray Interactive viewport (VPR) is faster and more responsive. - The VRP stamp lists the image resolution and the time elapsed since the render process has started. - Change the rendered image resolution in the viewport by using ‘vrayVPRSettings’ command to specify a percentage of the original image resolution (specified in V-Ray Output settings). The image will automatically be stretched to fill in the viewport size. - Changing the viewport mode now automatically stops the interactive viewport rendering process. - The V-Ray Interactive viewport (VPR) shows the effectsResult channel instead of the RGB one. Render in the viewport while looking at a denoised image (combined with lens effects if applied). ### V-Ray GPU    - V-Ray GPU is two times faster on average thanks to its new rendering architecture with support for more of V-Ray’s high-end production features. - Bucket rendering is now supported by the GPU engine. - Volumetric effects are now supported. Environment Fog can be rendered in a very optimized way. - Added support for material refraction Dispersion. - Added support for adaptive Dome Light. - Added support for material Glossy Fresnel reflections. - Improved 3D/Normal displacement. The effect is now faster to render. - Added support for VRscan materials. - Better sampling of blurry reflective materials and specular highlights. - Support for ‘Self-occlusion only’ parameter of Dirt texture. - Added support for the Emissive layer Opacity value and texture. - Added support for GPU production bucket rendering. Activate the GPU engine and disable the Progressive toggle to use it.   ### Assets Library (Material Library)   - Library folders are now displayed as a tree structure that can be explored by expanding and collapsing each branch content. - Custom folder locations can be added to the library and then browsed for .vrmat files. Right-click on a library folder and select Close to remove it from the list. - Network locations (folders) can be listed. This enables the use of a single unified library for all members of a team or of a company division. - Right-click on a library folder to bring up a context menu with a Refresh function available. Use it to refresh the content of a folder in case a file system change has occurred. - Assets can be deleted directly in the library content view. Right-click on any material and use the right-click Delete function to remove the material file from disk. - The Library UI is simplified and now uses two main layout presets - vertical or horizontal. - A search can be performed on the content of a deep (multi-level) folder structure. Quickly search a library folder containing multiple sub-folders with materials in each of them. - The performance of the library content list is improved. Lazy-loading is implemented to allow for smooth navigation while listing thousands of materials. - Multi-selection is now supported in the library content view. Hold down Ctrl to add or remove from the selection. Holding Shift enables range selection. Multiple materials can be then deleted together or added to the current scene as a batch. The multi-selection works in both Grid and List view. - Drag and dropping any scene asset to the library content section is now supported. Quickly save any asset to disk for later use. If the asset name already exists in the same location, V-Ray exposes two options - replace the asset or cancel the operation. - The thumbnails size slider is replaced with Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons.   ### Asset Editor UI    - Implemented Asset Tree view - Outliner. It lists materials, lights, geometries, render elements, and textures in a unified way and visualizes shader hierarchy. - Every asset listed in the Outliner has a simple icon in front of its name for easier identification. - Updated Asset Editor toolbar. Both functionality and visual style of this UI element are updated. Separators are introduced to split icons of different type. - Asset type filters added to the toolbar. Use them to display assets of specific type or types in the list below. Multi-selection is supported. Use Ctrl+click to make an additional filter active. Shift lets you select a range and Ctrl+A selects all categories (except for the ones that have no members). - Right-click on any asset type filter icon to bring up a creation menu for the specific type. This functionality is available even if a category is empty and visually disabled. Holding Ctrl keeps the dropdown menu active allowing multiple assets to be swiftly created. - Expanding the Render (button) drop-down menu no longer lists the active item twice. - Assets from all types (Materials, Lights, Geometries, Render Elements, or Textures) can now be saved as .vrmat files and loaded in other projects. - Navigating to a child texture can now be done in the assets tree list itself without clicking on parameter texture/material slots. - The main panel footer button Create Asset now shows a creation menu organized in submenus based on the different asset types. It lists assets with colorful icons on their left for easier identification. - Assets of all types use a unified UI logic. The Swatch Preview is on the top of the right fly-off panel and the parameters are listed below. The overlay view used for texture creation and editing is no longer needed and has been removed. - Back button added to the right fly-off panel footer (Arrow pointing left). Use it to go back to the previous asset selection. - Up the Hierarchy button added to the right fly-off panel footer (Arrow pointing up). Use it to go to up to the parent of the selected asset. A smart way of determining the preferred parent is used for assets that are instanced in multiple places. - Render elements are now treated as assets - they can be created or deleted in the Assets list. Their preview image, parameters, and a short description can be found in the right fly-off panel. - Textures can now be instanced in multiple material slots or re-used in a different material. Use an instance of a texture in the diffuse material slot and a color corrected instance of the same map as bump. Changing the source file changes both of them. - Global textures can now be created. A texture instanced in multiple base materials automatically becomes a global map referenced in both materials. Creating a texture from the Asset list menu directly adds it as a global item listed under the Textures category. - Effects Update Frequency is moved to the Denoiser section for convenience - now called Update Frequency. It still affects both the Denoiser and the VFB Lens Effect updates. - The Denoiser is no longer a render element. It is a scene property.   ### Materials & Textures    - Implemented Curve Color Correction texture. Remap any texture color values using R, G, B or H, S, V curve controls. - The UI of the Generic material UI is updated. The Material ID and Raytrace Properties rollouts expose some advanced material parameters. - Material ID Number is added together with the ID Color to enable a new way of masking materials. Utilize it with the new ‘MultiMatte Materials’ render element. - Reflection, Refraction, and Diffuse material layers are updated. Their UI and parameter names are now consistent with Universal V-Ray BRDF UI. The Transparency parameters are switched to Opacity controls for consistency. Any old shaders will be migrated automatically to the new backend structure. - Flakes layer is introduced to the Layered/Generic Material. Add metallic flakes to any shader blended with auto-generated opacity map.   ### Asset Preview    - The materials and texture preview swatches are merged in unified asset preview, which is located in the right fly-off panel just above the asset parameters list. - Implemented live preview for all light types - Rectangular, Sphere, Spot, Omni, IES, Sun, Dome, and Mesh. - Implemented separate live preview scenes for textures of different kind - 2D (Bitmap, Checker, etc.), 3D (Noise, Marble, etc.), Ray-traced (Edges, Dirt, etc.), Environment (spherical images, etc.), and View-dependent (Falloff, Fresnel). - Implemented static preview for all Render Element assets. The pre-rendered image clearly shows what the selected element looks like. - A default image based on the asset type is displayed for any asset that does not use a live or static preview. - Asset preview toolbar is implemented. It contains the preview scene selection button, as well as three brand new controls over the preview window - Start/Stop preview toggle, One-time render, and Render size selector buttons. - The Start/Stop button in the Asset preview toolbar toggles the live preview for all assets. - The One-time render button can be used to render the preview of the current asset only once. - The Render size button indicates the current preview render resolution size. Open its dropdown list to choose between rendering it at 100%, 50%, 25%, or 12,5% of the original size. Downscaling the size compromises (or exchanges) image quality for render speed.   ### Grasshopper   - Implemented V-Ray Timeline component. Enables animation rendering once connected to a V-Ray Renderer. When connected, initiating the render process will render a number of consecutive frames based on the Frames Count parameter. The Grasshopper definition will be evaluated for each frame. The Frame or Fraction outputs can be remapped and used for animating different definition parameters. - Proxy and VRScene references in the definition now display bounding box placeholders in the Rhino viewport. - The V-Ray VRScene component can now export .vrscene animation sequences.   ## **Other Changes & Bug Fixes ** ---   - The Material ID render channel now takes opacity into account. - Light Components added to the scene are now sized based on the size parameters of the asset. - Caustics combined with Stereo Camera no longer render incorrectly. - Drop-down menu lists no longer hide behind other UI elements. - Invalid file paths specified in the Output settings no longer cause the VFB to display a black image and to stay in ‘Finished’ state. - The Grasshopper ‘Material from Project’ component now works as expected. - Render Elements / Channels can now be saved for Bongo animation. - Proxy meshes Multi Material slots get automatically updated on source file change even if the proxy preview type is set to Bounding Box or Point Origin. - Disabling the V-Ray plugin from the Rhino plugins list, no longer causes a .rui loading error upon Rhino startup. - The Batch Render tool now properly renders .vrscene file sequences. - The V-Ray plugin in the Rhino plugins list now displays its version correctly - 4.0.0.1. - Clipping plane color fills are now correctly displayed in the viewport. - Projects with conflicting asset file paths can now be successfully packed. - Viewport object interactions while holding down a modifier key (‘Shift’ for example) no longer cause any lag. - Moving object while holding down the ‘Shift’ key no longer causes a lag. - Parallel projection (orthographic) cameras no longer hang the render process during Light Cache sampling. - Creating a new material in the Asset Editor (in scenes with many objects) no longer causes Rhino to hang when the 'Rendered' viewport mode is selected. - Changing all proxy materials to ‘None’ during Interactive Rendering no longer causes the last material to be used for all faces. - Changing Proxy preview no longer triggers a scene update during Interactive Rendering. - V-Ray special objects in blocks no longer create a copy of themselves when the block is copied. - The V-Ray Clipper no longer cuts exclusively along the XY plane when its host layer is hidden. - Interactive Rendering does not stop once an image is added to the Rhino Environment. - Deleting a Mesh Light contained within a block and then undoing the action no longer causes a crash. - Interactive material changes in block edit mode now work properly. - Volumetric Environment mediums, such as Aerial Perspective and Environment Fog, no longer become progressively denser during Interactive Rendering. - Changing the size of a Sphere or Rectangle light using their Asset Editor Size parameters, changes the size of their light instances in the scene. - Legacy ‘vis’ commands can no longer be executed. - RPC object support is improved in Rhino 6. - The ‘vrayLightMesh’ and ‘vrayLightMeshRemove’ commands are merged in a single command. - The Bounding Box creation option for Dome Light (‘vrayLightDome’ command) is removed.   ## **Script Access ** ---   - The V-Ray for Rhino script access support from ‘Rhino Python’ and ‘Rhino Script’ clients is enhanced. Access the V-Ray ‘scene’ and modify V-Ray plug-in node parameters - Lights, Materials, Settings, etc. (everything available in the Asset Editor). Determine parameter types and adjust their values.   ## **Known Issues & Limitations** ---   - Selecting an Environment texture shows the Assets Tree view with nothing selected. Using the Back button selects the previously selected asset in the tree. - Deleting material’s child texture does not automatically select the material. A different material is selected instead.