Archive notice: This historical article was originally published in February 2020. Dates, statements and links are preserved from the original.Chaos Group has released the first beta for the real-time “Lavina” project , with which large V-Ray scenes can be viewed interactively in real time and edited to a certain degree. Alongside RT Cores from the Nvidia RTX series, the standalone tool uses Microsoft DirectX Raytracing (DXR), similarly to Unreal Engine. While Project Lavina already supports many functions, it currently also still contains various limitations.
Project Lavina Features and Limitations
The software works with .vrscene files exported by V-Ray Next. The real-time ray-tracing tool enables the following functions, among others:
- Vrsence files (.vrscene) with fast import and real-time viewing
- Vray/Vrscene Materials basic support and drag & drop function
- Merge Feature for inserting further objects into a scene
- Objects & Editing – position/scaling/rotation of assets in a scene
- Lights can be (de-)activated and changed in colour and intensity
- Light Config .vrdx files for importing and exporting new light settings
- LUTs and HDRI Maps can be imported and used
- Stills and Walkthrough export in real time or offline rendering
As for the limitations: while lights are generally supported with Sphere, Rectangle, Point and Sun Lights, according to the documentation there is currently no support for Spot, IES, Dome, Mesh and Portal Lights. Materials in a scene can be applied to objects by drag & drop, but cannot be edited in Lavina itself and are only rendered using approximations. Support for some shader parameters and texture maps is also missing. You can read the full list in the attached documentation here.
Getting Started
For an introduction to the new tool, you can already find a detailed tutorial series here. Among other things, you learn how to open and merge .vrscene files, how navigation, working with cameras, editing lights or objects works, and how you can render stills and walkthroughs with Lavina.
Download and Requirements
Project Lavina is currently available free of charge as a beta version to anyone who already owns a V-Ray Next Render licence (available with V-Ray for 3ds Max, Maya, etc.). Further requirements are:
- DXR-compatible GPU: RTX card with Nvidia driver 436.02 or newer
- Microsoft Windows 10 RS5 (version 1809), build 17763 or later
- 8GB RAM
Further information: To the Chaos Group website and Project Lavina documentation
