This page provides information on the V-Ray Frame Buffer and its features.
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V-Ray Update
If a newer version of V-Ray is available, you are notified by a button in the VFB toolbar. For more information, see the V-Ray UI page.
The V-Ray Frame Buffer menu holds the main frame buffer commands. Some of the options are also available in the VFB toolbar for a quick access.
Menu | Menu Options | |
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File | Save current channel – Saves the currently loaded channel to an image file format. Save all image channels to separate files – Saves all the render elements to separate files. Press the options () button to open a menu with more options. Save all image channels to single file – Saves the image to a multi-channel EXR or .vrimg file. Load image – Opens an image file from disk to be previewed in the V-Ray Frame Buffer. Batch image processing – Allows processing of multiple .vrimg files with the same layer tree changes at the same time. Upload image to Chaos Collaboration – Uploads an image to Chaos Cloud Collaboration for sharing and commenting. | Save all image channels to separate files options Save VFB color corrections to render elements – When enabled, all color corrections are saved to the render channels (as opposed to only the RGB and effectsResult channels). |
Batch Image Processing Input folder – Specifies a path to start images. Output folder – Specifies a path for the output images. Layer preset – Specifies a layer tree corrections preset. Output filenames suffix – Specifies a suffix added to the output image filenames. Overwrite existing – Enables overwrite of existing files with the same name in the output folder. | ||
Render | Start interactive rendering – Starts IPR rendering. Abort rendering – Stops the current rendering. Render – Starts rendering. IPR Debug Shading – Enables the Debug shading/Isolate selected options in IPR. The submenu gives access to the following modes: Isolate Selected – Renders only the selected object(s), while the rest of the scene is rendered black. You can also select material or texture nodes to isolate all objects with the assigned shader; | |
Image | Follow mouse – Renders the closest bucket found to the mouse pointer, when using the bucket image sampler. If the progressive sampler is used, V-Ray samples the closest pixels to the mouse pointer. Follow mouse – Drag the mouse over the VFB while rendering to change what part of the image is sampled first; Copy current channel to clipboard – Copies the current channel to the clipboard. Duplicate to host frame buffer – Creates a Maya virtual frame buffer copy of the current VFB. Clear image – Clears the contents of the frame buffer. This is useful when starting a new render to prevent confusion with the previous image. | |
View | Display color space –Specifies the color space, in which the image is displayed. None – Does not specify a color space; Zoom VFB – Zooms in/out the rendered image in the VFB. Zoom 50% – Zooms out to 50%; Channels – Chooses which channels to display. View red channel – Displays the red channel; Test resolution – Enables test resolution in VFB. The submenu allows choosing a percentage of the render resolution to set as the test resolution. You can choose between 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 110%, 125% and 150%. Note: This only affects V-Ray and does not affect the native Maya test resolution setting found under Maya's Render Setup dialog. Color clamping – Opens the color clamping submenu options: Force color clamping – Forces color clamping; Use pixel aspect – Enables visualization of the pixel aspect ratio. Flip – Provides the option to Flip horizontally or to Flip vertically the preview in the VFB. Double-clicking on either option temporarily applies the effect. Clicking anywhere on the toolbar returns the preview to default. The flipped image cannot be exported. Panorama View – Enables a panoramic preview of the scene. Panning in the VFB moves the 360° panorama. Images imported into the VFB can also be viewed in Panorama View. The panoramic preview cannot be exported. Show History – When enabled, displays the history tab in the VFB. When disabled, hides the history tab. Show Layers – When enabled, displays the layers tab in the VFB. When disabled, hides the layers tab. | |
Options | VFB settings – Opens the VFB Settings window where you can adjusts settings for Render View, Render Region, History and Layers. |
This dropdown gives access to render elements rendered for the scene. The selected render element is displayed in the VFB. By default, the RGB color and Alpha render elements are available. Any additional render elements that have been added to the scene also appear in the drop-down. | |
Displays the coordinates of the mouse pointer. | |
Specifies the sampled area size. Click on the arrow to open a context menu with the available sampled area sizes: 1x1, 3x3, 5x5, and 7x7. | |
