Chaos Group released V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp, the latest update to their professional rendering plugin. Built on Chaos Group’s industry-leading technology, V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp simplifies the design process for architects and designers, offering photorealistic visuals and easy-to-use controls from concept to construction. This latest update brings a streamlined interface, enhanced GPU rendering and support forSketchUp 2018.
Powerful GPU & new hybrid rendering
The speed improvements long associated with the GPU are now even easier to access, including added support for aerial perspective, displacement, subsurface scattering, and matte/shadows. The addition of a new GPU + CPU hybrid rendering mode will also maximize all existing hardware for NVIDIA CUDA users, ensuring that designers can use any and all computing power, whenever they need it.
Viewport rendering (VPR)
Users are no longer limited to the frame buffer, as they can now render live directly in the SketchUp viewport. With new Viewport rendering, users can easily select and render multiple regions at once, quickly blending between V-Ray render and the SketchUp model using their +/- hotkeys to control opacity.
User interface
Building on V-Ray 3 for SketchUp’s massive UI overhaul, the new, smarter UI is now cleaner and easier to navigate, with better support for 4K monitors. Other UI updates include:
- File manager – All scene files can now be managed in one place using the first file manager for SketchUp. Users can set file paths, create scene archives, and keep track of assets like textures, IES files, and proxy objects, bringing a convenient organization tool to their design and visualization process.
- New V-Ray color picker – Simple, yet powerful, the new color picker allows users to select color values in Screen sRGB (0–255) or Rendering (0.0–1.0) color space, enabling even more accurate color selections.
- Better viewport materials – V-Ray materials will now display more accurately in the SketchUp viewport, so users know what they’ll get when it’s time to render.
Additional new tools and improvements include:
- Adaptive Lights – For scenes with many lights, the new Adaptive Lights mode can help cut render times by up to 700%.
- Sunlight studies – Create sunlight & shadow studies with SketchUp sun animation.
- Fog – Add depth to scenes with realistic 3D fog and light scattering effects.
- V-Ray Scene import – Import and render V-Ray scenes (.vrscene) from other applications such as 3ds Max, Rhino, and Revit.
- Animated proxy objects – Easily add pre-animated 3D objects like walking people and trees blowing in the wind as animated V-Ray proxies.
- Proxy previews – Control the look of V-Ray proxies in the SketchUp viewport. Select from Whole mesh, Bounding box, Point (Origin), and a new low poly Proxy preview mode.
- New texture maps – Fine-tune the look of a scene with new gradient, color temperature and procedural noise texture maps.
- 2D Displacement – Quickly add surface detail without extra modeling using optimized 2D displacement. Perfect for architectural materials like brick and stone.
- Improved denoising – V-Ray Denoiser is now easier to set up and you can refine settings even after you render.
- VRscans materials – Now compatible with real world scanned materials from VRscans, a subscription service that provides access to a library of over 600+ photorealistic, drag-and-drop materials.
Pricing/Availability
V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp is a free update for all V-Ray 3.x for SketchUp customers. Login at chaosgroup.com to download. For a free trial or pricing information, please visit the V-Ray for SketchUp product page. V-Ray 3.6 for SketchUp is available for Windows & Mac OS, and is compatible with SketchUp versions 8–2018.
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