So, I've managed to root out a few answers using a bit of old fashioned looking..
- Does vray have a standalone renderer? Does it use some RIB scene description equivalent?
Yes and yes.
Installing the "vray for maya" demo from the chaosgroup website
(register and login to get access) helped with this one.
From here I found vray which is a simple wrapper for vray.exe - more commonly called 'vray standalone'. Default install places it within your maya installation, rather than as a sep. application.
i.e.
/usr/autodesk/maya2008/vray/bin/vray.exe
here's an example command as reference
vray -sceneFile=/tmp/cornellBox/cornellbox_scene.vrscene -verboseLevel=3 -frames= 1 -imgFile=/tmp/render_Camera.exr -display=0 -autoclose=0
Scene description is in the .vrscene format. Not been able to find any documentation on the format - here's an cornell box example:
vrscene.tar.gz
- How does shader writing compare? I see mention of an sdk - what are it's capabilities? Dynamic load type geometry procedurals?
Not been able to find any publicly available detailed info on the sdk (beyond mentions on chaosgroup site). As far as I'm aware shader writing is in c++. Any more info here most appreciated
- Is there anything like the AOV framework?
You certainly can render multiple shading components out as one render
http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/maya/150R1/examples_renderelements.htm
Not sure if these are builtins defined by renderer or conventions defined by standard shaders...?
There doesn't seem to be masses of info about, so if there is anyone with good experiences - maybe someone from DD :) - feel free to add!
cheers
