Chaos releases V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max, update 1

The Beck Group partners with Alice

Dallas-based architecture and construction firm, the Beck Group, has selected Alice Technologies’s construction optioneering platform for use on its key capital projects.

The platform uses generative AI to help general contractors and owners plan, bid and build large-scale infrastructure and commercial projects ‘more efficiently and with reduced risk’.

With the release of V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max, update 1, Chaos has introduced several postprocessing upgrades and time-saving GPU enhancements to the mature rendering solution.

New masking support for Lens Effects and Denoiser layers gives 3D artists more control over how their images come together. According to Chaos, whether it’s applying Lens Effects to specific lights and materials, or smoothing out part of the image, designers can now personalise their renders even faster. While in post, users can also start fine-tuning V-Ray Light Materials with Light Mix, making it easier to edit self-illuminating objects in a scene –even after rendering is complete.

Elsewhere, custom resolutions and aspect ratios are now maintained for each V-Ray camera, cutting setup time when switching cameras.

Artists can now export V-Ray lights, materials, modifiers and more to the rising USD file format, making it easier to exchange V-Ray data in VFX studios.

Scenes with massive amounts of textures and geometry are even less of a challenge now, says Chaos. All V-Ray Bitmaps that load when a scene opens will also be optimised for performance.

V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max can also take better advantage of GPUs. Nvidia AI Denoiser Upscaling, for example, can take an image from HD to 4K without adding more render time. V-Ray GPU can also render 4K textures with 50% less memory. ■ www.chaos.com/vray

Focus HQ to bring clarity to AEC projects

Information management specialist White Frog has joined forces with Australian software developer Focus HQ Pty, to bring the Focus HQ software to EMEA and expand its capabilities within the AECO sector.

Focus HQ tracks and reports the status of multiple projects across an entire corporate portfolio, providing a real-time ‘red, amber, green (RAG)’ dashboard for managers and executives. It interconnects Gantt charts, risk schedules, consistent reports, resource planning, budgeting, and benefits realisations, and applies a layer of corporate governance over the top.

“The reason I am most excited about the partnership, is not just for the software’s out-of-the-box functionality but the potential to create templates for repeatable project workflows,” said Paul Woddy, director of channel development for the newly formed company Focus HQ EMEA.

“What this means in practice is the opportunity to capture processes defined in such standards as ISO 19650 for Information Management, and to embed that into the core of project management, delivering consistency from a single source of the truth and an auditable trail for quality control.”

■ www.focushq.com/AECO

Beck will use the Alice platform on a project it is designing and building for Woods Capital’s Pacific Elm Properties. Called The Ivy, the project is a 200,000 square foot mixed-use tower. It will deliver ground-floor retail, nine floors of office space, and eight levels of above-ground parking just north of Dallas’ Knox District.

■ www.alicetechnologies.com

WSB builds on Bentley Synchro

US engineering design and consultancy firm WSB has launched a digital construction management solution and advisory service, based on Bentley Systems Synchro.

The aim of the service is to help civil infrastructure firms overcome the challenges of adopting model-based digital workflows and harnessing the power of ‘construction digital twins’. Key services include enabling a single source of truth by connecting project, contract, and document management to the future of design—a 3D/4D/5D constructable model—as well as the ability to create constructable models from current 2D plan sets.

■ www.bentley.com/synchro