So I was looking through the ChaosGroup(makers of the VRay Core) forum and came across an interesting product. Its called RedViewer(products>redviewer) and allows for realtime viewport previews of many vray functions such as materials, sun/sky, phys. camera settings, lights, shadows, and other things. Unfortunately its only available for Max/Vis at the moment. I thought that maybe some of you out there that still use Max for things would find it interesting. (link to the thread on chaos group here)