V-Ray 3.0 for Maya released

• Faster Ray Tracing and Rendering Performance - V-Ray 3.0 includes a number of overall speedups, and the new optimized ray tracing core performs significantly faster.
• Faster Feedback - Using a powerful new Progressive Image Sampler, V-Ray 3.0 delivers instant feedback to artists and makes lighting and look development quicker and more intuitive. Plus, V-Ray 3.0 can cache scene geometry and textures in between renders for even faster iterations.
• Production-Focused Tools - V-Ray 3.0 is designed to give artists more control and flexibility. New time-saving tools include Max Ray Intensity to clamp secondary rays, Probabilistic Light Sampling which determines optimized sampling based on lighting contributions, and Render Mask to specify exact render regions using an object selection or image mask.
• Advanced Characters and Creatures - Improvements to character and creature workflows include optimized Hair and Fur, Subsurface Scattering, and a new VRaySkinMtl shader.
• Color Accurate Workflows - An improved V-Ray Frame Buffer adds Lens Effects and advanced color corrections for White Balance, Contrast, Hue, Saturation and Color Balance. The VFB is now dockable and supports LUTs, ICC, and OpenColorIO color management profiles.
• Volume Rendering - V-Ray 3.0 includes optimized Phoenix FD volume shaders to render all types of volumetric effects including fluids, fire, smoke and heat haze. OpenVDB grids and Field3D voxel data can be imported and rendered as surfaces or volumes using the new VRayVolumeGrid node.
• Pipeline-Ready Formats - V-Ray 3.0 supports a variety of open standards and file formats including OpenSubdiv, Alembic 1.5, Deep Images and OpenEXR 2.2, and programmable shaders using Open Shading Language [OSL].

Try a demo of V-Ray 3.0 for Maya today.