Windows
Loading the V-Ray for Maya Plugin
Once you have installed V-Ray for Maya, you can load the plugin from the Maya plugin Manager:
Start Maya.
Open the Plugin Manager from the Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager menu.
Scroll down to the vrayformaya.mll plugin entry.
Check the Loaded and Auto-load options to load V-Ray for Maya.
Click Close.
Register V-Ray Render Server as a Service
You can register the V-Ray Standalone application as a Windows service so that it runs automatically on Windows boot from the Windows Start > All Programs > V-Ray for Maya 20xx folder > Register V-Ray render server as a service. V-Ray Standalone can now be used as a render server for Distributed Rendering, Network Rendering and rendering with IPR.
Running V-Ray Standalone
V-Ray Standalone is installed as part of the V-Ray for Maya installation. It can be started from Windows Start > All Programs > Chaos Group > V-Ray Standalone for x64
Once started, you will need to start a command-line rendering by first calling the vray command and then adding parameters to it:
vray -sceneFile = "[v-ray scene file]"
where [v-ray scene file] is a .vrscene file. Start it without parameters to see a list of available command line options.
Running a V-Ray Standalone Render Server
You can use V-Ray Standalone render servers for distributed rendering, where a single frame is simultaneously calculated across many machines. Before you can use distributed rendering, you have to start the V-Ray Standalone application in render server mode on the machines that you wish to use. To do that, open the application from Windows Start > All Programs > V-Ray for Maya 20xx folder > Launch V-Ray render server
macOS
Loading the V-Ray for Maya Plugin
Once you have installed V-Ray for Maya, you can load the plugin from the Maya plugin Manager:
Start Maya
Open the Plugin Manager from the Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager menu.
Scroll down to the vrayformaya.bundle plugin entry;
Check the Loaded and Auto-load options to load V-Ray for Maya.
If you do not see the vrayformaya.bundle entry, you will need to browse explicitly for it. The file is located by default in the /Applications/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/vray/plug-ins/ directory. The plugin will attempt to load a shared library, libvray.dylib, which is installed in the /Applications/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/Maya.app/Contents/macOS/ folder and should be readily accessible for Maya to load without modifying the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH variable.
Note: do not attempt to make V-Ray for Maya load the libvray.dylib library with the same name for the standalone version of V-Ray, which is located in the /Applications/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/vray/bin folder. Attempting to load the V-Ray standalone library into Maya will cause Maya to crash immediately.
Running V-Ray Standalone
V-Ray Standalone is installed as part of the V-Ray for Maya installation. It can be executed using the vray bash script which is normally installed in the /Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya20xx/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/vray.bin directory:
/Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Maya20xx/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/vray.bin -scenefile="[v-ray scene file]"
where [v-ray scene file] is a .vrscene file. Start it without parameters to see a list of available command line options.
Running a V-Ray Standalone Render Server
You can use V-Ray Standalone render servers for distributed rendering, where a single frame is simultaneously calculated across many machines. Before you can use distributed rendering, you have to start the V-Ray Standalone application in render server mode on the machines that you wish to use. To do that, run the following command from a Terminal window:
/Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Mayannnn/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/vray.bin -vrayserver
where nnnn is the particular version of Maya (2022 etc).
It may be necessary to restart the terminal or, alternatively, log out and log in again so that some of the changes to the environment variables made by the installer can take effect.
Linux
Loading the V-Ray for Maya Plugin
Once you have installed V-Ray for Maya, you can load the plugin from the Maya plugin Manager:
Start Maya;
Open the Plugin Manager from the Windows > Settings and Preferences > Plugin manager menu.
Scroll down to the vrayformaya plugin entry;
Check the Loaded and Auto-load options to load V-Ray for Maya.
If you do not see the vrayformaya entry, you will need to browse explicitly for the V-Ray for Maya plugin, which is called vrayformaya.so and is located by default in the /usr/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/vray/plug-ins/ directory. The plugin will attempt to load a shared library, libvray.so, which is installed in the /usr/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/lib folder and should be readily accessible for Maya to load without modifying the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable.
NOTE: do not attempt to make V-Ray for Maya load the libvray.so library with the same name for the standalone version of V-Ray, which is located in the /usr/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/Standalone_for_Linux_x64/lib/linux_x64 folder. Attempting to load the V-Ray standalone library into Maya will cause Maya to crash immediately.
Running V-Ray Standalone
V-Ray Standalone is installed as part of the V-Ray for Maya installation. It can be executed using the vray bash script which is normally installed in the /usr/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya20xx/vray/bin/ directory, for example:
$ /usr/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya2022/vray/bin/vray -scenefile="[v-ray scene file]"
Use the -help option to see a list of the available command line options.
Running a V-Ray Standalone Render Server
You can use V-Ray Standalone render servers for distributed rendering, where a single frame is simultaneously calculated across many machines. Before you can use distributed rendering, you have to start the V-Ray Standalone application in render server mode on the machines that you wish to use. This is done with the vrayserver command, for example:
$ /usr/Chaos Group/V-Ray/maya2022/vray/bin/vrayserver