This page provides information on supported features in V-Ray for Houdini.
Overview
These features are supported by CPU and GPU rendering in Houdini for Production and IPR modes. In Houdini, IPR on the CPU is the same as Production rendering on the CPU when using the Progressive image sampler. Note that in IPR mode, both CPU and GPU uses Brute Force for both primary and secondary. In addition, Brute Force GI and Light Cache 3 are available for GPU in Production mode. Production rendering on the CPU supports all available GI engines.
Limitations
GPU in Production mode does not support Distributed Rendering.
Supported Features
Geometry
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
Poly primitives as triangle mesh | ✓ |
Polysoup primitives as triangle mesh | ✓ |
Triangle fan primitives as triangle mesh | – |
Triangle strip primitives as triangle mesh | – |
Perfect circle | – |
Perfect sphere | – |
Perfect tube primitives | – |
V-Ray infinite plane | ✓ |
Metaball primitives | – |
MetaSQuad primitives | – |
Particles | ✓ |
VDB primitives | ✓ |
Houdini Volume primitives | ✓ |
Packed geometry primitives | ✓ |
Packed disk primitives (.bgeo, bhclassic) | ✓ |
Packed fragment primitives | ✓ |
Packed crowd agent primitives | ✓ |
V-Ray proxy | ✓ |
Fur/hair | ✓ |
V-Ray fur | ✓ |
V-Ray clipper | ✓ |
Subdivision | ✓ |
Displacement1 | ✓ |
Houdini Instancer | ✓ |
| OpenSubdiv | N/A |
Lights
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Lights textures | ✓ |
Skylight portals | ✓ |
V-Ray Direct light | ✓ |
V-Ray Spot light | ✓ |
V-Ray IES light | ✓ |
V-Ray Sphere light | ✓ |
V-Ray Dome light | ✓ |
V-Ray Mesh light | ✓ |
V-Ray Sun | ✓ |
V-Ray Ambient light | ✓ |
| V-Ray Omni light | ✓ |
| V-Ray Rectangle light | ✓ |
Image Based Lighting | ✓ (as V-Ray dome light) |
Light linking | ✓ |
Materials
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray BRDFLayered | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFBump | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFCarPaint | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFHair | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFHair3 | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFLight | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlMaterialID | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlMulti | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlOverride | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlRenderStats | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlRoundEdges | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlSingleBRDF | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFSkinComplex | – |
| V-Ray BRDFSSS2Complex 2 | ✓ |
| V-Ray Mtl2Sided 6 | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFAlSurface7 | ✓ |
| VRayMtl | ✓ |
| V-Ray Material Builder | ✓ |
| V-Ray Material Complex | ✓ |
| V-Ray MaterialOutput | ✓ |
V-Ray MtlOSL | ✓ |
| V-Ray BSDFPointParticle | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlVRayMesh (V-Ray Proxy Material) | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFScatterVolume | ✓ |
| V-Ray Stochastic Flakes | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFToonMtl | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlVRmat | ✓ |
| V-Ray BRDFScanned | ✓ |
| V-Ray MtlWrapper | ✓ |
| V-Ray GeomDisplacedMesh | ✓ |
File Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray TexICC | ✓ |
| V-Ray MetaImageFile | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexLut | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexOCIO | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexOSL | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexPtex | ✓ |
Procedural Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray TexBerconNoise | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBerconTile | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBerconWood | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBulge | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCellular | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexChecker | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCurvature | ✓ |
V-Ray TexDirt | ✓ |
V-Ray TexDistance | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexEdges | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFalloff | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFresnel | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexGradRamp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexGrid | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMulti | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexNoise | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRock | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSky | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSmoke | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSnow | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSoftbox | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSpeckle | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSplat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexStencil | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSurfaceLuminance | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSwirl | ✓ |
V-Ray TexThickness | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexTiles | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexTriPlanar | – |
| V-Ray TexUVW | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUVWGenToTexture | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexWater | ✓ |
Utility Textures
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray TexBezierCurve | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBlend | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexBlendBumpNormal | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexClamp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexAColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexColorAndAlpha | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexAColorChannel | ✓ |
