Portable Installation

This page provides information on the V-Ray Portable installation.

Overview

The V-Ray installation file (.exe) can be unpacked and used as a portable version. Creating a Portable installation provides several advantages over the regular installer:

When installing V-Ray for Maya from a Portable installation file, note that Chaos Cosmos is not included by default in the installation. To add it, you can separately download and install it.

When using V-Ray from a Portable installation, the EULA needs to be accepted to start a render. A pop-up window appears when rendering begins. Only Batch rendering is an exception to this.

Required steps to run V-Ray

To create a Portable installation, you need to:

1. Download a V-Ray installation file. Click the button to do so.

Download V-Ray for Maya

2. Unpack the installation file.

3. Set up the environment variables needed to run V-Ray for Maya/ V-Ray Standalone.

4. Set up your license. Visit the Licensing section to find out how.

5. Run Maya or V-Ray Standalone.

Unpacking the installation file

Unpacking the installation creates three folders in your specified location, which you can later use to install V-Ray on any computer and in any location you like. Here is a detailed step-by-step guide:

D:/Downloads/vray_adv_60010_maya2022_x64.exe -unpackInstall=D:/unpacked_installation

D:/Downloads/vray_adv_60010_maya2022_centos7 -unpackInstall=D:/unpacked_installation

% /Users/User/Downloads/vray_adv_60010_maya2022_mavericks_x64.app/Contents/MacOS/run_installer -unpackInstall=unpacked_installation

Environment Setup

The following environment variables need to be set when running Maya with V-Ray.

Notes:

1 (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8) - nnnn  is the Maya version. For example, 2023, 2022, 2020, etc.

2 (2.1, 2.2) - VRAY_PLUGINS is used for running the V-Ray Standalone executable that comes with the V-Ray for Maya installation. This is needed to render .vrscene files directly with V-Ray Standalone. An alternative to setting VRAY_PLUGINS as an environment variable is using the config.xml located in vray_builds/my_version/maya_vray/bin/config.xml. You will need to edit the xml file with a text editor and point the [PLUGINS]/vrayplugins to vray_builds/my_version/maya_vray/vrayplugins.
-- Example: Locate the xml file in the location where the build is unpacked, in the examples so far -  /opt/vray_builds/vray60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-- Once edited, here's how the line containing the vrayplugins location should look like: <PluginsPath>/opt/vray_builds/vray60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for Windows and the installation file is unpacked in D:\vray_builds\.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in D:\vray_builds\vray_60010_maya2020\maya_vray\bin\config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>D:\vray_builds\vray_60010_maya2020\maya_vray\vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for Linux and the installation file is unpacked in /opt/vray_builds/.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in /opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>/opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for macOS and the installation file is extracted in the root of the system drive in a new folder called vray_builds.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in /vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

3 (3.1, 3.2) - VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH needs to point to the folder that contains the vrlclient.xml  file that holds the V-Ray license server settings (IP address and port number). Alternatively, using the tool to set or change your license settings will create the vrlclient.xml file for you at a default location and there will be no need to explicitly define its location the VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH variable. However, it might be useful to use the variable to define per-user license settings.
For the case where using the environment variable is the best option for you and you need to create the vrlclient.xml file manually, the example below shows what it should contain:

 <!--
	Example contents of vrlclient.xml
	In this example, the primary IP address to look for a valid license is 10.0.0.100 at the default 30304 port.
	Alternate servers (hosts) have not been set.
-->
<VRLClient>
	<LicServer>
		<Host>10.0.0.100</Host>
		<Port>30304</Port>
		<Host1></Host1>
		<Port1>30304</Port1>
		<Host2></Host2>
		<Port2>30304</Port2>
		<User></User>
		<Pass></Pass>
	</LicServer>
</VRLClient>

Setup for V-Ray Standalone

Environment Variables

The portable install can also be used to run only V-Ray Standalone without running V-Ray for Maya. In this case, the number of environment variables to set is reduced.

The list or variables to set requires unpacking the same installation build. Read the Unpacking the installation file section for more details.

Tags

The [STDROOT] and [PLUGINS] tags in the script are normally replaced with their directories by the V-Ray installer, but when you are using a portable installation, you need to replace them manually. The [STDROOT] tag needs to be replaced with the full path to the vray folder in the portable file. The [PLUGINS] tag need to be replaced with the full path to the maya_vray folder in the portable file. The tags are located in the following files:

Notes:

4 (4.1 , 4.2) - VRAY_PLUGINS is used for running the V-Ray Standalone executable that comes with the V-Ray for Maya installation. This is needed to render .vrscene files directly with V-Ray Standalone. An alternative to setting VRAY_PLUGINS as an environment variable is using the config.xml located in vray_builds/my_version/maya_vray/bin/config.xml. You will need to edit the xml file with a text editor and point the [PLUGINS]/vrayplugins to vray_builds/my_version/maya_vray/vrayplugins.
-- Example: Locate the xml file in the location where the installation build is unpacked, in the examples so far - /opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-- Once edited, here's how the line containing the vrayplugins location should look like: <PluginsPath>/opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for Linux and the installation file is extracted in D:\vray_builds\.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in D:\vray_builds\vray_60010_maya2020\maya_vray\bin\config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>D:\vray_builds\vray_60010_maya2020\maya_vray\vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for Linux and the installation file is extracted in /opt/vray_builds/.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in /opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>/opt/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

 <!--
	Example contents of config.xml as an alternative to settings the VRAY_PLUGINS environment variable
	In this example, the installation is for V-Ray 6 for Maya 2020 for macOS and the installation file is extracted in the root of the system drive in a new folder called vray_builds.
	In this case, the config.xml file is located in /vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/bin/config.xml.
-->
<VRayStd>
	<Configuration>
		<PluginsPath>/vray_builds/vray_60010_maya2020/maya_vray/vrayplugins</PluginsPath>
	</Configuration>
</VRayStd>

5 (5.1, 5.2) - VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH needs to point to the folder that contains the vrlclient.xml file that holds the V-Ray license server settings (IP address and port number). Alternatively, using the tool to set or change your license settings will create the vrlclient.xml file for you at a default location and there will be no need to explicitly define its location the VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH variable. However, it might be useful to use the variable to define per-user license settings.
For the case where using the environment variable is the best option for you and you need to create the vrlclient.xml file manually, t he example below shows what it s   hould contain:

 <!--
	Example contents of vrlclient.xml
	In this example, the primary IP address to look for a valid license is 10.0.0.100 at the default 30304 port.
	Alternate servers (hosts) have not been set.
-->
<VRLClient>
	<LicServer>
		<Host>10.0.0.100</Host>
		<Port>30304</Port>
		<Host1></Host1>
		<Port1>30304</Port1>
		<Host2></Host2>
		<Port2>30304</Port2>
		<User></User>
		<Pass></Pass>
	</LicServer>
</VRLClient>

If you want to use any additional tools like the Irradiance map viewer, the VRIMG to OpenEXR converter etc., then also add to the PATH environment variable vray_builds/my_version/vray/bin.