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Table of Contents

This page describes how to set up your local system so that it loads the files for the correct version. The notes here are for the Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems.

Starting with V-Ray 6, the Portable Installation replaces the zip builds. Please visit the Portable Installation page to find out more. 

 

 

Download V-Ray Standalone

 

Overview

Installing V-Ray Standalone from a .zip file provides several advantages over the regular installer:

  • The ZIP installation allows setting a custom environment when starting each Standalone instance. In comparison, running the regular installation multiple times overwrites the V-Ray environment variables.
  • The ZIP installation can be used to run V-Ray Standalone from an arbitrary location or even a network drive. That way, multiple users can start V-Ray Standalone using just a script that sets up the environment variables without the need to run local installations.
  • Upgrading a ZIP installation is a lot easier too, as you don't need to run the installer on every user's computer.
  • The ZIP installation allows for quickly switching between different V-Ray versions without reinstalling it.

Required Steps to Run V-Ray

To run a ZIP installation, you will need to:

  1. Unpack the ZIP file to a location of your choice
  2. Set up the environment variables needed to run V-Ray Standalone
  3. Set up your license
  4. Run V-Ray Standalone

An easy way to complete the environment set up and run V-Ray Standalone is with a custom shell or bat script that sets the environment for running the application instance.

These steps are further discussed in the sections below with examples.

It is not recommended to place the unzipped files in the same directory as the installation.

Unpacking the ZIP file

Extract the contents of the relevant .zip file into a suitable folder.

Below is a step-by-step guide:

 

  1. Download V-Ray Standalone from the Chaos website. The file should be called vraystd_adv_6xxxx_x64_vc14.zip.

  2. Make a new directory anywhere on your machine or on a network location and call it vray_builds (vray_builds is an arbitrary name, you can use whatever name suits you). For example, create a vray_builds directory on your D:\ drive.

  3. Make another directory inside vray_builds and name it vray6xxxx_std.
  4. Unpack vraystd_adv_6xxxx_x64_vc14.zip into the vray6xxxx_std directory.

The D:\ drive holding the vray_builds folder is simply an example. The unpacked V-Ray ZIP installation can be placed anywhere.

The vray.exe file is located in C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Standalone for x64\bin

 

  1. Download V-Ray Standalone from the Chaos website. The file should be called vraystd_adv_6xxxx_centos7_clang-gcc-6.3.zip.

  2. Make a new directory anywhere on your machine or on a network location and call it vray_builds (vray_builds is an arbitrary name, you can use whatever name suits you). For example, create a vray_builds directory on your /opt/ directory.
  3. Make another directory inside vray_builds and name it vray6xxxx_std.
  4. Unpack vraystd_adv_6xxxx_centos7_clang-gcc-6.3.zip into the vray6xxxx_std directory.

The /opt directory on Linux is simply an example. The unpacked V-Ray ZIP installation can be placed anywhere.

The vray.bin file is located in /usr/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Standalone_for_linux

 

  1. Download V-Ray Standalone from the Chaos website. The file should be called vraystd_adv_6xxx_mavericks_x64_gcc-4.2-cpp.zip.

  2. Make a new directory anywhere on your machine or on a network location and call it vray_builds (vray_builds is an arbitrary name, you can use whatever name suits you). For example, create a vray_builds directory in your /Volumes/Data directory.
  3. Make another directory inside vray_builds and name it vray6xxxx_std.
  4. Unpack vraystd_adv_6xxxx_mavericks_x64_gcc-4.2-cpp.zip into the vray6xxxx_std directory.

The /Volumes/Data directory is simply an example. The unpacked V-Ray ZIP installation can be placed anywhere.

The vray.bin file is located in /Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Standalone_for_maverics_x64/VRay/Contents/MacOS/

Environment Setup

Before you run V-Ray Standalone, you need to set up an environment. There are some specific steps to consider. The license setup is the last requirement, as V-Ray needs to be instructed where to look for a valid license.

Please read the sections below for more information and examples.

 

 

 

The example directory and version names below are for V-Ray Standalone on Windows where vraystd_adv_6xxxx_x64_vc14.zip has been unpacked into D:\vray_builds\vray6xxxx_std\.

Here is a list of the environment variables and their description and examples. An example of a complete setup will be given further below.

