This page provides information on supported features in V-Ray for Houdini.
Page Contents
Overview
These features are supported by CPU and GPU rendering in Houdini for Production and RT modes. In Houdini, RT on the CPU is the same as Production rendering on the CPU when using the Progressive image sampler. Note that in RT mode, both CPU and GPU uses Brute Force for both primary and secondary. In addition to Brute Force GI, Light Cache 3 and the Irradiance Map 4 are available for GPU in Production mode. Production rendering on the CPU supports all available GI engines.
Limitations
GPU in Production mode does not support Distributed Rendering. RT Rendering does not support the particle instancer.
Supported Features
Geometry
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
Poly primitives as triangle mesh | ✓ |
Polysoup primitives as triangle mesh | ✓ |
Triangle fan primitives as triangle mesh | – |
Triangle strip primitives as triangle mesh | – |
Poly lines | ✓ (as GeomMayaHair) |
Bezier curves | ✓ (as GeomMayaHair) |
NURBS curves | ✓ (as GeomMayaHair) |
NURBS surfaces | – |
Perfect circle | – |
Perfect sphere | – |
Perfect tube primitives | – |
V-Ray infinite plane | ✓ |
Metaball primitives | – |
MetaSQuad primitives | – |
Particles | – |
VDB primitives | ✓ |
Houdini Volume primitives | – |
Packed geometry primitives | ✓ |
Packed disk primitives (.bgeo, bhclassic) | ✓ |
Packed fragment primitives | ✓ |
Packed crowd agent primitives | – |
V-Ray proxy | ✓ |
Alembic via proxy | ✓ |
Fur/hair | ✓ |
V-Ray fur | – |
V-Ray clipper | ✓ |
Subdivision | ✓ |
Displacement1 | ✓ |
Houdini Instancer | ✓ |
| OpenSubdiv | N/A |
Lights
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
Standard lights | ✓ (only point, rectangle, sphere, and sun) |
| Lights textures | ✓ (UI issues) |
Skylight portals | ✓ |
V-Ray direct light | ✓ |
V-Ray spot light | ✓ |
V-Ray IES light | ✓ |
V-Ray sphere light | ✓ |
V-Ray dome light | ✓ (UI and viewport display issues) |
V-Ray area light | ✓ |
V-Ray mesh light | ✓ |
V-Ray sun | ✓ |
V-Ray geo sun | – |
Photometric lights | ✓ |
Ambient light | ✓ |
Image Based Lighting | ✓ (as V-Ray dome light) |
Light linking | ✓ |
Materials
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| VRayBlendMtl | ✓ |
| VRayCarPaint | ✓ |
| VRayLightMtl | ✓ |
| VRayMtl | ✓ |
| VRayOverrideMtl | ✓ |
| VRay2SidedMtl 8 | ✓ |
| VRayMtlWrapper | ✓ |
| VRayFastSSS | ✓ |
| VRayFastSSS2 2 | ✓ |
| VRayFlakesMtl | ✓ |
| VRaySimbiontMtl | ✓ |
| VRayGLSLMtl | – |
| VRayHairMtl | ✓ |
| VRayMeshMaterial | – |
| VRayBumpMtl | ✓ |
| VRayVRmatMtl | ✓ |
| VRayMtlRenderStats | ✓ |
| VRaySwitchMtl | ✓ |
| VRaySkinMtl 2 | ✓ |
VRayOSLMtl | – |
| VRayScatterVolume | – |
| BRDFScanned | ✓ |
| BRDFAlSurface9 | ✓ |
| VRaySimbiontMtl | – |
| VRayVectorDisplBake | – |
Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Bitmap | ✓ |
VRayHDRI | ✓ |
| VRaySky | ✓ |
| Falloff | ✓ |
TexFresnel | ✓ |
VRayFakeFresnelTex | – |
VRayDirt | ✓ |
| VRayColor | ✓ |
VRayColor2Bump | – |
| VRayMap | – |
| VRayNormalMap | – |
VRayTemperature | ✓ |
| VRayVertexColors | ✓ |
| VRayEdgesTex | ✓ |
VRayBmpFilter | – |
VRayCompTex | – |
VRayDistanceTex | ✓ |
| VRayGLSLTex | – |
| VRayMultiSubTex | – |
| VRayPTex | ✓ |
| VRayHairInfoTex | ✓ |
| VRayWaterTex | ✓ |
| VRayMultiProjection | ✓ |
Texture projections | ✓ |
| VRayRaySwitch | ✓ |
