V-Ray for form•Z 7 is based on the Chaos V-Ray 7 rendering engine. In addition to the improvements listed below, there are number of internal improvements in the V-Ray core that make V-Ray for form•Z 7 an even better rendering solution.
Faster V-Ray GPU and caustics
Experience faster time to first pixel, resulting in quicker rendering and improved visual quality. V-Ray GPU now supports caustics rendering, enabling realistic reflections and refractions.
macOS Metal GPU support!
V-Ray now delivers up to 3× faster performance on Apple’s M-series processors when using Metal GPU rendering. The latest chips—such as the M3 and M4—show especially strong results, with additional speed gains on systems equipped with more GPU cores and memory. In benchmark tests with the same scenes, we observed over 5× faster rendering compared to V-Ray 6 on CPU. Your results may vary.
V-Ray settings improvements
Save and restore of V-Ray Settings allows commonly used V-Ray settings to be saved and used in other projects. New Ambient Occlusion and Back to Beauty render elements. New Check for Update helps keep your software up to date.
V-Ray Material improvements
Copy/Paste Texture Settings between materials. UV Texture Randomization settings are a new way to vary the regular texture patternes to reduce tiling or craete entitley new effects.
V-Ray Lights
Finite Dome Light adds ground to dome lighting, with controls for radius, projection height, and ground blending.
V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)
Frame buffer improvemenst include Color Correction Filters, Freeform Render Region, Vignette Layer, and Light Mix for Emissive Materials.
V-Ray Settings
Engine
The Engine setting determines which technology and hardware are used for rendering:
- CPU: Rendering is performed using the machine’s CPU and main memory. While CPU rendering is generally slower than GPU rendering, it supports the full range of V-Ray features and typically provides access to more memory than most GPUs.
- GPU: Rendering is performed using the machine’s GPU through CUDA (Windows) or Metal (macOS). The menu to the right allows you to choose which GPU devices to use. Selecting both CPU and GPU enables Hybrid Rendering (see below).
- RTX (Windows only): Rendering is performed exclusively on RTX GPUs (if available). RTX cards support GPU rendering, dedicated memory, and hardware ray tracing for optimized performance. The menu to the right lets you choose which RTX cards to use.
Note: The first time you render using the CPU or RTX options, V-Ray must generate GPU/RTX kernels specific to your machine. This process can take up to 10 minutes but will not be repeated unless a new version of V-Ray is installed.
Hybrid Rendering
V-Ray Hybrid Rendering is a feature in V-Ray that allows you to use both CPU and GPU power simultaneously to accelerate rendering. With Hybrid Rendering, V-Ray GPU can also use CPU cores as CUDA or Metal devices. In other words, your CPU works alongside your GPU(s) to contribute to the same rendering process. This can be especially useful if you have a strong CPU and one or more GPUs that you want to fully utilize together.
Pros of V-Ray Hybrid Rendering
- Full Hardware Utilization
Both CPU and GPU are used at the same time, preventing your CPU from sitting idle while the GPU renders. - Faster Renders (in many cases)
The CPU contributes additional processing power, speeding up frame rendering, especially for complex lighting or shading tasks. - Flexible for Different Systems
Good for machines with powerful CPUs but fewer GPUs. - Helps bridge performance gaps when you don’t have a high-end GPU.
Scales Well with Multiple GPUs - Works alongside multiple GPUs, with the CPU acting like “another GPU device.”
Useful in Distributed Rendering - Makes full use of both CPUs and GPUs across render nodes.
Cons of V-Ray Hybrid Rendering
- Not Always Faster
Depending on the scene and CPU/GPU balance, the CPU contribution may be small compared to modern GPUs, sometimes adding little benefit.
