COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
VRay Supplment, Week of December 2, 2013

RENDER FARM & WATERMARKED 30 DAY FREE TRIAL VERSION

1. RENDER FARM

The VRAY render farm implementation and documentation were completed for the Schoo of Architecture on November 25th. Note that the render fram does not support batch rendering, but follows rather an interactive protocol. That is, you need to be actively using Rhino and VRay in order to use the render farm. If there's a large queue on the render farm then actual turnaround time may be greater than handlng the rendering on a stand-alone workstation. However, the render farm approach may still prove useful relative to limited processing power on a single workstation or laptop. This tool has been barely tested, and so it is for early adaptors only. For detailed instructions see the following link:

http://www.arch.virginia.edu/files/resources/Setup%20V-Ray%20for%20Rhino.pdf

2. WATERMARKED 30 DAY FREE TRIAL VERSION

A 30 day trial version of VRAY is available http://www.vray.com/free_vray_demo/. However, note that it creates watermarked renderings and therefore isn't well suited for presentation renderings. One strategy may be to keep two working copies of any Rhino file in progress. In this way you can test renderings with the watermarked version, but return to the alternative file for the non-watermarked finished rendering. The trial version is relatively untested and Rhino file compatibility with the full license also isn't completely tested, and so this isn't necessarily an ideal solution. However, the trial license may provide a useful short-term learning and independent work tool if you don't wish to go ahead and purchase your own personal educational copy.