Review: Escape Studios V-Ray for Max

(Originally published in 3D Artist Magazine)

In the final case study gets to grips with the new car material. Hopefully your client will never need to ask, dude where my car?

V-Ray for Max

Price £240

Website www.escapestudios.co.uk

When V-Ray throws you a curve ball, Escape Studios V-Ray for Max helps you knock it out of the park.

Available solely online, V-Ray for Max is the latest self-directed learning course from Escape Studios. The added advantage of being hosted online is, Escape can revise the content if there’s a point release, major bug or show stopper. Currently, instruction is given using V-Ray 2.0 and 3ds Max 2011 x64. Buying the course gives you unlimited access for a year to over 11 hours of tuition.

An easy to navigate menu system is used to access the training which starts from the absolute basics of installing V-Ray and an interface overview. The following sections on lighting, V-Ray materials, geometry types and effects are all well paced and include common examples that artists can encounter in a studio, such as using fur for grass or rendering animation with Global Illumination. Three project length case studies covering interior scene rendering, a 600 frame animated rollercoaster exterior shot and then rendering the rollercoaster itself conclude the training. Don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s a learning curve suitable for novices, as previous rendering experience and familiarity with 3ds Max is essential.

There is something on offer for seasoned users, as rather than shying away from new V-Ray 2.0 features, the main updates are addressed. For example, the V-Ray RT Active Shade interactive preview renderer, which now ships as part of version 2.0, is used frequently in the Lighting section. 3D stereoscopic rendering, which is now natively supported, is demonstrated as part of the interior scene case study. Also, the new car paint shader is shown to great effect in the rollercoaster shot. Scene files are available to download for chapters that require them, via a link underneath the video player, that’s confusingly called attachments.

Sound quality is clear, and the video resolution is a respectable 1280x720p. No specific browser is recommended, but while reviewing I found that using Firefox on Linux occasionally caused the video playback to fail, giving me only audio. After raising the concern, Escape promptly advised me this was a known problem with a version of Flash for Linux. An extremely faint watermark running diagonally across every video is non-intrusive and barely noticeable.

We can’t argue with the quality of the training, but it’s a tad pricey when compared with similar products on the market (such as V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max courses offered by www.thecgschool.com). For occasional V-Ray users, the one year licence restriction makes it a more limited investment. On the other hand experts may only need six months access. A broader range of licensing options and pricing help would solve this.

Summary: Quality training that’s marginally hindered by online access only and lack of licensing options.

Using V-Ray maps, GIobal Illumination and then aging this atmospheric old train station interior shot, forms one of the three case study projects.

The animated rollercoaster case study incorporates elements from earlier tutorials, such as creating a forest using proxy geometry.