vRay is undoubtedly the most oft-used rendering engine on the planet. It’s been around since the early days of visualization and 3D animation, when bites were measured in megas and not gigas, marking its territory early by providing the most high-quality rendering on the planet.

Today, vRay has a lot of company at the top of the rendering mountain, but remains a titan in the industry capable of creating some of the most incredible images and animations you’ll see.

However, vRay is nothing without its support staff. There is a wealth of supplementary content out there that helps vRay stay at the top, none more important than the accessibility to a wide range of material and texture databases scattered throughout the web. This article aims to outline a few of the best vRay material libraries, and hopefully convince you why they should be bookmarked immediately.

Here are the best vRay material libraries.

Evermotion

Evermotion is a one-stop-shop for all things 3D rendering and visualization. The site contains a regularly updated news and tutorial blog, galleries, lessons on vRay, and an extensive, user-driven material library that is entirely free to use. This is definitely a url to be added to your list of daily visits, as new materials and tutorials are being added every day. Evermotion is a great pastime as much as it is a great source for free shaders, materials, and textures.

vRay-Materials

The name of this database website says it all. vRay-Materials is a great resource tailored specifically for vRay users. It has a massive library of free and paid-for textures and materials that will give your renderings and animations the extra layer of polish they might have been missing. There are few frills and window dressing here, but for people looking to bolster their personal library of vRay materials, this is a great place to start.

Visual Dynamics

What better place to get the most high-quality vRay materials than from a company that shares your enthusiasm for the rendering software? Visual Dynamics is all things vRay, and that includes a robust library of top shelf materials, shaders, and textures. Visual Dynamics is also a licensed distributor of vRay software, providing subscription copies for whichever modeling program you happen to favor.

Flying Architecture

For the architectural visualization artists among us, Flying Architecture is the best place to get materials keyed into that specific industry. The site also features 3D models, tutorials for vRay and other software, and a great forum where users can share files, horror stories, and compliments in a community of like-minded individuals. It isn’t the biggest library of materials on the web, but one that targets architects in a way that few others rival.

Aversis

Aversis is a no-nonsense, easy to navigate tutorial website that happens to contain a few great material libraries. The site contains a small collection of ‘free samples’ to let rendering artists get a taste of the quality of textures and materials they have available. They also offer texture packs for sale, which are specific to various sub-sectors of the 3D rendering and visualization industry. You might come for the tutorials, but you’ll stay for the material library.

vRay Maya Materials

This is the perfect materials library for - you guessed it - Maya users. Maya is the most popular modeler for animators and industrial designers, making this website a must-have resource for anyone involved in doing that kind of work. The database is large, high-quality, and gives Maya users a daily place to find all the latest textures and materials.