V-Ray RT and 3ds Max |
V-Ray RT is an ActiveShade rendering plugin for 3ds Max. To start using it you must first select it in the Assign Renderer rollout found in Render Setup dialog:
Select V-Ray RT in the dialog that appears:
Note that V-Ray RT must be selected as an ActiveShade renderer; it will not work as a production renderer.
Shading
- Represents the maximum number of bounces that will be computed for reflections and refractions. The individual material reflection/refraction depth settings are still considered, so long as they don't exceed the value specified here.
GI depth - the number of bounces for indirect illumination. Other GI settings (e.g. whether GI is enabled or disabled) are taken from the production V-Ray renderer.
Material override
- This option allows the user to override the scene materials when rendering. All objects will be rendered with the chosen material, if one is selected, or with their assigned materials if no material is specified.
- Clicking this button brings up the 3ds Max Include/Exclude dialog which allows you to select exactly for which objects the material is overridden.
Performance
The parameters in this section affect the performance of V-Ray RT. Note that the optimal values for a given machine and network configurations may be different from the defaults. The user is encouraged to experiment with these values to find the optimal ones.
- This controls the number of rays that are sent to the V-Ray RT render servers for processing. When using distributed rendering, the smaller sizes cause more frequent client/server communication with smaller network packets thus decreasing the speed of the renderer but increasing the interactivity and vice versa. Note that this number is not the exact amount of rays, but is proportional to it. It is not recommended to increase this value beyond 512.
- The number of rays that are traced for each pixel during one image pass. The greater the value, the smoother the picture from the very beginning of the rendering with GI, but interactivity may be significantly diminished. Increasing this value also reduces amount of data transferred from the render servers back to client machine.
Show statistics - When this option is enabled, some useful values are shown in the upper right corner of the ActiveShade window:
- V-Ray RT version;
- Number of calculated camera paths (i.e. image samples) per second, in thousands (Kpaths/s);
- Time elapsed since the current image started rendering. This value is reset whenever a change is made to the scene that requires recalculation of the image.
Rendering
- This button opens the V-Ray interactive renderer DR settings dialog. See the Distributed rendering section for more information
Locks
- Locks the render buffer so no further changes to the 3ds Max scene are reflected in the ActiveShade window (however V-Ray RT continues to refine the image). It should be noted that before V-Ray interactive renderer is started, this check box is disabled. During rendering if you check it on, it is disabled again making it impossible to restore interactivity once the buffer is locked. The only way to do that is by closing and reopening the ActiveShade window.
.vrscene export
The .vrscene file format is the scene description format used by the standalone version of V-Ray. V-Ray RT allows you to export your 3ds Max scene to this format for subsequent rendering with V-Ray standalone outside of 3ds Max.
- If selected and full file path, name and extension are set, the 3ds Max scene is exported to the specified .vrscene file when V-Ray interactive renderer is started.
- Allows the scene to be only exported without being rendered. The ActiveShade session will be closed as soon as the .vrscene file is created. Note that currently the scene is exported only for the current frame, without animation.
Locking the view
Normally, as the user changes the active viewports, V-Ray RT will update the ActiveShade window to show the new point of view, if it is a Perspective or Camera viewport. You can prevent this behaviour and lock V-Ray RT to a specific view by turning on the button in the Render Setup dialog.
- Dropdown used to select the view to be rendered when V-Ray interactive renderer is started. Only Perspective and Camera views are supported for the moment. Note that if you lock to a particular view, and later on change the number of viewports (e.g. by maximizing another viewport), V-Ray RT may not be able to show the locked viewport. This seems to be a limitation of the 3ds Max API.
- The button placed next to the View dropdown. If pressed, selecting different viewports in 3ds Max will not have any effect in V-Ray interactive renderer. You can lock/unlock the rendered view even while V-Ray RT is rendering.
ActiveShade in viewports
The ActiveShade button in the Render Setup dialog starts the V-Ray RT renderer in a separate window and the size of the window is determined by the Width and Height values under Common tab of the same dialog. However, the ActiveShade renderer can also be started in a 3ds Max viewport, by choosing ActiveShade view for the particular viewport. In that case the size of the rendered image is the same as the size of the viewport. If Show Safe Frame option is checked, the rendering is restricted inside that frame. Resizing the viewport after the V-Ray RT renderer is started is not recommended because the behavior is not robust.
To return an ActiveShade viewport to its normal state, right-click anywhere in it, and choose Close from the quad menu.
Note that the viewport must be a Perspective or camera viewport when you turn it into an ActiveShade window. User and orthogonal views are currently not supported.
The ActiveShade state of a viewport is saved with the 3ds Max scene. If you save the scene in a state where one of viewports is an ActiveShade window, when you load the scene later on, 3ds Max will automatically start V-Ray RT for the same viewport. In that case, V-Ray RT will print a short warning and will not actually start rendering.