| VRaySoftBox | ✓ |
VRayLUT | ✓ |
| VRayICC | ✓ |
| VRayOCIO | ✓ |
| VRayOSLTex | – |
| VRayParticleTex | – |
| VRaySamplerInfoTex | ✓ |
| VRayFurSampler | ✓ |
| VRayUserColor | ✓ |
| VRayUserScalar | ✓ |
VRayTriplanarMapping | – |
Cameras
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Camera motion blur 6 | ✓ |
| Camera DoF | ✓ |
| Perspective | ✓ |
| VRayPhysicalCamera | ✓ |
| Stereoscopic | ✓ |
Environment
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Spherical Mapping | ✓ |
| Mirror ball mapping | ✓ |
| Angular mapping | ✓ |
| Toon shading | – |
| SimpleFog | – |
| ScatterFog | – |
| EnvironmentFog | – |
Other
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| VRayShadow | – |
| VrayShadowMap | – |
| VrayStereoRig | – |
| VrayLensEffects | – |
| VrayLightMeter | – |
VrayExposureControl | – |
| Antialiasing | ✓ |
Color mapping | ✓ |
| VFB | ✓ (UI issues) |
| Embree | ✓ |
Render elements | PARTIAL |
Renderable Curves set | – |
V-Ray custom user attributes | – |
| UDIM texture tags | ✓ |
| UVTILE texture tags | – |
| Anisotropy | – |
UVWgen Projections | ✓ |
| Keep geometrycache | – |
Keep bitmap cache | – |
Dynamic bucket splitting | – |
Progressive image sampler | ✓ |
Texture Baking
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
Regular texture baking | – |
Spherical Harmonics baking | – |
Bake to vertex colors | – |
Bake to Ptex | – |
UDIM baking | ✓ |
Distributed Rendering
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Distributed Rendering | ✓ |
| Automatic assets transfer | – |
| Don't use local machine | – |
| Asset cache | – |
Global Illumination Methods
Other
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Additional object properties and attributes | ✓ |
| Global overrides | ✓ |
| Add V-Ray image output to Houdini Render View panelInstead of using custom Qt widget | – |
| Add background rendering to Houdini Render Scheduler | – |
| Add V-Ray material preview | – |
| Render channels linking | – |
Footnotes
1 – Displacement results between CPU and GPU rendering may differ slightly because of Pre-tessellation and Cache Normal settings.
2 – RT always uses raytraced multiple scattering for VRayFastSSS2 and VRaySkinMtl.
3 – Using Light Cache (as a secondary GI engine) with GPU is possible only when used in Production rendering mode. In RT mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
4 – Irradiance map loaded from a file is supported in GPU only in Production rendering mode. In RT mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
5 – Photon map can be used for Production rendering on the CPU. In RT mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
6 – RT rendering supports motion blurred frames on integer numbers only. For example, starting the render from frame 1 will produce correct motion blur, but starting from frame 1.25 will produce incorrect motion blur.
7 – The Global max depth override can be used for Production rendering on the CPU. RT uses its own parameter - Trace Depth that is found in the RT Tab of the Render Settings window.
8 – RT GPU does not support the "Multiply by front diffuse" option of the 2SidedMtl.
9 – RT rendering does not support BRDFAlSurface shader.
Notes
- GPU supports up to 16 UV sets per material.
- GPU supports map channels from 0 to 15.
- GPU only supports normal maps in tangent space.