There are so many great things you can do inside a real-time engine. Which is why so many artists and designers have added Unreal to their creative workflows. To help V-Ray users get the most from real-time, we felt there were two important problems to solve:
- Make it easy for designers to get their work into real-time.
- Once in real-time, make sure V-Ray is always there for you.
To solve both of these issues, we launched V-Ray for Unreal a few months ago. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, here’s some helpful info to get you started.
First, we wanted to make it easy for V-Ray users to turn their projects into real-time experiences. With one click, V-Ray for Unreal can send your entire V-Ray scene from 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino and SketchUp over to Unreal. This includes all geometry, lights and materials, and the translation is automatic.
Once your scene is in Unreal, you'll notice V-Ray materials look a lot like the ones you created in your host app. This is a big head start in making your scene look great in real-time. And fine-tuning materials in the Unreal Editor is easy with the help of a familiar V-Ray interface. What's more, V-Ray for Unreal keeps a smart connection to the original V-Ray materials. So your ray-traced V-Ray renders from Unreal will look the same as the V-Ray app where you created the scene.
Typical V-Ray scene workflow:
- Transfer V-Ray data to Unreal.
- Fine-tune lighting and materials.
- Bake lighting with V-Ray for high-quality real-time.
- Explore your scene in real-time.
- Render photorealistic, ray-traced images with V-Ray.
If you create a scene in an app without a V-Ray connection, you can still take advantage of V-Ray for Unreal. This is perfect for CAD and manufacturing projects from applications like Solidworks. Here, you can use tools like Unreal Studio and Datasmith to import your model. Then, you can apply materials and render photorealistic images with V-Ray for Unreal.
Typical CAD/ 3D model workflow:
- Import model into Unreal.
- Add native Unreal or V-Ray materials.
- Add native Unreal or V-Ray lights.
- Bake lighting with V-Ray for high-quality real-time.
- Explore your scene in real-time.
- Turn on V-Ray's new viewport rendering for realistic renders.
Using V-Ray for Unreal for architectural visualization
If you're an arch viz artist or interior designer, V-Ray for Unreal is a natural fit. You can take full advantage of the work you've already done in 3ds Max and V-Ray. Your entire scene comes over to Unreal, including lights, cameras and materials. And once it's imported, you can keep working with the V-Ray tools you already know. You can even pre-render lighting and global illumination with V-Ray Light Baking for the best looking real-time.
Using V-Ray for automotive and product visualization
If you're designing vehicles and products, V-Ray for Unreal is perfect for your toolkit. For real-time and for renders, you can use it to help visualize any design from concept to completion. Your car renders will look great inside and out. For interiors, global illumination helps create accurate lighting. Not to mention ray tracing is especially good at helping you show off realistic glass and metal.
