Chaos V-Ray for SketchUp

About this release

V-Ray for SketchUp is a rendering engine that lives inside the modelling application rather than asking you to export to a separate package. You assign physically based materials, place real world lights, set a camera with proper exposure, and render the scene to a photographic result without the geometry ever leaving the host. For architects and product designers who model here, that tight loop is the whole appeal.

The material system is where the realism comes from. Metals, glass, coated surfaces, translucency and layered materials all respond to light the way the real thing does, and the bundled library gives you a large starting set of ready made surfaces to drag onto geometry. Lighting covers a physical sun and sky, image based lighting from an HDR environment, and a full set of artificial light types with real photometric units.

Rendering runs on the processor, the graphics card, or both together, so the same scene scales from a laptop to a workstation with a strong GPU. An interactive mode updates the render as you move a light or tweak a material, which turns look development from a guess and wait cycle into something closer to real time. Frame buffer tools handle exposure, white balance and light mixing after the render without going back to the model.

What it does

• Physically based material system with metals, glass, coatings and translucency
• Large bundled material library of ready made surfaces
• Physical sun and sky plus image based lighting from an HDR environment
• Full set of artificial lights with real photometric units
• Processor, graphics card and combined rendering modes
• Interactive rendering that updates as you adjust the scene
• Frame buffer with exposure, white balance and light mix after the render
• Physical camera with depth of field, exposure and lens effects
• Proxy geometry for placing heavy assets without choking the viewport
• Denoiser that cleans a render at a lower sample count

Changes in this version

• Faster graphics card rendering on current generation cards
• Improved denoiser that preserves fine detail at low samples
• Reworked material library with additional ready made surfaces
• Better interactive responsiveness on heavy scenes
• New light mixing controls in the frame buffer

What the package contains

• Chaos V-Ray for SketchUp installer
• Bundled material library
• HDR environment starter set
• Example scenes for learning the lighting workflow
• Readme with the install order written out step by step

Installation notes

Follow these in order. Most reports of a failed install come from skipping a step rather than from the package itself.

1. Make sure a supported version of the host modelling application is installed first.
2. Disconnect from the network.
3. Turn off real time protection for the duration.
4. Extract to a short path such as C:\Setup and run the installer as administrator.
5. Let it register the plugin, then launch the host and confirm the toolbar appears.
6. Close the host and reconnect the network.

System requirements

Things worth knowing

• The host modelling application has to be installed and licensed before the plugin will register.
• Graphics card rendering needs a supported GPU, without one it falls back to the processor and runs slower.
• Keep proxy geometry for anything heavy, dropping a full detail asset straight into the scene will crawl the viewport.

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Listing information

This entry is catalogued under CAD & 3D and carries the tags below. Language coverage is English interface, and the supported platform list is Windows 10, Windows 11. Version 7.40.02 is the current catalogued build, last checked 4 days ago, and the entry has been in the index since it was added 2 years ago.