Chaos Group announces that Co-Founder, Vlado Koylazov has won a Scientific and Engineering Award for the “original concept, design and implementation of V-Ray.” The award honors pioneers whose “developments result in significant improvements [to] motion picture production” and will be presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at its annual Sci-Tech Award event on February 11.

Used on over 150 feature films since 2002, including recent hits like Doctor Strange, Deadpool, and Captain America: Civil War, V-Ray provides artists with world-class photorealism, helping them create stunning computer-generated visuals for audiences around the world. The creatures, characters, and environments rendered with V-Ray are key elements of modern films, and comprise the majority of work nominated for visual effects Oscars over the last six years.

In its announcement, the Academy praised V-Ray for its “efficient production-ready approach to ray tracing and global illumination, its support for a wide variety of workflows, and its broad industry acceptance [that proved] instrumental in the widespread adoption of fully ray-traced rendering for motion pictures.” Koylazov will receive one of the 18 Sci-Tech Awards to be presented in 2017.

“This award reflects the hard work and dedication of the entire V-Ray team,” said Koylazov, CTO and Co-Founder of Chaos Group. “I am also immensely thankful to all the artists and studios for the great work they have created with V-Ray over the years. I’d like to congratulate the other Sci-Tech winners as well – their efforts have pushed the boundaries of visual effects in film. We are looking forward to more great movies in the years to come.”

V-Ray Users Weigh In:

Ben Grossmann, Magnopus CEO and Visual Effects Oscar winner for Hugo said: “I’m fortunate to have been honored by the Academy for work we created with V-Ray, and I’m glad to see Vlado and his team get the recognition they deserve for their contributions. Many of us owe them a lot for their support of cinema over the years.”

“Ray tracing has been a key part of ScanlineVFX’s pipeline since our work on 300 in 2007,” said Stephan Trojansky, ScanlineVFX VFX Supervisor and Sci-Tech Oscar winner for Flowline. “We’ve depended on V-Ray to deliver thousands of shots on over 50 feature films since that time. We couldn’t be happier for Vlado and his team.”

“On Tron: Legacy, we pushed ray tracing and global illumination to its fullest,” noted Eric Barba, VFX Oscar-winning VFX Supervisor. “We couldn’t have done it without V-Ray. Thanks to Vlado and the team for their continued support.”

The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017 and will be televised live on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. Portions of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be included in the Oscar telecast.

About V-Ray

From architecture and design to visual effects in film and television, V-Ray is the most widely used rendering solution in the world. V-Ray has helped artists and designers visualize their best work for over 20 years, pushing the boundaries of imagery, animation, and virtual reality.