The Chaos Group team is pleased to announce the availability of V-Ray Next 4.20.01 for Autodesk 3ds Max. The long-awaited major update to its production renderer, following five months in public beta. New 'Scene Intelligence' features, new V-Ray GPU rendering architecture, overall speed boosts.

V-Ray Next Build 4.20.01, Update 2.1 Official Release - Date: July 02, 2019

New features:
- Add mapped multiplier to control the rounded corners' radius
Modified features:
- Add a warning when there are Render Elements with filtering off and Progressive Sampler
- Avoid saving the "Shademap export" helper channel to image files
- Render Raytrace material as black to avoid interfering with shading
- Increase width of the string widgets
- Add tangent and bitangent modes in object space
- Copy-paste support for render gradients and curves
- Revert the IPR zoom modificator to Ctrl+Shift/Ctrl
Bug fixes:
- Artifacts with VRayEnvironmentFog and Adaptive dome light
- Debug shading in Viewport IPR MaxScript error on 3ds Max2017
- Debug shading in Viewport IPR menus produce error after V-Ray is uninstalled
- EXR images are saved as "incomplete" (since 4.20.00)
- Memory tracking reports wrong month number on the timestamps
- Rendering a specific scene with disc lights produces incorrect results on the second render
- Spurious skipping of a subframe when rendering using PresenZ camera and DR
- Using "File" > "New" > "Keep objects and hierarchy" may cause a crash if the scene has VRayHDRI maps
- Attempting to stop rendering may freeze 3ds Max
- Changes to displacement maps are not updated (since 4.20.00)
- Crash if the scene is modified while V-Ray is preparing objects
- Crash when copying objects with Override material
- Crash when creating new objects while V-Ray is preparing geometry
- Crash when rendering with CoronaMtl
- Crash with 3D displacement with "Keep continuity" enabled if the scene is modified while V-Ray is preparing objects
- Creation of dome light from the V-Ray toolbar is not correctly detected
- Deleting a dome light is not reflected
- Inconsistent lighting when rotating dome light
- Incorrect direct illumination of VRayLightMtl
- Lights with animated multiplier don't update
- Moving an instance of a displaced object during rendering may cause a crash
- Unhandled exception when exporting a .vrmesh file during rendering
- Crash with adaptive lights with more than 110 000 lights
- Closing the VFB while exporting nodes crashes 3ds Max
- Crash when rendering VRayInstancer with many particles and VRayVolumeGrid
- Crash when sliding the timeline during IPR and then stop rendering
- Crash with light cache when mesh acceleration types in MB segment's ends are different
- Every 10-th UV tile (e.g. 1010, 1020, 1030) is not rendered
- Incorrect light cache retrace amount in some cases
- Incorrectly strong bump effect with normal maps and VRayAlSurfaceMtl
- Rounded corners аrе not rendered with Bucket sampler in scenes with no direct lighting
- Vertical FOV with spherical panoramic camera is ignored unless a 360 degree horizontal FOV override is used
- VRayALSurfaceMtl with rounded edges render wrong
- VRayALSurfaceMtl's SSS is darker in the areas reflecting objects with VRayFastSSS2
- Color Correction texmap is rendered wrong with 32-bit images
- Difference in render with VRayEdgesTex in the VRayMtl displacement slot
- Does not compose correctly when the "consistent lighting elements" option is enabled
- Dropdown parameters reset when refocusing the node in the Slate Material Editor
- Tooltips for shader parameters are displayed in the wrong places
- MtlRoundEdges plugin is not working in "Convex only" and "Concave only"
- Renders different than V-Ray Standalone in bump slots
- Scenes saved with blacklisted plugins should still open correctly
- Don't bake gamma into the gradients of VRayToonMtl
- Export to .vrscene
- Brighter results in VRayLighting render element with Consistent lighting elements turned on
- Crash with caches over 2.1 billion voxels with Phoenix Light Cache since Phoenix 3.12
- Crash when loading a 3ds Max scene from the history
- Dock history option causes IPR restart
- The tooltip for the debug shading is wrong

About V-Ray Next for Autodesk 3ds Max. A major overhaul of V-Ray's two-decades-old code base, V-Ray Next promises a boost in overall rendering performance of "up to 25 percent", according to Chaos Group CTO Vlado Koylazov.

The speed gains are augmented by two of V-Ray Next's key changes: new 'Scene Intelligence' features designed to simplify the set-up of complex scenes, and V-Ray GPU, its new GPU rendering architecture.

Other key features include Nvidia's AI-based OptiX render denoiser, a new physiologically plausible hair shader, a new V-Ray Switch material for look dev work, and a scene lighting analysis system.

Pipeline improvements include support for layered Alembic files, and the V-Ray Plugin material and texture, which enable users to load any material or texture from the standalone edition of the renderer.

About Chaos Group. Chaos Group is a worldwide leader in computer graphics technology, helping artists and designers create photoreal imagery and animation for design, television, and feature films. Chaos Group specializes in physically-based rendering and simulation software used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe. Today, the company's research and development in cloud rendering, material scanning, and virtual reality is shaping the future of creative storytelling and digital design. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group is privately owned with offices in Sofia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Product: Chaos Group V-Ray
Version: Next Update 2.1 (Build 4.20.01)
Supported Architectures: x64
Website Home Page :
Language: english
System Requirements: PC *
Supported Operating Systems: *
Software Prerequisites: *
Size: 2.7 Gb

The requirements listed here are for the latest version of V-Ray in 3ds Max. Please make sure that your system meets the requirements listed below before installing V-Ray.

Processor 1st Gen Intel Core or compatible processor with SSE4.2 support (x64)
RAM 4 GB RAM and 4 GB swap minimum - recommended 8 GB or more RAM, 8 GB or more swap file
Operating system Microsoft Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 Professional operating system
Autodesk 3ds Max 3ds Max 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (64-bit)
USB port Required for hardware lock, preferably USB 2.0
TCP/IP Only IPv4 is supported. IPv6 is currently not supported.
License Server 4.5.1 or later
GPU Support Maxwell-, Pascal-, Volta- and Turing-based NVIDIA card(s) with latest video driver or at least version 411.31