V-Ray for Rhino
List of Supported Render Elements
This page provides a list of all the render elements supported in V-Ray for Rhino.
Last updated 18 May 2026
This page provides a list of all the render elements supported in V-Ray for Rhino.
Overview
The following render elements are supported by V-Ray. All render elements support native V-Ray materials. Some render elements also support standard Rhino materials. This is noted in the table below.
Supported Render Elements
Render element name | VRayMtl support | Std material support | Filtering control | Transparency support | Color Depth of EXR floating-point channels**** | Description |
|---|
Render element name | VRayMtl support | Std material support | Filtering control | Transparency support | Color Depth of EXR floating-point channels**** | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Atmosphere | ✓ | ✓ | – | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Atmospheric effects. |
Background | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The image background. |
Caustics | ✓ | – * | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The caustics on the material. Only present when the Caustics option of V-Ray is enabled. This channel does not include GI caustics. |
Cryptomatte | ✓ | ✓ | – | ✓ | forced 32bit (for multi-channel files) | Uses the Cryptomatte convention by Psypop to encode mattes into multichannel OpenEXRs. |
Denoiser | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Applies a denoising operation to the image after it is rendered (with the necessary channels). |
Diffuse | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The pure diffuse surface color. Note that this is different from the standard Rhino Diffuse render element, which contains the diffuse surface lighting. |
DR Buckets | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 16bit/32bit | Shows which render node rendered which bucket during distributed rendering |
ExtraTex | N/A | N/A | – | N/A | forced 32bit (optional for multi-channel files) | Renders the entire scene with one texture mapped on all objects. |
Geometric Normals | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | 16bit/32bit | The surface normals. |
Global Illumination | ✓ | – * | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The diffuse surface global illumination. Only present if Global illumination is enabled. |
Lighting | ✓ | ✓ * | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The diffuse direct surface lighting. |
Lighting Analysis | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | 16bit/32bit | Provides visual representation of the lighting intensity within a rendered frame. |
Light Mix | 16bit/32bit | Provides adjustment control to the lights in the scene from inside the New V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB2). | ||||
Material ID Color | ✓ | ✓ | – (always off) | – | 16bit/32bit | The material ID Color of the object. |
Material ID Number | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The material ID Number of the object. |
Material Random Color | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Creates colorful selection masks based on the material assignment in the scene. |
Matte Shadow | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The matte shadow part of the image |
MultiMatte | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Creates selection masks based on an object ID or material ID. |
Normals and Bump | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | 16bit/32bit | The normals generated by bump maps. |
Object ID*** | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | 16bit/32bit | Object G-buffer ID. |
Raw GI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The raw diffuse global illumination (not multiplied by the diffuse surface color). Only present if Global illumination is enabled. |
Raw Light | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The raw diffuse direct illumination before it's multiplied by the diffuse surface color. |
Raw Reflection | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The pure surface reflection before it's multiplied by the reflection filter color. |
Raw Refraction | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The pure surface refraction before it's multiplied by the refraction filter color. |
Raw Shadow | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The raw light that was blocked by other objects. |
Raw Total Light | ✓ | – | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The sum of all raw lighting - direct and indirect. |
Reflection | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The reflections on the surface. |
Reflection Filter | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The reflection filter (the color by which the raw reflections are multiplied to give the final surface reflection). This may be considered as an alpha channel for the reflections. |
Refraction | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The refractions on the surface. |
Refraction Filter | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The refraction filter (the color by which the raw refractions are multiplied to give the final surface refraction). This may be considered as an alpha channel for the refractions. |
Render ID | ✓ | ✓ | – (always off) | – | 16bit/32bit | The node render ID of the object that contributes most to the pixel value. |
Sample Rate | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 16bit/32bit | Shows an image where the pixel brightness is directly proportional to the number of samples taken at this pixel. |
Self Illumination | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The self-illumination of the surface. |
Shadows | ✓ | – | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The diffuse light that was blocked by other objects. |
Specular | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ** | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The surface specular highlights. |
Subsurface Scattering | – | – | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Renders just the subsurface part of BRDFSSS2Complex material on a separate layer. |
Total Light | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | The total lighting in the scene - direct and indirect. |
Z-Depth | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | forced 32bit (for multi-channel files) | The z-depth of the surface. |
Ambient Occlusion | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 16bit/32bit | Ambient occlusion effect. |
Back to Beauty | – | – | – | – | 16bit/32bit | Expands as all beauty elements for the actual rendering. |
Footnotes
* For Standard materials, the VRayLighting element includes the direct and indirect lighting as well as caustics, while the VRayGlobalIllumination and VRayCaustics elements are black. However for all materials, adding the VRayLighting, VRayGlobalIllumination and VRayCaustics elements always gives the total diffuse surface lighting.
** When an element is filtered, it will dimmed by atmospheric effects like fog, etc. However, when an element is unfiltered, it will not be affected by atmospherics.
*** By selecting an object directly in the viewport, you can set, change or remove an Object ID. Go to the Properties tab > V-Ray > Object ID.
**** For all image formats except EXR the render elements depend on their respective channels' output settings.