In some cases, the CPU may even slow down rendering slightly due to synchronization overhead. - Limited to GPU Engine Features
Since the CPU runs as a CUDA device, it inherits V-Ray GPU’s feature set (not the full V-Ray CPU engine). If something isn’t supported in GPU rendering, it won’t work in hybrid mode either. - High System Load
Running both CPU and GPU at 100% can heavily stress your system, leading to higher heat, fan noise, and power consumption. - RAM vs. VRAM Constraints
V-Ray GPU is limited by GPU VRAM, not CPU RAM. Hybrid rendering doesn’t bypass this limitation—your scene must still fit into GPU memory. - Diminishing Returns on Powerful GPUs
On modern GPUs (RTX 3090, 4090, etc.), the CPU’s relative contribution is small compared to the GPU’s raw power. The speed gain may be negligible.
V-Ray Hybrid Rendering is best when you want to squeeze out every bit of performance from your hardware, especially if you have a strong CPU paired with modest GPU power. But if you already have a high-end GPU or RTX, the CPU’s extra contribution may not justify the added system load.
The reality is that the performance will vary from scene to scene so its best to perform some tests to determine if Hybrid rendering is the best solution for a particular a project
Render Elements
Two new render elements are now available: Ambient Occlusion and Back to Beauty
Ambient Occlusion
The V-Ray Ambient Occlusion Render Element creates an ambient occlusion effect for the entire scene. Internally the render element consists of an Extra Texture render element with Dirt Texture connected to it. The only difference is the background uses the unoccluded (white) color instead of being black.
Denoise – Specifies whether to denoise the render element.
Affect Matte Objects – Specifies whether to include matte objects when generating the render element.
Consider for AA – Consider the render element for anti-aliasing.
Radius – Specifies the amount of area (in scene units) where the Dirt effect is produced. If a texture is also used, the Radius value determines the amount of texture blending.
Falloff – Controls the speed of transition between occluded and not occluded areas.
Distribution – Narrows the Dirt's area closer to the contact edges. For ambient occlusion set this parameter to 1.0 to get distribution similar to the ambient lighting on a diffuse surface.
Use Transparency
Enabled – Dirt takes into account the opacity of the occluding objects.
Disabled – Occluding objects are always assumed to be opaque.
Back to Beauty
The V-Ray Back to Beauty Render Element expands as all beauty elements for the actual rendering. In the VFB, this render element creates a folder in Composite named Back To Beauty containing all elements with the appropriate blend modes. The elements that are used for the beauty rebuild are - Background, Lighting, Global Illumination, Reflection, Specular, Refraction, Self Illumination, Caustics, Subsurface Scattering and Atmosphere.
Denoise – Specifies whether to denoise this render element.
Save and restore settings
Save and restore of V-Ray Settings allows commonly used V-Ray settings to be saved and used in other projects. The settings are saved in a file with a ".fzvrset" extension.
New "Save" and "Load" buttons have been added to the bottom left of the V-Ray Settings palette.
Save - Saves the current V-Ray settings to a ".fzvrset" file. When selected, a File save panel is presented for naming and setting the location of the .fzvrset file.
Load - Reads a .fzvrset file. When selected, a File selector panel is presented for selecting the .fzvrset file. When the desired file is selected, the V-Ray Settings palette is refreshed to show the loaded settings.
Utility menu
“Check for Update” is a new option in the utility menu that lets you see if a newer version of V-Ray for form•Z is available. If an update is found, you’ll receive a prompt with a link to download the latest installer.
To update your software:
- Download the new installer.
- Quit form•Z.
- Run the downloaded installer.
V-Ray for form•Z will also automatically check for updates every 7 days.
V-Ray Materials
Copy/Paste of texture settings
Copy/Paste of texture settings allows you to easily transfer settings from one texture to another. Right Clicking on a texture target now displays a context menu with the following items:
Parameters- Opens the Parameters of the texture (same as clicking in the target).
Copy- Copies the texture Parameters.
Paste <Shader>- Pastes previously copied shader parameters (the name of the shader is shown for connivence). The texture parameters can be pasted into any texture target (ie different materials etc).
UV texture Randomization
A new tab has been added to all texture parameter dialogs that use UV placement. These parameters offer UV randomization that can be used to add variance to the texture. Many interesting effects can be created using randomization.
By Face ID – Consider the face IDs of the object when feeding the data (color or texture) to the material;
A common use case is Proxy Mesh assets with multiple available materials slots but only one material applied to all of them.
