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Table of Contents

This page provides information on running V-Ray on a machine that does not have it locally installed.

Overview

It is possible to run V-Ray from an arbitrary location, rather than installing it locally.

  1. Run the regular V-Ray installer, but prefix the "Program Files" folder with some temporary directory for all four paths. This gives you a folder that contains everything that V-Ray puts in both the 3ds Max folders and its own Program Files folders.
  2. Copy that temporary folder to some network location (preferably one that also indicates the V-Ray version and/or build number and the 3ds Max version).
  3. Uninstall V-Ray and remove any files that remain after the uninstallation.

  4. In the temporary folder, create a plugin.ini file with the absolute paths to the V-Ray plugins:

    plugin.ini
    [Directories]
VRay=\\server\share\vray_adv_40201_max2018_x64.25566\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018\plugins\
vrayplugins=\\server\share\vray_adv_40201_max2018_x64.25566\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018\plugins\vrayplugins\

  5. In the temporary folder, create a .bat file that contains environment variables that are needed by V-Ray and runs 3ds Max with the custom plugin.ini file:

    run_max.bat
    SET PATH=%~dp0Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018;%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin;%PATH%
SET VRAY4_FOR_3DSMAX2018_MAIN=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin
SET VRAY4_FOR_3DSMAX2018_PLUGINS=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin\plugins
SET VRAY_MDL_PATH_3DSMAX2018=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\mdl
SET VRAY_OSL_PATH_3DSMAX2018=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\opensl

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018\3dsmax.exe" -p %~dp0\plugin.ini

  6. In the temporary folder, create a .bat file that contains environment variables that are needed by V-Ray and runs V-Ray spawner with the custom plugin.ini file:

    run_vrayspawner.bat
    SET PATH=%~dp0Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018;%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin;%PATH%
SET VRAY4_FOR_3DSMAX2018_MAIN=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin
SET VRAY4_FOR_3DSMAX2018_PLUGINS=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\bin\plugins
SET VRAY_MDL_PATH_3DSMAX2018=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\mdl
SET VRAY_OSL_PATH_3DSMAX2018=%~dp0Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2018\opensl

vrayspawner2018.exe -AppName="C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018\3dsmax.exe" -cmdparams="-p %~dp0\plugin.ini"
  7. Use the specified .bat files to run 3ds Max or V-Ray spawner with the specific V-Ray version.

 

Limitations

This approach works well for render servers where V-Ray is used only for rendering. However, it has a few limitations when 3ds Max is used in interactive mode because some 3ds Max paths cannot be controlled; these limitations can be avoided by expanding the .bat file above to copy some additional files from the network location to the local 3ds Max user folder:

  • MaxScripts provided by V-Ray are not available (V-Ray scene converter, Bitmap to VRayHDRI converter and others). To make them available, they must be copied to the "scripts\startup" folder of 3ds Max.

  • "Realistic" view of V-Ray materials and maps in the Nitrous viewport is not available and attempting to use this mode might lead to crashes. To make the "Realistic" view work, the viewport shaders must be copied to the relevant 3ds Max folder ("NVIDIA" for 3ds Max 2015, "AMG" for 3ds Max 2016).

  • Icons for the V-Ray toolbar are missing and some buttons might not work properly. To make the icons appear, they must be copied to the 3ds Max "UI_In" folders, and the V-Ray MaxScripts must be copied to the "scripts\startup" folder.

  • The .vrmat editor is not available. To make it work, additional files must be copied to the 3ds Max "python" folder.

  • V-Ray OSL shaders does not work when started from a network location. OSL shaders will only work if run_max.bat (or run_vrayspawner.bat) is started from network or local drive. In order to use V-Ray OSL, the shared folder must be mapped as a network drive.
  • Viewport IPR is not available. To make it available, the V-Ray folder (arbitrary location...\3ds Max 2019\scripts) must be copied to the "scripts" folder of 3ds Max.

 

 

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