Specifies whether color and display corrections are applied (RGB) or not (Raw) when showing the sampled pixel values at the current mouse pointer position. | |
Displays the RGB pixel values at the current mouse pointer position before applying any color corrections. | |
Specifies RGB values. Click on the arrow to open a context menu with the available option. None – Does not specify the RGB value. | |
Displays the Hue, Saturation and Value of the pixel under the current mouse position when HSV is selected. | |
Displays the HEX of the pixel under the current mouse position when Web is selected. | |
Displays the 8bit color palette of the pixel under the current mouse position when 8bit is selected. |
Locks the mouse pointer coordinates and displays information for the selected pixel. | ||
Shows corrected colors. | ||
Displays the Red channel. | ||
Displays the Blue channel. | ||
Displays the Green channel. | ||
Displays the Alpha channel. | ||
Saves the image to disk. Press and hold the icon to bring up the submenu: Save current channel – Saves the current channel to an image file format; | ||
Clears the contents of the frame buffer. This is useful when starting a new render to prevent confusion with the previous image. | ||
Renders the closest bucket found to the mouse pointer, when using the bucket image sampler. If the progressive sampler is used, V-Ray samples the closest pixels to the mouse pointer. With this option enabled, you can right-click on the image and select Lock bucket starting point to lock the bucket (or sampling) starting point. | ||
Enables/disables test resolution in the VFB. Press and hold to bring up the submenu to select the percentage of the render resolution to set as the test resolution. Note: This only affects V-Ray and does not affect the native Maya test resolution setting found under Maya Render Setup dialog. | ||
Allows you to render regions in the VFB. See the Render Region section for more information. | ||
Enables the Debug shading/Isolate selected options in IPR. Press and hold to choose between the different modes: Isolate Selected – Renders only the selected object(s), while the rest of the scene is rendered black. You can also select material or texture nodes to isolate all objects with the assigned shader; | ||
Starts IPR. Left-click and hold to access a list of available cameras from which to render. | ||
Stops the current rendering. | ||
Starts rendering. Left-click and hold to access a list of available cameras from which to render. | ||
Pauses interactive rendering. |
The V-Ray VFB keeps a history of previously rendered images, and lists each with a number, frame number, thumbnail, and textual details in the Render history panel. Up to four images can be called from the history to be compared in the VFB (as shown below). History files are stored as .vrimg files in a user-specified folder. Render history settings can be configured in the VFB Settings window. If the Render History is disabled, a link to the VFB Settings History tab is displayed in the panel.
Enables or disables image A/B vertical comparison. Select images A and B from the render history. | |
Enables or disables image A/B horizontal comparison. Select images A and B from the render history. | |
Enables or disables image A/B/C/D comparison. Select images A, B, C and D from the render history. | |
Saves the current image from the VFB to the render history. The image is placed at the top of the render history list. | |
Loads the selected image from the render history to the VFB. | |
Removes the selected image from the render history. |
A search field where you can filter the images based on the scene paths and notes. |
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These shortcuts navigate through the VFB image. Please note that the VFB window must have the current focus for the shortcuts to have effect:
Mouse | Description |
Mouse wheel | Zoom in/Zoom out |
Double-click left button | Zoom to 100% |
Page Up/Page Down | Switch between render elements |
Middle button dragging | Pan (hand tool) |
Keyboard | Description |
+ / = | Zoom in |
-/_ | Zoom out |
* | Zoom to 100% |
Arrow keys | Pan left, up, right, down |
F | Fit region or whole image. Available only if render region option is used. |
Esc | Abort render |
Q | Enable history A/B vertical compare mode. |
W | Enable history A/B horizontal compare mode. |
E | Enable history A/B/C/D compare mode. |
1-9 | Load the respective image from the VFB2 history |
H | Show/hide history |
L | Show/hide whole right panel |
P | Show/hide only layers tree |
S | Show/hide settings |
F11 | Toggle fullscreen |
Ctrl+C | Copy the VFB image to the Windows clipboard; the image is copied exactly as it appears on the screen (meaning sRGB/LUT/OCIO etc corrections are applied). The full resolution image is copied to the clipboard, even if the VFB view is zoomed in/out. |
Select object – Directly select scene objects by clicking on them in the VFB2 rendering area.
