Full spectrum of visualisation, from real-time to photoreal rendering, now available in the popular push/pull modelling tool
With V-Ray 5 for SketchUp, Chaos Group has introduced V-Ray Vision, which is designed to connect real-time and photorealistic rendering into a single workflow. Users will now be able to see a real-time representation of their current scene, helping them work through new ideas and client feedback before moving on to full photorealism with V-Ray’s final renderer.
“V-Ray Vision is going to transform how designers work in SketchUp, bringing an always-on real-time view of every project,” said Phillip Miller, VP of product management at Chaos Group. “When real-time is always available, you can understand your design more fully as you craft it, add detailed entourage without burdening the system and know that all your lights and materials are ready for V-Ray photorealism when you need it. It’s a complete visualisation solution from start to finish.”
Other new features in V-Ray 5 for SketchUp include automatic scene lighting with a new Light Gen tool that allows SketchUp users to ‘rapidly explore’ a variety of lighting possibilities and select the best look for their scene.
Light Gen will automatically generate dozens of physically based lighting variations for each project, helping it illuminate exteriors and interiors using V-Ray’s Sun & Sky system and a wealth of included HDRI images. Each preset also factors in real-world lighting conditions, so new lights blend perfectly as they are added by the user.
Light Mix is another new feature that lets users interactively change the colour and brightness of any light without rendering again, creating multiple lighting scenarios from a single render. Image adjustments like exposure control, colour balance and colour corrections can also be added, which, according to the developers, replaces the need for external image editing tools. For extra control, render layers can be combined using the Layer Compositor to create more nuanced designs, or even saved as presets for later use.
“As soon as we heard about Light Mix, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. Now, when a client asks for a nighttime version of the shot, we change a few settings and presto, we’ve got it,” said Dan Stone, head of operations of Archilime Visualisations. “This really boosts both the quality and quantity of work we can produce. It’s pretty amazing.”
V-Ray 5 for SketchUp is available now for Windows and Mac OS, with V-Ray Vision Mac support coming soon. A perpetual license is priced at $790, with upgrades available for $395. Term licensing is available at $350 (annually) and $60 (monthly). V-Ray 5 for SketchUp is also included in V-Ray Collection, an annual plan that gives users full access to 15 Chaos Group products and services for $699/year.
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