The production renderer that drops into SketchUp as a toolbar, bringing full ray tracing, a material library and both processor and graphics card engines to a modeller that shipped without any of it.
SketchUp is a superb modeller and a poor renderer, and V-Ray exists to close exactly that gap. It installs as a plugin, adds a toolbar and a docked asset editor, and from that point the model you already built can be lit, surfaced and rendered to something a client will believe. Nothing about the way you model has to change.
The renderer is a full path tracer with two engines behind one set of controls. The processor engine is the reference, and it is what you use for the final frame when accuracy matters. The graphics card engine is interactive, updating the frame continuously as you drag a light or change a material, and it is where the actual work of lighting a scene happens because the feedback loop is seconds rather than minutes. Both produce the same result, so you can light on one and finish on the other.
Materials and lighting are handled through the asset editor rather than through SketchUp's own material system. There is a large bundled library of surfaces, metals, glass, fabrics, woods, concretes and vegetation that are already set up correctly, and a layered material system for building your own with coats, sheens, displacement and translucency. Lighting covers a physical sun and sky, image based environment lighting, rectangle, sphere, spot, IES and dome lights, all with real world units.
The output side has grown into a small compositing environment of its own. The frame buffer holds render elements as separate layers, exposes exposure, white balance, curves, bloom, glare, lens effects and a denoiser, and lets you compare versions side by side or with a wipe. You can finish an image without ever opening another application, and the render history keeps every version of the frame you produced along the way.
Read the whole list before you start. Most of the reports that come into the desk about this title turn out to be a step taken out of order.
| Processor | Intel or AMD 64 bit with SSE 4.2, high core count strongly preferred |
|---|---|
| Memory | 16 GB minimum, 32 GB for interiors and heavy vegetation |
| Graphics | 8 GB VRAM with hardware ray tracing for the graphics card engine |
| Storage | 10 GB for the install plus room for the material library |
| Display | 1920 by 1080, calibrated if you are matching to print |
The plugin binds to one SketchUp version. If you upgrade SketchUp afterwards you have to reinstall the plugin against it.
The licensing service is installed but should be blocked in your firewall. Leave the local service running, just do not let it reach out.
| Title | Chaos V-Ray for SketchUp |
|---|---|
| Developer | Chaos |
| Version | 7.40.02 |
| Category | 3D & CAD |
| Release type | Full version |
| Operating system | Windows 11, Windows 10 (64 bit) |
| Architecture | x64 |
| Interface language | English |
| Archive size | 1.86 GB |
| File name | chaos_vray_7.40.02_for_sketchup_x64.rar |
| Shelf updated | 5 days ago |
| Total downloads | 659,869 |
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