| V-Ray ColorCorrect | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexColorCorrect | ✓ |
| V-Ray ColorCorrection | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexAColorOp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexColorToFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray ColorTextureToMono | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCombineColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCombineFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexCompMax | – |
| V-Ray TexCondition2 | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexDistanceBetween | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFloatOp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexFloatToColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexhairSampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexHSVToRGB | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexInt | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexIntToFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexInvert | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexInvertFloat | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexLayeredMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexLuminance | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMaskMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMeshVertexColorChannel | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexMix | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexNormalMapFlip | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexOutput | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexParticleSampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRaySwitch | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRemap | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRGBMultiplyMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRGBTintMax | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRGBToHSV | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexRgbaCombine | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexSetRange | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexTemperature | ✓ |
| V-Ray TransformToTex | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUserColor | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUserScalar | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexUserInteger | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexVectorOp | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexVectorProduct | ✓ |
| V-Ray TexVectorToColor | ✓ |
Cameras
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Camera motion blur 5 | ✓ |
| Camera DoF | ✓ |
| Perspective | ✓ |
| VRayPhysicalCamera | ✓ |
| Stereoscopic | ✓ |
Environment
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Spherical Mapping | ✓ |
| Mirror ball mapping | ✓ |
| Angular mapping | ✓ |
| Toon shading | ✓ |
| SimpleFog | – |
| ScatterFog | – |
| EnvironmentFog | ✓ |
Texture Baking
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
Regular texture baking | ✓ |
Spherical Harmonics baking | – |
Bake to vertex colors | – |
Bake to Ptex | – |
Distributed Rendering
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Distributed Rendering | ✓ |
| Automatic assets transfer | ✓ |
| Don't use local machine | ✓ |
| Asset cache | – |
Global Illumination Methods
Mapping
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| V-Ray UVWGenObjectBBox | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenChannel | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenMayaPlace2dTexture | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenEnvironment | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenExplicit | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenObject | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenProjection | ✓ |
| V-Ray UVWGenPlanarWorld | ✓ |
Other
| Feature | Support |
|---|---|
| Additional object properties and attributes | ✓ |
| Global overrides | ✓ |
| Add V-Ray image output to Houdini Render View panel Instead of using custom Qt widget | – |
| Add background rendering to Houdini Render Scheduler | – |
| VRayShadow | – |
| VrayShadowMap | – |
| VrayStereoRig | – |
| VrayLensEffects | – |
| VrayLightMeter | – |
VrayExposureControl | – |
| Antialiasing | ✓ |
Color mapping | ✓ |
| VFB | ✓ |
| Embree | ✓ |
Render elements | ✓ |
| UDIM texture tags | ✓ |
| UVTILE texture tags | – |
| Anisotropy | – |
UVWgen Projections | ✓ |
| Keep geometry cache | – |
Keep bitmap cache | – |
Dynamic bucket splitting | – |
Progressive image sampler | ✓ |
| V-Ray Lights Preview | ✓ |
| V-Ray VolumeGrid | ✓ |
Footnotes
1 – Displacement results between CPU and GPU rendering may differ slightly because of Pre-tessellation and Cache Normal settings.
2 – GPU always uses raytraced multiple scattering for VRayFastSSS2. V-Ray GPU Single Scatter is supported only in None and Simple modes.
3 – Using Light Cache (as a secondary GI engine) with GPU is possible only when used in Production rendering mode. In IPR mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
4 – Irradiance map loaded from a file is supported in GPU only in Production rendering mode. In IPR mode, Brute Force is used as the primary and secondary engines for both GPU and CPU.
5 – IPR rendering supports motion blurred frames on integer numbers only. For example, starting the render from frame 1 will produce correct motion blur, but starting from frame 1.25 will produce incorrect motion blur.
6 – IPR GPU does not support the "Multiply by front diffuse" option of the 2SidedMtl.
7 – IPR rendering does not support BRDFAlSurface shader.
Notes
- GPU supports up to 16 UV sets per material.
- GPU supports map channels from 0 to 15.
- GPU only supports normal maps in tangent space.