Chaos Group shared a blog post explaining the possibilities and limitations of USD and Hydra in V-Ray 5 for Maya and Houdini.
USD also known as the Universal Scene Description, a magical interchange format developed by Pixar, came to V-Ray. So now V-Ray can handle all types of 3D and animation data and allow for a faster, more efficient workflow where you can easily take the data to one app, transfer it to another, and import it back into V-Ray. You can find USD support in V-Ray 5 for Maya, update 1 and V-Ray 5 for Houdini, update 1.
Apps can support USD either using a USD procedural or using a Hydra delegate. V-Ray makes it possible to use both methods and considering that Houdini Solaris supports Hydra while Maya is mostly focused on USD, adding those two to V-Ray was crucial.
As for now, however, USD for Maya in V-Ray has a few limitations. It currently supports static, transforming, and deforming meshes; V-Ray shaders and materials in USD; rendering USD edits with V-Ray in-memory, and a few more options. Rendering support for hair and particles and other features will be added later.
Speaking of V-Ray 5 for Houdini, update 1, "most V-Ray features are already integrated natively into Solaris as supplemental V-Ray options where applicable, such as lights, render settings, render geometry settings," the Chaos Group team notes. Environment Fog, V-Ray Proxy, and other custom procedurals are coming in the near future.
Read more about V-Ray 5 for Maya, update 1 and V-Ray 5 for Houdini, update 1 here. Don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, our Discord, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.