So, what's Next? But V-Ray, of course!

You will have noticed it if you paid attention to the recently announced open beta of V-Ray. We have stripped the version number from the name, and replaced it with a natural-language word:

“Next”.

Fear not, it's still the first beta of version four (4.02.01, to be precise), but we felt the need to mark a change which can hardly be expressed by a growing number.

Last you read me, I was waxing lyrical about that joining of forces with Render Legion, and surely part of the reason for the choice of word is to underline that. However, there is much more to it: Next is the moment chosen for radical change.

More than a version, Next is a landmark: the ageing code base, brought about by long-gone needs, needed a lift, and it's precisely what Next aims to achieve.

In the years past ChaosGroup dedicated a great deal of resources researching technologies to best meet users' needs, but that work was often frustrated by limitations stemming from old compromises which had to be made years before, in turn making implementations a lot more difficult than they should have been.

Next unshackles the ChaosGroup programmers from all that luggage by virtue of a comprehensive cleanup and refactoring with the best tech they deem available for the given task.

And more than that, two decades of experience accrued in the making of V-Ray will be coming to fruition, on what is like a clean slate.

And boy, it shows.

The result of this process if two-fold: on one hand, old compatibility will break in a few places, simply because some of the old hacks will not exist anymore, or things have changed names in the SDK, and on the other a plethora of new features, enabling modern workflows, will make their appearance.

The first beta will look and feel remarkably like any 3.x version you'll have tried, which would be good, as many of the radical code base changes have already taken place.

The goal of the Beta Phase 1 is precisely to track down any inconsistency in feature behaviour as compared to 3.x, which would signal some potential issue to be swiftly eradicated.

Of course, a ChaosGroup release would not make the grade without a few goodies thrown in for good measure: you'll have a chance to try out the new Adaptive Dome, and finally say goodbye to light portals, for example, or the new Auto-Exposure and Auto-WhiteBalance features, at least in their early implementations, among others.

So what comes Next, then?

Well, of course I am bound by NDAs and a small amount of wisdom, and I'd be foolish to share too much, but it will suffice to say we have been listening, and we have been working to bring you a much improved overall experience, starting from the things you will spend most of your time with: your tools to light and shade, their UIs and behaviours, the VFB, IPR and ancillary tech, a much easier portability across DCCs.

Particular attention is going into post work done in a third-party application, and also towards “in-camera” work, to be done directly inside the VFB, with the aim of allowing a greater degree of technical control and creative freedom right where the user needs it. We will be rolling these changes out in the Next beta phases, so stay tuned!

V-Ray Next, Beta 1 for 3DS Max is available now for all licensed users, head to our website ( https://www.chaosgroup.com/vray/3ds-max#beta ) to be a part of it!

Happy Testing and a Merry Next Year!

p.s.: Vlado shows off something he's been working on recently right here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6346723085571493889