By Render ID – Assign randomization based on Render IDs. Render IDs are assigned by V-Ray automatically when a rendering is begun.
By Node Handle – Each node is assigned a unique number (a handle) when it is created. This option generates the color index based on that node ID. It is useful because the node handle survives through scene editing - f.e. if you add/remove other objects, or rename them, you will still get the same effect.
By Mesh Element – Assigns randomization based on element IDs of the object, so each of its faces will render differently.
By Instance – Assign randomization based on InstanceID (works for Alembic instances and Scatter source objects).
By Object ID – Consider the Object IDs of the object when feeding the data (color or texture) to the material. An Object ID can be assigned in an object's VRay Objects Settings (located in Attributes).
By Node Name – Randomizes based on the name of the node that the texture is applied to. This allows the effects to remain consistent if the object is merged into another scene, or X-Ref'd etc;
Stochastic tiling – Changes the mapping based on the UV tile. Tile Blend – Edge blending between adjacent tiles when Stochastic tiling mode is used.
Seed – When one or more of the randomization modes are used, this parameter changes the randomization pattern.
U Offset – Controls the U offset variance range.
V Offset – Controls the V offset variance range.
UV Rotation – Controls the UV rotation variance range in degrees.
U Scale – Controls the U scale variance range in percentage.
V Scale – Controls the V scale variance range in percentage.
Step – Specifies the number of steps in which the variance interval is achieved. For example, if UV Rotation is set from 0 to 360 with a Step of 5, the texture is rotated at an angle that is a multiple of 72 degrees (e.g. 72, 144, 216..). A Step of 0 means that there is no set increment and the tiling randomization may use any number between the range of the other 2 fields.
In these images, compare the grass and asphalt patterns between the two images. The top with no Stochastic Tiling has some noticeable lines where the textures repeats. The one below with Stochastic Tiling doesn't have this issue and appears more realistic from the blending.
As another example, here is Stochastic Tiling on a marble countertop. The tiling is very apparent on the countertop in the background next to the sink. Once Stochastic Tiling is enabled the unnatural repetition is no longer an issue.
Both previous examples use the default Randomization parameters where only Stochastic Tiling needed to be enabled to achieve this effect. For tiled patterns, such as tile or brick, you would want to keep the orientation in-tact and keep the edges where the patterns repeat seamlessly. Here's an example of a brick wall, the top image is 'Bricks_weathered_E03_1m' applied from the library with no Randomizations. To break up this monotony, we need to start by setting the UV Rotation to {0,0}, as the bricks will not be rotated along the wall. Then set the U & V Offsets to something like {0, 4, 4}. This allows the texture to repeat offset by 1, 2, 3 or 4 repetitions (4 offsets at 4 steps; 0 is not included).
V-Ray Lights
New Finite Dome Light (Dome light tool and Dome light parameters)
V-Ray Dome Light shines inward at the scene as if from a spherical or hemispherical light source outside the scene extents. This light is frequently used for Image-Based lighting using panoramic HDR images as environments.
Finite Dome – Enables the finite dome projection mode. If enabled, the dome light becomes a finite half dome with ground.
Radius – Specifies the radius of the projection.
Projection Height – Specifies the camera height for the projection.
Ground blend – Specifies the blending amount between the finite ground and upper hemisphere.
V-Ray Frame Buffer
New features have been added to the V-Ray Frame Buffer
Color correction filters
Experiment with different looks for your renders using the new built-in color correction filters in the VFB. You can also easily customize these presets to perfectly match your creative vision.
Freeform render region
Re-render specific areas of an image with a custom polygon shape. Create multiple regions in any shape and focus precisely on the areas you want to fine-tune.
Vignette Layer
Add a subtle retro effect to your renders or draw attention to elements with versatile Vignette Layer in the VFB. Adjust its shape and apply it to any render element for finely tuned, custom results.
Light Mix for emissive materials
Now supporting all emissive materials with Light Mix you can adjust intensity and color independently for better lighting control and customizable renders.
Stop rendering anytime
Stop rendering anytime while still applying post effects to your image. This option is easily accessible through the context menu.