How 3D artists can get a power boost from V-Ray 3

This content has been brought to you in association with HP ZED, a 'pop up shop' for creatives in London's Soho from Monday 29 September to Friday 10 October 2014. Register for ZED today. Simeon Balabanov will give a talk entitled ' The Latest V-Ray Technology for VFX' on Monday 29th September: get your ticket here.

If you want to learn about the latest developments in V-Ray, Simeon Balabanov is your go-to guy.

A 3D professional with more than six years' experience in the field of 3D modeling and rendering, the Bulgarian artist worked as a CG Supervisor at some of the biggest animation studios in that country before joining Chaos Group - the makers of V-Ray - in 2012.

He's gone on to become one of the company’s top presenters, focused on V-Ray for 3ds Max and V-Ray for Maya and the newest V-Ray|Nuke and V-Ray|Modo. Due to give a talk at HP ZED London this Monday, we caught up with him for a quick chat...

What's the CG scene like in Bulgaria?

There are a few VFX studios founded by experienced industry pros that used to work in Hollywood. Take a look at Bottleship VFX, for example, which specializes in heavy dynamics.

Another great example is Bubu Studio, which specializes in post-production. Also, recently many world-wide studios are now recruiting artists from Bulgaria, which is great news.

How did you first get interested in V-Ray?

I've been a 3D artist for some time when I first heard about V-Ray, so I gave it a try. It was the speed and quality that made me become a V-Ray fan.

Personally, I think the latest version of V-Ray (3.0) is the most exciting thing in 3D software at the moment. I think it is the best mix of quality, speed and ease of use an artist could ask for. At the same time it allows in depth control for the more technical artists like me.

How is V-Ray evolving at the moment?

We're about to release V-Ray 3.0 for Maya, we have released V-Ray for Modo and Nuke as beta versions, and we try to give access to to V-Ray to as many artists as possible. We always listen to our users and try to make V-Ray better.

V-Ray 3.0 for Maya is a comprehensive physically-based lighting, shading, and rendering toolkit with seamless Autodesk Maya integration. Focused on artist productivity and faster CG workflows, it introduces a powerful set of new features and improvements.

V-Ray | NUKE unifies the pipeline between NUKE artists and 3D artists for unprecedented workflow improvements at all stages of production, while providing access to V-Ray's advanced ray tracing capabilities. It can render Alembic caches, V-Ray Proxies and V-Ray scene files, all with complete control over lighting, shading, and render output.

V-Ray | MODO seamlessly integrates production-proven rendering capabilities into MODO's native workflow. For studios currently using MODO or for those considering adding it to their existing toolset, it offers the opportunity to unify their rendering platform.

What will you be talking about at HP ZED London?

In my talk, I will show the latest developments for the upcoming V-Ray 3.0 for Maya, V-Ray for Modo and V-Ray for Nuke, focusing on how they can enhance artists' workflow. I'll also pass briefly over Chaos Group’s latest advances in V-Ray RT towards GPU Production Rendering.

Register for HP ZED today!

This content has been brought to you in association with HP ZED, a 'pop up shop' for creatives in London's Soho from 29 September – 10 October 2014.

With talks, tutorials and creativity sessions brought to you by top experts from leading studios like Double Negative, MPC, Milk and The Mill, as well as HP, Intel and Nvidia, it's going to be a must-attend event for anyone working in motion graphics, animation or 3D. Find out more here!