This page discusses the render settings in V-Ray for Houdini.
Overview
The V-Ray Renderer (vray) node contains a multitude of options for V-Ray. These settings include rendering speed and quality, global overrides, indirect illumination, caustics, and distributed rendering.
Additional rendering settings related to environment overrides can be accessed from the V-Ray Environment (env) node.
UI Paths:
||out Network|| > V-Ray > V-Ray Renderer
||out Network|| > V-Ray > V-Ray Environment
||shop Network|| > V-Ray Material node > V-Ray > Environment > Environment Settings
Parameters
Render to Disk – Starts a V-Ray render.
Controls... – Launches the Houdini Render Control window.
Valid Frame Range – Specifies the frame(s) to render.
Render Current Frame – Renders the current frame.
Render Frame Range – Renders frames from the specified range set below as well as other frames if they are referenced by in-range frames.
Render Frame Range Only (Strict) – Only renders the frames in the specified range set below.
Start/End/Inc – Specifies the range of frames to render (start frame, end frame, and increment).
Render With Take – Renders using the settings from a specified take.
Camera – Specifies the camera to render from. The camera specified by this path must be a valid camera object in the scene, otherwise nothing will be rendered and an error will be logged in the console.
Override Camera Resolution – When enabled, the camera's resolution will be overridden, and the resolution specified from the V-Ray Renderer will be used instead.
Export Tab
Device – Switches between the CPU and GPU rendering modes of V-Ray.
GPU Devices – Opens up the V-Ray GPU Device Select dialog where you can choose which devices to use during IPR rendering.
Use Physical Camera Settings for IPR – When enabled, the V-Ray physical camera settings will be applied when using IPR.
Submit to Cloud – When enabled, the render job will be exported to a .vrscene file for rendering in V-Ray Cloud.
Project – Specifies the name of the V-Ray Cloud project where the render job will be stored.
Job – Specifies the name of the render job in V-Ray Cloud.
Log Level – Switches between the Errors and Debug log printing modes.
Export Mode – Specifies whether to only export a .vrscene file, export & render, or only render, when Render to Disk is selected.
Export Filepath – Specifies the location where the output of the render process will be saved.
Export Compressed Data – When enabled, basic compression will be applied to the .vrscene file. This option can only be used together with Write mesh data in hex format.
Export Data in Hex Format – When enabled (the default), the mesh data will be written in hexadecimal format in the .vrscene file. This makes the files smaller and faster for processing, but less readable to a user. When disabled, the mesh data will be written in normal decimal format.
Export Transforms In Hex Format – When enabled (the default), transform data will be written in hexadecimal format in the .vrscene file. This makes the files smaller and faster for processing, but less readable to a user. When disabled, the data will be written in normal decimal format.
Images Tab
Show Frame Buffer – Opens up the V-Ray Frame Buffer.
Save Image – When enabled, an image will be saved at the specified File Path location.
Network – 
Separate Files –
Don't Save RGB Channel – When enabled, the RGB channels will not be saved (ignored with multichannel exr and vrimg).
Don't Write Alpha Channel – When enabled, the Alpha channels will not be saved (ignored with multichannel exr and vrimg).
Separate Alpha Channel File – When enabled, the alpha channel of the rendered image will be saved to a separate file.
Write Deep Data – Specifies whether or not to write deep output into the rendered image.
Save Velocity 0-Base –
Frame Stamp – Turns the frame stamp on and off.
Stamp Text – The keywords used to render the stamp tokens or keyboards (see table below). These keywords are replaced by V-Ray with the corresponding value:
| Keyword | Information rendered |
| %vrayversion | Current version of V-Ray |
| %filename | Name of the current scene file |
| %frame | Number of the current frame |
| %primitives * | Number of unique intersectable primitives generated for the current frame* |
| %rendertime | Render time for the current frame |
| %computername | Network name of the computer |
| %date | Current system date |
| %time | Current system time |
| %w | Width of the image in pixels |
| %h | Height of the image in pixels |
| %camera | Name of the camera for this frame if rendering from a camera (if not rendering from a camera, an empty string) |
| %ram | Amount of physical memory (in KBytes) installed on the system |
| %vmem | Amount of virtual memory (in KBytes) available on the system |
| %mhz | Clock speed of the system CPU(s) |
| %os | Operating system |
Renderer Tabs
When V-Ray is set as the renderer, V-Ray parameters are organized under several sub-tabs in the Renderer tab of the V-Ray Renderer node.
- Sampler – Determines how the scene is rendered. Includes options for the Image Sampler and DMC Sampler.
- GI – Selection and settings for primary and secondary GI engines, GI caustics
- Color Mapping – Controls color transformations that are applied to the final image colors
- Camera – Settings relating to the render camera
- Options – Options for globally controlling geometry, lighting, materials, and textures.
- Displacement – Controls subdivision and displacement quality for all objects in the scene.
- Caustics – Settings for rendering caustic effects.
- IPR – Settings for the V-Ray IPR renderer.
- DR – Options for Distributed Rendering.
Note: In V-Ray, the two tools that most greatly impact the balance of render quality vs. speed are the Image Sampler (under the Sampler tab) and GI engine(s) (under the GI tab). Learning the basics of how these two features work will greatly enhance your ability to adjust settings in V-Ray and maximize image quality while keeping render times to a minimum. See the linked pages for explanations on how these features work.
Objects Tab
Candidate Objects –
Force Objects –
Forced Matte –
Forced Phantom –
Exclude Objects –
Solo Light –
Candidate Lights –
Force Lights –
Exclude Lights –
Headlight Creation –
Visible Fog –
Scripts Tab
This section of the Globals tab allows you to attach different Hscript or Pythons scripts that will be executed at certain points during the rendering process. For more details, see Python Access to the Translated V-Ray Scene.
Pre-Render Script– The specified script will be executed before the rendering takes place.
Pre-Frame Script – The specified script will be executed before rendering each frame.
Post-Frame Script – The specified script will be executed after rendering each frame.
Post-Render Script – The specified script will be executed after the rendering takes place.
Environment Settings
The Environment render settings are accessed by creating a V-Ray Environment node. See the V-Ray Environment page for additional information.