This page gives some basic information about V-Ray in Houdini and key features included in this amazing renderer.
Overview
V-Ray is a rendering plugin for Houdini. V-Ray offers a number of materials, textures, lights, utility nodes, volumetrics and render elements specifically designed for а smooth workflow.
V-Ray for Houdini includes two render engines: V-Ray and V-Ray GPU.
After V-Ray is assigned as the renderer, all the V-Ray options will be available within the Houdini user interface. V-Ray renderings display in the V-Ray Virtual Frame Buffer (VFB), which has a multitude of V-Ray specific tools for saving and comparing renderings, adding lens effects, and viewing render elements. For tools to adjust rendering quality and speed with V-Ray and V-Ray GPU, see the V-Ray Render Settings page.
Rendering with V-Ray
Both V-Ray and V-Ray GPU engines support Production and IPR Rendering modes. The Production Rendering mode utilizes all V-Ray's features and is intended to be used to create a clean production ready render.
The IPR is a fast active renderer that can update the rendering as you make changes to the scene. The IPR Renderer allows for rendering in the Viewport. With Viewport rendering, the scene is rendered interactively and if changes are made, the rendered result is updated.
The IPR renderer always runs in Progressive mode, a progressive image sampling mode that refines the details over time. The Production rendering mode allows you to switch on/off the Progressive Rendering mode. Switching off the Progressive image sampler automatically activates the Bucket image sampler, which takes a variable number of samples per pixel depending on the difference in the intensity of the pixel.
In addition, rendering in Chaos Cloud is possible through interface integration in V-Ray for Houdini.
Starting V-Ray Render
1.Create V-Ray Renderer/ V-Ray Renderer IPR node in the out Network
||out Network|| > V-Ray > V-Ray Renderer
||out Network|| > V-Ray > V-Ray Renderer IPR
If vray/vray_ipr nodes are not created in the /out Network pressing the Render button on the V-Ray shelf will create them both.
2. Press the Render button in the V-Ray Shelf. It will initiate a render process in the VFB.
Alternatively, go to V-Ray Renderer node settings and press the Render to Disk button.
Viewport Rendering
Make sure vray and vray_ipr nodes are created in the out Network. Create a camera in the Scene View.
Select the Render Region button.
Select a region in the Scene View that will automatically start rendering using V-Ray IPR.