OSActionVariableLocationDescriptionExample
WindowsSetVRAY_OSL_PATH\openslRequired for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin.set VRAY_OSL_PATH=D:\vray_builds\vray6xxxx_std\opensl
WindowsSet

VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH 1

arbitrary locationPoints V-Ray to a V-Ray license.set VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml>

Since V-Ray 6, update 1, the VRAY_OSL_PATH variable has been deprecated and no longer needs to be set.

 

 

The example directory and version names below are for V-Ray for Maya 2022 on Linux where vray_adv_60000_maya2022_linux_x64.zip has been unpacked into /opt/vray_builds/vray60000_maya2022/.

Here is a list of the environment variables and their description and examples. An example of a complete setup will be given further below.

OSActionVariableLocationDescriptionExample
LinuxSetVRAY_OSL_PATH/openslRequired for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin.export VRAY_OSL_PATH=/opt/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/opensl
LinuxExtend

LD_LIBRARY_PATH 3

/lib

(for earlier builds: /lib/linux_x64/clang-gcc-4.8)

Required to run V-Ray itself.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

for V-Ray Next Standalone, update 2 and earlier:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/vray/lib/linux_x64/clang-gcc-4.8:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

LinuxSetVRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH 1arbitrary locationPoints V-Ray to a V-Ray license.export VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml>

Since V-Ray 6, update 1, the VRAY_OSL_PATH variable has been deprecated and no longer needs to be set.

 

 

The example directory and version names below are for V-Ray for Maya 2022 on macOS where vray_adv_60000_maya2022_mavericks_x64.zip has been unpacked into /vray_builds/vray60000_maya2022/.

Here is a list of the environment variables and their description and examples. An example of a complete setup will be given further below.

OSActionVariableLocationDescriptionExample
macOSSetVRAY_OSL_PATH/openslRequired for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin.export VRAY_OSL_PATH=/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/opensl
macOSExtend

DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH 2

/lib

(for earlier builds: /vray/lib/mavericks_x64/gcc-4.2-cpp)

Required to run V-Ray itself.

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

for builds before 2019-03-12:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/vray/lib/mavericks_x64/gcc-4.2-cpp:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

macOSSetVRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH 1arbitrary locationPoints V-Ray to a V-Ray license.export VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml>

Since V-Ray 6, update 1, the VRAY_OSL_PATH variable has been deprecated and no longer needs to be set.


Notes

1.VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH needs to point to the folder that contains the vrlclient.xml  file that holds the V-Ray license server settings (IP address and port number). Alternatively, using the tool to set or change your license settings will create the vrlclient.xml file for you at a default location and there will be no need to explicitly define its location the VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH variable. However, it might be useful to use the variable to define per-user license settings.

Please note that this environment variable is optional. If nothing is specified, the default auth client file path is used. 

For the case where using the environment variable is the best option for you and you need to create the vrlclient.xml file manually, the example below shows what it should contain:

 

Example: vrlclient.xml 
 <!--
	Example contents of vrlclient.xml
	In this example, the primary IP address to look for a valid license is 10.0.0.100 at the default 30304 port.
	Alternate servers (hosts) have not been set.
-->
<VRLClient>
	<LicServer>
		<Host>10.0.0.100</Host>
		<Port>30304</Port>
		<Host1></Host1>
		<Port1>30304</Port1>
		<Host2></Host2>
		<Port2>30304</Port2>
		<User></User>
		<Pass></Pass>
	</LicServer>
</VRLClient>


2.Starting with nightly build set 28989 (dated 2019-03-12) and later, V-Ray Next adopts the new style of directory naming, where bin/ is used instead of bin/x64/vc14 or bin/linux_x64/clang-gcc-4.8 ; all release and stable builds at this time use the classic style. Any new batch files and shell scripts should be designed to accommodate the new style too, as upcoming updates will gradually adopt the new directory layout.

If you want to use any additional tools like the irradiance map viewer, the VRIMG to OpenEXR converter etc., then also add to the PATH environment variable vray_builds/my_version/vray/bin.

Please note that by default the V-Ray installer sets the TdrLevel (that is GPU timeout detection and recovery) to 8 (seconds of delay). Installing V-Ray from .zip may require the user to manually change this registry entry and should optionally have the full path to the registry.