A New Compositor

The biggest new addition to the package is a new frame buffer, with an advanced compositor and lighting system. This enables layered compositing and relighting scenes after rendering has already been completed. Something you’ll see reflected in the new features of this version.

Light Mix

V-Ray 5 now includes an incredibly powerful feature that lets you take a given render and change elements of the lighting in real-time. Without the need to render your entire scene again. You can change the color and intensity of the existing lights in the render and see what effect that has on the look of your scene. Once you find a look that you like, you can send the changes to the compositor and the final render gets updated. This promises to be a game changer when it comes to workflow.

Better Golden Hour Lighting

In renders, as in real life, the best lighting is often at dawn and dusk. In V-Ray 5 they’ve reworked the model of the Sun and sky to create more fine detail and subtlety. So if you’re all about the dramatic, moody scenery, this could be the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.

Material Library Update

There’s no need to create or look for materials to use in your render. V-Ray 5 includes a materials library with more than 500 materials. There’s also a new asset browser and material preview system too. This should make finding and implementing the material you want much faster and more convenient.

A Fast V-Ray Proxy

Rendering proxies allows you to work with less complex proxy objects in your scene, which reference the original assets which will appear in the final render. This significantly reduces the amount of memory and processing power required to work with the scene.
The new proxy system reduces the system load when editing your scene, without influencing the quality of the final render.

Quality and Quantity

While there is no single major headline improvement in V-Ray 5, there’s a long list of refinements and small features that add up to a substantial overall improvement. Not all features seem to be in every version of the V-Ray plugin quite yet, but we expect most if not all versions to get feature parity where there’s no specific dependence on the host application. And, of course, there’s always the standalone version of V-Ray to consider!