Chaos has released Chaos Vantage 2, an upgrade to its realistic real-time visualization tool. With nearly 20 major new features, Chaos says Vantage has become as powerful for VFX as it is for architectural visualization—providing easy access to photorealistic animations, previs, and scene explorations at lightning speeds.

“In 3D, you tend to wait for quality and people accept this, even when it disrupts their whole flow,” said Simeon Balabanov, senior product manager at Chaos. “With Vantage 2, we are giving them quality, speed, and flexibility in one place, so they can respond to any creative idea or client request.”

Representing years of proprietary R&D, Vantage was designed to help users instantly explore massive 3D scenes in a fully ray-traced, real-time environment. Chaos says the import process is simple with no geometry to optimize, UVs to unwrap, or lighting to bake. Users can drag and drop a V-Ray scene or Live-Link to Vantage while working within their favorite 3D creation tool, to bring it into real time with astounding quality.

Vantage 2 builds on this simplicity, adding new features that make it even more attuned to over-the-shoulder reviews and look development. With Scene States, artists can easily respond to both needs, using non-destructive variations to explore different styles, moods, and camera angles. Each state can easily be saved and cycled through with a click, making it easier for teams to determine which lighting, materials, or post-processing effects will appeal most to their intended viewers.

Watch the video below to learn more about Chaos Vantage 2.0.

To enhance realism, Vantage 2 now features a host of new animation capabilities, including support for deforming meshes, AXYZ’s anima 4D people, and eye-catching .vrscene effects that have only been available in V-Ray. Deforming Meshes will be particularly striking for artists, as they’ll open up the type of natural movements you often see in human bodies, which bend and contort as different parts move—according to the company. Chaos claims VFX artists will also be “delighted” to finally have access to real-time Playblasts, packed with all the detailed lighting and shader information that usually gets left out of their director/supervisor reviews.

Vantage 2 is available now for Windows 10 (version 2004 or newer) and is designed for DXR-compatible NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. Current V-Ray users that already have a Premium or Enterprise subscription will have full access to Vantage 2 until the end of their current subscription. New Vantage licenses will include both Vantage 1.x and 2. Pricing information can be found on the Chaos pricing page. Click here for a free 30-day trial of Vantage 2.