LOS ANGELES -- Chaos Group announced the release of V-Ray PLE for Maya, a new personal learning edition of its production renderer. V-Ray PLE helps new and self-taught CG artists explore the benefits of photorealistic rendering at their own pace, using a free non-commercial license that can be renewed every 90 days. With access to nearly every V-Ray feature, artists can build new skills as they try out some of the same tools used to bring Game of Thrones and Avengers: Infinity War to life.

V-Ray PLE for Maya comes equipped with all the major features of V-Ray Next, including scene intelligence, GPU production rendering and improved IPR. While renders are never watermarked, V-Ray PLE output is limited to 4K. Other limitations are mainly network or development driven: no batch rendering, distributed rendering or access to AppSDK.

The development of V-Ray PLE for Maya was fast-tracked because of COVID-19 to help more artists access the software from home. With more artists indoors, Chaos Group wanted to offer an engaging way to build new skills. Also available is a new set of learning materials to the V-Ray for Maya documentation page.

V-Ray PLE for Maya represents the pilot project for V-Ray personal learning editions. Chaos Group will leave the option open for other products in the future.

V-Ray PLE for Maya is available now for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Licenses are free for non-commercial use and can be renewed every 90 days. More information is available here.

Source: Chaos Group