Chaos has only released 2 vray versions in 10 years, I think its not that bad to release 3.0 Also you have to consider the costs, the longer they don’t have new paid version, the less they get paid. And I mean things are not free in life, people have to continue on, I would buy every release from chaos without a question…Now autodesk is another story.
It’s a bit too much work for us as well 
However we released V-Ray 2.0 in December 2010, so it will be more than two years when we get to V-Ray 3.0
Best regards,
Vlado
Hope to see some recorded video soon.
Indeed, really looking forward to that.
and about the service pack for 2.30?? when will be??
Santa “Vlado” Claus will give us a gift??
We are in the process of preparing the 2.4 service pack.
Best regards,
Vlado
So it looks like I’m the only one wondering what vray 2.0 exactly made it worth buying the update. Ok, there is still 2.4 but I don’t think it will contain one of the long wished features.
What my impression of big features in 2.x is:
- VrayRT (not a real “development intensive” feature since it has been there before as standalone), i never got it working anyways constantly freezing after 1 rendering in GPU mode
- Stereo camera workflow with enhancements for GI calculations
- Lightcache retrace
Materials, GI, and standard features kept being more or less the same as before (with exception of sampling improvements where i’m not exactly sure I ever noticed)
So what did I expect from Vray 2.x ?
- Include/exclude features in Reflections/Refractions per material
- Include/exclude features in Render elements (not just lighting, which is not that useful without the other renderelements)
- better unbiased GI methods (BPTracer is not even usable in any situation, just a toy where I’m not sure why it was implemented anyways)
- Speed, we all love faster renderings, but 1.5 was not much slower than 2.0
- Selfillumination in VrayMtl (yeah, this one is reeeaaally old)
I used both 2.0 and 1.5, the new one at home, the other one at work. There were very few moments I wished we had 2.0 at work.
I don’t want to say everything’s bad and I wouldn’t want to use vray anymore - I like rendering with vray but I’m not seeing any progress in major features and I’ll certainly not buy another update so blindly hoping for features like those mentioned above. Workflow enhancements and useful little tools are a good thing but don’t forget the remarkable steps forward.
You will still get the self-illumination in the V-Ray material While I agree that the features you listed did not make into the 2.x versions and were left for 3.0, there was a lot of other stuff that did make it in - i.e. multithreading improvements (on many-core machines, you will find 1.5 much slower in certain situations); Ptex and Alembic; tiled EXR texture support; Ornatrix and HairFarm support and the hair material; GPU stuff (even though you did not find any use for it, other people did).
But all in all, V-Ray is quite a mature engine now; whatever remarkable steps were easy to make, we have already made them. From here on, it takes an awful lot of work to make anything that looks “remarkable” in your trained eyes And V-Ray 1.5 is still quite a good engine after all. It’s perfectly understandable that not everyone will find a need to upgrade.
Best regards,
Vlado
Thank you for you quick answer.
Reading that those features will make it in 3.0 is a nice thing but I’ll wait and see 
Right, Vray already is a very solid piece of software but there is always something that can be made better or a new kind of technology that can be used - like going more and more unbiased (which is a pretty old one but starting to become useful with our modern hardware). That’s why I’m still curious why the BPtracer was implemented. Sure, it’s better to have it in a major release but still, funny.
I’m sure there is a lot that can be done to make a renderer “state of the art” and still surprise user with new features - there are many things in the wislist section…
I wanted to see how difficult it would be and whether the V-Ray API would hold up to the task. It is also a good experimental framework for other stuff.
Best regards,
Vlado
I really hope the BPTracer gets some more work. I’d love to see vertex merging in there. I have a scene that I have been only able to render in BPTracer. It pretty much never resolves in the other methods.
I wish it wasn’t broken in the nightlies. Our whole farm is on the nightlies for another reason.
not that it adds anything to the discussion, but yes, I couldn’t agree more. still using 1.5 everyday and I still find it an incredibly good piece of software.
My big request for VRay 3.0 would be the inclusion of realistic HDR procedural environments. Basically, just like Ozone, which has the most absurd licensing model I’ve ever come across for a plugin that does one thing only.
Those guys at e-on software really know how to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to licencing, charging for rendernode licences is a model that went out of fashion at least 10 years ago.
Oh yes, and please don’t rush it out, there’s very little money to go around at the moment. Unless, of course, you make it a free upgrade 
If you understand the situation, please don’t give up for 1.5 for max2013. I have not lost my hopes yet. 
Ill second that! Its been fun to play with and I know rendering will be moving more toward this direction, its just a matter of time.
Thanks
-Michael