Overview
V-Ray Standalone is full-featured and programmable command-line renderer that allows you to render scenes exported in V-Ray’s native .vrscene file format.
V-Ray Standalone supports V-Ray's complete feature set including CPU & GPU rendering capabilities.
When rendering Phoenix volumes ( such as smoke and fire, Phoenix meshed liquids or Phoenix particle systems such as Foam, Splash and Mist or any of the Phoenix textures) on a machine that will be used only as a render node, but will not simulate - Phoenix will not require a license for rendering - you just need Phoenix installed on the machine which will render the data.
Setting up Phoenix Rendering using V-Ray Standalone
For more information on installing V-Ray Standalone, see the V-Ray Standalone Installation Guide page.
Windows
- Installing Chaos Phoenix on a machine which will be used only as a render node, where there is no DCC application installed (such as Maya) is straightforward - just follow the steps in the Phoenix Setup and Installation page.
2. Alternatively after running the Phoenix installer, you could append the C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\Phoenix FD\Maya 20xx for x64\vray6plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable, but please note that this would affect all installed V-Ray Standalone versions.
If you're using a Phoenix installation from an arbitrary location and If you are rendering with V-Ray Standalone 6 or newer (meaning you render vrscenes or render using V-Ray GPU), you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray6plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
For V-Ray versions older than V-Ray 6 you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray5plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
Linux
- Install Chaos Phoenix following the instructions in the Phoenix Setup and Installation page.
2. Go to the installation folder for Phoenix - by default this is /usr/ChaosGroup/PhoenixFD/Maya20xx-x64/ and copy the files from /usr/ChaosGroup/PhoenixFD/Maya20xx-x64/vray6plugins folder to the V-Ray Standalone plugins folder - by default this is /usr/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Standalone_for_linux_x64/bin/plugins
If you're using a Phoenix installation from an arbitrary location and If you are rendering with V-Ray Standalone 6 or newer (meaning you render vrscenes or render using V-Ray GPU), you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray6plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
For V-Ray versions older than V-Ray 6 you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray5plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
MacOS
Install Chaos Phoenix following the instructions in the Phoenix Setup and Installation page.
Go to the installation folder for Phoenix - by default this is /Applications/ChaosGroup/PhoenixFD/Maya20xx/ and copy the files from /Applications/ChaosGroup/PhoenixFD/Maya20xx/ChaosPhoenix.app/Contents/MacOS/vray6plugins folder to the V-Ray Standalone plugins folder
by default it is located in /Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Standalone_for_mavericks_x64/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins
If you're using a Phoenix installation from an arbitrary location and If you are rendering with V-Ray Standalone 6 or newer (meaning you render vrscenes or render using V-Ray GPU), you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray6plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
For V-Ray versions older than V-Ray 6 you can append the /phoenix_builds/my_version/phoenix/vray5plugins path to the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable. Note that this would affect all installed V-Ray versions.
Troubleshooting
If the Phoenix fluid is missing when rendering with V-Ray Standalone or you get any errors in the console, please try the following:
- Try using the latest versions of Phoenix and V-Ray.
- Confirm that the versions of Phoenix and V-Ray are matching. Phoenix has different installers for V-Ray Next, V-Ray 5 and V-Ray 6.
- If you're doing a DR render - make sure the simulation caches are shared on a network location that all the machines can see. Note: They all must have permissions to access this network folder. For more details, see Distributed Rendering of Fluid Caches for Phoenix.