This page provides some basic information about V-Ray for Modo and the supported by the V-Ray renderer Modo features.
Overview
V-Ray is a rendering plug-in for Modo. In addition to supporting most standard Modo features, V-Ray supports many third-party plug-ins. V-Ray for Modo includes two renderers:
- V-Ray, which utilizes all V-Ray features.
- V-Ray RT, a real-time renderer. V-Ray RT can update the rendering as you make changes to the scene. V-Ray RT renders most V-Ray and Modo features with a few exceptions.
All the V-Ray options are available within the Modo user interface, including indirect illumination and the creation of V-Ray maps and materials. While V-Ray renders standard Modo features, the V-Ray options are designed to work with the V-Ray render engine to improve both image quality and render times.
Rendering settings for V-Ray can be found in two locations in Modo:
- The V-Ray Render Settings, which are divided into a Main section, GI, RT and Performance, and Render Elements.
- The Modo Preferences, under the V-Ray Renderer category.
Additionally, V-Ray for Modo comes packaged with several standalone Rendering Tools and Utilities to assist in the rendering process, along with the option to submit render jobs to Chaos Cloud.
Compatibility with Modo
A comprehensive list of native Modo features that are supported by the current version of V-Ray and V-Ray RT is included on the Modo Compatibility page.
A list of recent changes for every version of V-Ray for Modo is available in the Release Notes section.
Production Rendering
The term Production Rendering can mean many different things for different renderers or studios/users. For V-Ray, Production Rendering typically refers to an offline rendering process that can incorporate all the features available within the V-Ray renderer. It may involve one or many machines, and it is normally used for creating Final Color Output (Beauty pass) and render elements. Rendered images can then be saved in different formats and with custom gamma adjustment (32-bit file formats and Linear color space are recommended for compositing purposes).
V-Ray renderings display in the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB), which has a multitude of V-Ray specific tools for saving and comparing renderings, adding lens effects, and viewing render elements. Scenes can be sent to V-Ray Standalone from within Modo for rendering outside of Modo. Alternatively, rendering is possible through the command line for license and resource management.
Initializing V-Ray Production Render
Render with V-Ray...
||V-Ray menu|| > Render with V-Ray
Render Pass Group – Selects which render pass group to render, otherwise renders all.
Render Engine – Allows you to choose between CPU and GPU.
Choose output image – Enables an image export after the render completes. Pressing OK opens a window to select an image output location. If disabled, the 'filename' and 'format' command arguments are used. If those are blank, then the Output Filename parameter set in the Final Color Output > Render output section are used. If that parameter is not enabled as well, the rendered image is not saved to disk.
Note: Saving JPEG, PNG, or OpenEXR files with this option uses the Quality, Compression, and Compression Level settings specified in System > Preferences > File IO > Image I/O.
Render animation with V-Ray...
||V-Ray menu|| > Render animation with V-Ray
Render Pass Group – Selects which render pass group to render, otherwise renders all.
Render Engine – Allows you to choose between CPU and GPU.
Choose output image – When enabled, exports an image after the render completes. Pressing OK opens a window to select an image output location. If disabled, the 'filename' and 'format' command arguments are used. If those are blank, then the Output Filename parameter set in the Final Color Output > Render output section are used. If that parameter is not enabled as well, the rendered image is not saved to disk.
Note: Saving JPEG, PNG, or OpenEXR files with this option uses the Quality, Compression, and Compression Level settings specified in System > Preferences > File IO > Image I/O.
First Frame – Specifies the first frame of the animation to be exported.
Last frame – Specifies the last frame of the animation to be exported.
Frame Step – Renders every Nth frame to the current set frame rate.
Custom frame ranges – Renders only specified frames. Formatted by numbers that are separated by semicolons. (IE: 1;4;6;25-34;)
For more advanced use, the format for this string is the following:
b0[-e0[,s0]]{;bn[-en[,sn]]}
[a] means 'a' is optional, {a} means 'a' can be repeated many times. bX is the start frame, eX is the end frame, and sX is the frame increment. For example : 1-4;15;16;20 means frames 1, 2, 3, 4, 15, 16 and 20 will be rendered.
Initializing V-Ray Frame Buffer Render
A V-Ray render can be initialized in several ways.
||Render V-Ray|| > V-Ray Toolbar > Render with V-Ray (right click) > Render with V-Ray CPU
||Render V-Ray|| > V-Ray Toolbar > Render with V-Ray (right click) > Render with V-Ray GPU CUDA
||V-Ray Frame Buffer|| > Render Last
Render Settings
V-Ray has three tabs for parameters in the Render item in the Shader Tree. The tabs are divided into several rollouts. You can find more information on these parameters on the V-Ray Main, V-Ray GI, and RT Performance pages.
V-Ray Frame Settings
This part of the Render Settings allows you to attach different scripts (like Python files) or commands that will be executed at certain points during the rendering process.
Use custom frame ranges – Renders only specified frames. Formatted by numbers separated by commas. (IE: 1,4,6,25-34)
Pre translate command – The specified script/command are executed before the Modo scene is translated to V-Ray.
Pre sequence command – The specified script/command are executed before rendering is started but after translating the scene.
Pre frame command – The specified script/command are executed before rendering each frame.
Post frame command – The specified script/command are executed after rendering each frame.
Post sequence command – The specified script/command are executed after rendering the entire sequence of frames.
RT Rendering
RT Interactive rendering in V-Ray allows immediate viewing of scene changes to the render process, this includes things like manipulations to objects, materials, lights, and render settings as they are actively taking place. This type of rendering can be extremely useful in areas like Look Development or lighting a scene. RT rendering can also offload some of the raytracing calculations to other computer components like GPUs. For more information on choosing which GPU devices to use for RT rendering and to balance the load on each device, see the Set Up GPU Rendering page. Because performance is key over the finally quality of the render, some of the more complex features in V-Ray are not available within this mode (for more details see the RT Supported Features page). Known interactivity issues and work-arounds are covered on the RT Interactivity Issues page.
Initializing Render
A V-Ray RT render can be initialized in a couple of different ways.
||V-Ray menu|| > Start RT CPU
||V-Ray menu|| > Start RT GPU CUDA
||Render V-Ray|| > V-Ray Toolbar > Start V-Ray RT (right click) > Start V-Ray RT CPU
||Render V-Ray|| > V-Ray Toolbar > Start V-Ray RT (right click) > Start V-Ray RT GPU CUDA
RT Render Settings
V-Ray RT has one tab for parameters in the Render item in the Shader Tree. The tab is divided into several rollouts. More information on these parameters is available on the RT, Performance page.
V-Ray Standalone Rendering
V-Ray Standalone can be used to render exported .vrscene files on any machine, including machines that do not have Modo installed. When using the Render with V-Ray Standalone... option, you can continue working on your scene in Modo while Standalone renders.
Another advantage is being able to render animation from the GPU.
Exporting Scene to .vrscene
The scene can be exported for future use with Standalone by enabling the Only export without starting V-Ray Standalone option. This option is located in V-Ray tab > Render with V-Ray Standalone. By default *.vrscene file is exported to Appdata/Local/Temp/.
Initializing Render
A V-Ray render can be initialized through the V-Ray Menu.
||V-Ray menu|| > Render with V-Ray Standalone
V-Ray Standalone Render Settings
The Render with V-Ray Standalone menu item opens a window with parameters. More information on this is available on the Render with V-Ray Standalone page.
