Chaos Group acquired the V-Ray for Cinema 4D product from LAUBlab some years ago and announced, at the Maxon Supermeet 2018 event, its plans to officially support the Cinema 4D community. Now the company rolls out five years worth of feature development in one massive update (V-Ray 5 and V-Ray Next). This upgrade packs every advancement from V-Ray 5 and V-Ray Next into one easy-to-use rendering solution.
V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D can fit into any production workflow, saving artists countless hours with its built-in compositing, interactive light mixing and scene intelligence tools that render scenes up to 7x faster. It gives C4D users a faster path to high-end visualization and visual effects. With new smart tools and workflows, plus an intuitive interface, it’s faster and easier than ever.
“C4D users finally have access to the full V-Ray experience,” said Phillip Miller, vice president of product management at Chaos Group. “This is a complete modernization of the product that will allow us to update it at the same pace as our other V-Ray integrations. No more waiting!”
Key features in V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D
Chaos Group compiled a long list of features you can find in the new V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D. The list confirms that V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D goes beyond rendering with built-in compositing and interactive light mixing. Here are the features:
- Beyond Rendering
With Light Mix, artists can create dozens of lighting scenarios from a single render. Color and light intensity can now be adjusted instantly in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) without ever having to render again. Once everything is right, artists can save their recipes, send the layers to compositing and update the lights in their scenes.
For the first time, a new Layer Compositor will allow artists to composite their renders directly in the VFB. Users can now combine and grade render passes, set blending modes and adjust colors without using a separate application. - Scene Intelligence
To remove unnecessary set-up time from the creative equation, V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D comes with automatic scene analysis tools that will help artists produce faster, cleaner renders with no extra effort.
Cleaner, more accurate environment lighting can now be produced up to 7x faster with the Adaptive Dome Light (ADL). Point-and-shoot-style timesavers like Automatic Exposure and Automatic White Balance are now part of the V-Ray Physical Camera, so achieving the perfect render will be as easy as taking a snapshot. AI denoising has also been added to offer noise-free updates at interactive speeds, providing instant insights into lighting adjustments. - Faster GPU Rendering
The same V-Ray GPU architecture that made it two times faster in V-Ray Next is now delivered to C4D users. Artists can now take full advantage of their hardware, rendering on GPUs, CPUs or a combination of both. With full support for NVIDIA RTX cards, V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D is primed for rapid boosts, helping artists hit the highest heights of production rendering.
- Fast Interactive Rendering – Artists can now view changes in the moment, helping them create the look they want, without the wait.
- Distributed Rendering – Harness the power of multiple machines working together to render images even faster.
- Chaos Cloud – Render stills and animations at the push of a button with Chaos Group’s cloud rendering service.
- Volume Rendering – Easily render realistic fog, smoke and atmospheric effects or bring in volume grid caches from Houdini, FumeFX and Phoenix FD.
- Coat Layer – The updated V-Ray Material can now generate reflective coatings on surfaces without the use of blend materials.
- Sheen Layer – Easily simulate soft, microfiber fabrics like velvet, satin and silk inside the updated V-Ray Material.
- Metalness – Metalness reflections are now supported directly by the V-Ray Material, making it fully compatible with PBR workflows.
- Car Paint 2 Material – A new car paint material can take automotive renders to the next level with realistic flakes and less memory.
- Improved V-Ray Dirt – Add dirt to cracks and crevices, create procedural streaks or cover an entire surface for a more weathered look.
- Physical Hair Material – Achieve more realistic results with the new physically accurate V-Ray Hair Material.
- New Sun and Sky Model – Capture the light of magic hour. The improved Sun and Sky model is more accurate and looks better at sunrise and sunset, even as the sun dips below the horizon.
- Texture Randomization – Аdd variety to scenes by randomizing colors and textures with V-Ray Multi Sub Texture.
- VRscans Material Library Support – Access a library of over 1,000 photorealistic materials that can be dropped into any V-Ray scene file.
- Native Support for Cinema 4D Noises – Enhance renderings with different noise patterns and detailed surfaces. Now with less memory consumption.
- Light Path Expressions – Artists can now create their own render passes for the ultimate control in compositing.
- Blue-Noise Sampling – Artists will now see less noise in their renders using the same amount of samples.
- Out-of-Core GPU Rendering – Initial support for out-of-core geometry helps users break through memory constraints to render larger scenes.
Pricing and Availability
V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D is available now for Windows 8.1 and 10, Mac OS 10.14 and up, and is compatible with Cinema 4D versions R20-R23. Licensing is available at $470 (annually) and $80 (monthly). V-Ray 5 for Cinema 4D is also included in V-Ray Collection, an annual plan that gives users full access to 15 Chaos Group products and services for $699/year.