On this date five years ago (13th March 2002) , we released officially the first version of V-Ray after a short beta-testing period (since December 2001) and more than a year of internal development (first code is from autumn 2000).
The first version included the QMC sampler, irradiance map and brute-force GI, the three image samplers, dof, motion blur, VRayMtl, VRayLight, VRayShadow, and VRayTex (maybe something else too, but I can’t remember it right now)…
hehehe…when I saw first renders of vray on cgtalk…I had no idea what renderers were, why they existed. I barely understood how 3d worked
Ahh…good old times
Sweet…I have to say thanx to vray dudes and Scott. I believe it was Scott that got me to buy it when we were working on a project together. I shall have a beer for the occasion…Perhaps two.
You’ve built a hell of a market share in those five years, and I’m proud to say I started using V-Ray in year one. Since then it’s become an irreplaceable part of our production. Every time a new renderer comes out or upgrades, I’m always very interested to check it out, but I’ve yet to see anything that comes close to V-Ray’s adaptability. Especially when you factor in cost of deployment, and your utterly amazing commitment to us end users. No other software developers come close.
Congrats Vlado, to you and your team. Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with in the next five years.
I’m not sure when it was released but my first exposure to VRay was with VRayFree. For a couple of years this was my main renderer at the firm I was at because they were too cheap to pay for the advanced version (based on the amount of 3D work we did it may have been a good business decision though). I produced a bunch of really nice renderings that were much better than the VIZ crap they were doing before and they rendered out pretty damn fast too. When I went on my own I splurged for the full version and haven’t looked back. This brings back some memories .
I downloaded VRAY free, but didn’t spend the time to figure it out. Not until I forked over the dough did I learn it. I bought it mainly for the displacementmod. I spent month’s trying to do good grass the old way. Now grass is second nature like many of the VRAY settings. I would love to see into the future of VRAY.
Well done Chaos! I have been there for most of the 5 years and I am proud to say that the products have developed into something fantastic! Bring on the next 5 years im sure they will be interesting.
Ditto Chris!
Well done guys, keep up the kaizen work on VRay
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo” said the Romans.
The drop hollows out the stone by frequent dropping, not by force; constant persistence gains the end.