Select material – Pick a scene material from an object that is being rendered. You only need to click on that object in the VFB2 rendering area and the material editor will open with it.
Set focus point – When enabled, allows the user to set the camera focus distance by left clicking in the VFB. This requires rendering with a V-Ray Physical Camera with Depth of Field enabled or a regular camera with the Depth of Field Camera Overrides enabled.
Lock bucket starting point – Forces V-Ray to render the closest bucket found to the mouse pointer, when using the bucket sampler. If the progressive sampler is used, V-Ray samples the closest pixels next to the mouse pointer. Drag the mouse over the V-Ray frame buffer while rendering to change what part of the image is done first. You can turn this on and of on-the-fly while rendering.
Note that the keyboard shortcuts work only within the VFB window. The Undo shortcut (Ctrl+Z) for these actions does not work within the VFB window though. It only works when the focus is on the Maya windows. |
The V-Ray Frame Buffer includes a suite of color corrections and tools for adjusting the image. The tools are added as layers and displayed in a layer tree. You can enable or disable a particular tool using the visibility icon () to the left of its name.
For more information on using the Layers, see the Layers page and the VFB Composite page.
Creates a layer. Multiple layers of the same type can be added. Folder – Allows grouping multiple layers; For more information, see the Layers page. | |
Deletes the selected layer(s). | |
Saves a layer tree preset. | |
Loads a layer tree preset. | |
Quick access to custom layer presets. You must set the path to it in the VFB Settings. | |
Undo create layer. | |
Redo create layer. |
The V-Ray Frame Buffer allows monitoring of different statistics and information about your scene in the Stats panel. The exact contents of the Stats changes depending on the scene, the rendering mode (interactive vs production, bucket vs progressive) and others.
Right-click to display a context menu, allowing you to copy the Stats values. |
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The Collaboration tab provides a collaboration tool for sharing your work with other users. You can upload images from the VFB to the Chaos Cloud Collaboration where other users can add comments and annotations.
Signing in Chaos Cloud Collaboration using your Chaos credentials is required once. After that you are automatically signed in every time you open the Collaboration tab.
When first opening the Collaboration tab, click anywhere in the tab to upload the current image in the VFB to Chaos Cloud Collaboration. Following that, you can upload other images via the Upload image to Chaos Collaboration button or some of the other options provided by the VFB.
Automatically, there is a default project folder where the images are uploaded to Chaos Cloud Collaboration. You can create multiple projects and folders from the browser.
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The Collaboration tab has several sections: Upload files containing a list of images for upload, Recent containing recent projects, and Browse with locations where the images are uploaded.
– Deletes the current image from the upload list.
– In the Upload files, uploads the current image in the VFB to Chaos Cloud Collaboration. In Browse, creates a new project or folder.
– Renames the Upload file.
Upload to selection – Uploads the image(s) to Chaos Cloud Collaboration in the selected project or folder.
New upload – Clears the Collaboration tab and prepares it for new upload of images.
Open in browser – Opens the uploaded images in Chaos Cloud Collaboration.
It is also possible to directly drag the images from the Explorer to the Collaboration tab. |
The Universal macOS build for Maya 2024 currently doesn't support Chaos Collaboration. |
Region rendering can be used in both IPR and Production modes to isolate only part of the frame for rendering. Usually, when a render region is used, you would like to save the whole frame instead of the region only.
Saving single channel .exr files ignores the render region and always saves the full frame. This applies when saving the .exr through VFB.
Saving multi-channel .exr files writes just the render region data in the file by default but it can be set to save full frame instead. In order to save the render region with the rest of the frame, set its exr data window option to Whole Image. Saving multi-channel .exr files from VFB > Save all channels to single file saves the render region when it is enabled from the VFB. This happens even if you have selected a render region on top of the already rendered frame, without an actual region used in the rendering process. To save the full frame from VFB, disable the render region.
Watch this video to learn how to make the most out of V-Ray for Maya’s post-processing capabilities. It shows you how to enhance your renders right from the V-Ray Frame Buffer. Learn how you can explore different lighting scenarios without re-rendering, using LightMix, how to make use of the different color correction options in the VFB, how to easily composite your image and have greater flexibility when it comes to post-processing in the VFB.
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