This page provides information on supported features in V-Ray for Houdini.
Overview
These features are supported by CPU and GPU rendering in Houdini for Production and IPR modes. In Houdini, IPR on the CPU is the same as Production rendering on the CPU when using the Progressive image sampler. Note that in IPR mode, both CPU and GPU uses Brute Force for both primary and secondary. In addition, Brute Force GI and Light Cache 3 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. IPR 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 | ✓ |
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 |
|---|---|
| V-Ray BRDFLayered | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFBump | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFCarPaint | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFHair | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFHair3 | |
| V-Ray BRDFLight | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlMaterialID | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlMulti | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlOverride | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlRenderStats | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlRoundEdges | |
| V-Ray MtlSingleBRDF | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFSkinComplex | – |
| V-Ray BRDFSSS2Complex 2 | ✓ |
| V-Ray Mtl2Sided 8 | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFAlSurface9 | ✓ |
| VRayMtl | ✓ |
V-Ray MtlOSL | |
| V-Ray MtlVRayMesh | – |
| V-Ray BRDFScatterVolume | – |
| V-Ray BRDFToonMtl | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlVRmat | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFScanned | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlWrapper | ✓ |
| V-Ray GeomDisplacedMesh | ✓ |
Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray TexBlend | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBulge | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCellular | |
| V-Ray TexChecker | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexAColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexAColorOp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexColorToFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCombineColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCombineFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCompMax | – |
| V-Ray TexCurvature | ✓ |
V-Ray TexDirt | ✓ |
V-Ray TexDistance | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexEdges | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFalloff | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFloatOp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFloatToColor | |
| V-Ray TexFresnel | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexGradRamp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexGrid | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexHairSampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray MetaImageFile | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexInvert | |
| V-Ray TexLayeredMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMaskMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMeshVertexColorChannel | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMix | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexNoise | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexOSL | – |
| V-Ray TexOutput | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexPtex | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRemap | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRgbaCombine | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRock | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSky | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSmoke | |
| V-Ray TexSnow | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSoftbox | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSpeckle | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSplat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexStencil | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSwirl | ✓ |
V-Ray TexTemperature | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexTiles | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUserColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUserScalar | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexWater | ✓ |
Utility Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray TexAColorChannel | |
| V-Ray TexBezierCurve | |
| V-Ray TexBlendBumpNormal | |
| V-Ray TexClamp | |
| V-Ray TexColorAndAlpha | |
| V-Ray ColorCorrect | |
| V-Ray ColorCorrection | |
| V-Ray ColorTextureToMono | |
| V-Ray TexCondition2 | |
| V-Ray TexDistanceBetween | |
| V-Ray TexFloat | |
| V-Ray TexHSVToRGB | |
| V-Ray TexICC | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexInt | |
| V-Ray TexIntToFloat | |
| V-Ray TexInvertFloat | |
| V-Ray TexLuminance | |
V-Ray TexLUT | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMulti | |
| V-Ray TexNormalMapFlip | |
| V-Ray TexOCIO | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRaySwitch | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRGBMultiplyMax | |
| V-Ray TexRGBTintMax | |
| V-Ray TexRGBToHSV | |
| V-Ray TexSetRange | |
| V-Ray TexThickness | |
| V-Ray TransformToTex | |
| V-Ray TexTriPlanar | – |
| V-Ray TexUserInteger | |
| V-Ray TexUVW | |
| V-Ray TexUVWGenToTexture |
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 | ✓ |
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 panel Instead of using custom Qt widget | – |
| Add background rendering to Houdini Render Scheduler | – |
| Add V-Ray material preview | ✓ |
| Render channels linking | – |
| 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 geometry cache | – |
Keep bitmap cache | – |
Dynamic bucket splitting | – |
Progressive image sampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray Lights Preview | ✓ |
Footnotes
1 – Displacement results between CPU and GPU rendering may differ slightly because of Pre-tessellation and Cache Normal settings.
2 – GPU always uses raytraced multiple scattering for VRayFastSSS2.
3 – Using Light Cache (as a secondary GI engine) with GPU is possible only when used in Production rendering mode. In IPR 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 IPR 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 IPR mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
6 – IPR 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 – IPR GPU does not support the "Multiply by front diffuse" option of the 2SidedMtl.
9 – IPR 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.