V-Ray

V-Ray is a rendering engine that is used as an extension of certain 3D computer graphics software. It is a rendering engine that uses advanced techniques, for example global illumination algorithms such as path tracing, photon mapping, irradiance maps and directly computed global illumination.

The use of these techniques often makes it preferable to conventional renderers which are provided as standard with 3d software, and generally renders using these technique can appear more photo-realistic, as actual lighting effects are more realistically emulated. It is also used extensively in making realistic 3D renderings for architecture.

V-Ray is compatible with packages such as Sketchup, Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino, TrueSpace, Maxon Cinema 4d, Blender and Softimage XSI, and is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

V-Ray is widely used as a rendering engine in substitution of the standard and mental ray renderers which are included bundled with 3ds Max.