This page introduces the settings found in the VRay tab of the Render Settings.
Overview
The core of how V-Ray determines how to render your Maya scenes can be found within the VRay tab of the Render Settings window. Some basic information on each rollout can be found below, but for more details, please see the dedicated pages for each section.
UI Path: ||Render Settings window|| > VRay tab
Production Renderer Rollout
V-Ray allows you to use both CPU and GPU hardware for production renders through the Production Renderer rollout. GPU rendering this way is different than using V-Ray IPR.
GPU Engines Parameters
When using the GPU Production engine types (CUDA/RTX) additional parameters become available from this rollout to help adjust the way your GPU will render the given scene.
Texture Mode – Determines how textures' resolution/size are handled to help optimize memory usage. The possible values are:
Full size textures – Textures are loaded at their original size.
Resize all textures – Adjusts the size of high-resolution textures to a smaller resolution to optimize render performance. The GPU engine loads as much texture tiles on the GPU as it can, then swaps the ones that are needed between GPU RAM and CPU RAM.
On-demand mipmapping – Instead of loading all the texture files at their default resolution (original or resized), V-Ray loads the textures as needed and automatically create mip-map tiles for them (regardless of their texture type). As a result, the GPU memory consumption could be decreased; textures that are not visible are not loaded, and textures that are further away from the camera are loaded with a lower resolution. During the texture-detection process, V-Ray GPU renders slower. Once it detects that all textures are loaded, it switches automatically to the traditional, faster mode, and a message about modes changing displays in the V-Ray log. This option is only available in the Production Rendering Mode.
Texture Size – When GPU Resize textures is enabled, this value specifies the resolution to which the textures are resized.
Texture Format – Controls the file format of the material textures used in GPU rendering. You can choose between 8 bit, 16 bit and 32 bit. This does not affect textures used for lights and displacement.
V-Ray Render Devices Selection
This rollout is displayed only when the Production Engine is set to GPU rendering with CUDA or RTX and specifies which device(s) to use. Selecting specific devices to render with can help if you have multiple GPUs and you want to leave one of them free for working on the user interface, or you may want to combine your CPU and CUDA together for Hybrid Rendering.
This rollout has the same functionality as the Select devices for V-Ray GPU rendering GUI tool that comes with V-Ray for Maya. For more information, including details on GPU devices and options like hybrid rendering, see the V-Ray GPU Setup page.
Image Samplers
Overall image sampling - Raytrace renders, like V-Ray, shoot rays out from the camera to sample what is found in the scene to help determine what color each pixel will be in a rendered image. The settings used to adjust how V-Ray does this, and the relationship between pixels in the render can be found on the Image Sampler (Anti-Aliasing) page.
Blurry effects sampling - While the Image sampler rollout deals with primary rays coming from the camera, the DMC sampler rollout focuses on secondary rays that help calculate what's referred to as "blurry" effects such as anti-aliasing, depth of field, indirect illumination, area lights, glossy reflections/refractions, motion blur, etc. For more details on the settings and parameters in this rollout, please see the DMC Sampler page.
Region rendering - When V-Ray uses a non-progressive image sampler, the rendered image is broken up into small pieces, also known as buckets, to help calculate and complete the image faster. The settings used to adjust these buckets can be found within the Render Region Division page.
Color Mapping
A camera in the real world uses exposure controls to determine how it handles the brightest and darkest parts of a captured image. Similarly, V-Ray uses Color Mapping to help translate the information collected by the sample rays into usable pixels we see within our rendered image. For more details on how to control the way V-Ray maps these values, please see the Color Mapping page.