Still having problems with getting reflections on materials, using trans maps on Poser hair, bump maps on top of texture maps, basically material settings and what transfers over and what doesn't. The developers forum is pretty spotty on support and English isn't the first language there, so you can ask a pretty explicit question and not get a proper answer. Anyone else hacking around with this?

I was using it till my beta expired.  I can't afford to shell out for a VRay license yet so I've not used it since september.  There were problems with transmaps, specifically with eyelash maps but I never managed to get a solution sorted out for it.

Reflections used to work fine for me but it's been ages since I fired up Blender.  I seem to remember using the mirror shader in Blender
It's a blindingly fast render engine, and it produces lovely renders but it's a bit steep for me to justify at the moment.

Yeah, transmaps are an issue. The betas expire? That isn't good news, it'll take me forever to get it going the way I want . . . oh well. If the price was reasonable, they could sell a boatload. Close to a $1000 USD is heavy, but I'd strongly consider a few hundred.

The Beta expired but the demos don't (that I know of anyway)

You don't need to buy the whole VRay for Maya, you can just get the standalone version (I believe anyway) which is about 300 euros or so.  You'd be best off asking that in the VRay for Blender forums.  They are normally pretty good at answering.  Chaosgroup might have some input as well

It's certainly under consideration. I don't mind paying for quality. Still, it's great for some things but material settings, or more to the point, getting support for them is an issue. You mention trans maps, reflections and so on. I see renders where the reflections are very well done, but those who do them aren't really talking. I can get the effects I want in that regard in Povman, which is what I use now, standing on my head. Great skin shaders and mat settings. Light and focal blur behave great in Vray though.

have a look at my Blender stuff in my gallery - if you want to know how I did any of 'em (and I can do it without copy-write problems,) I'll email you over the .blend file and you can have a look.

You did the staircase demo scene?! That's the most useful thing I've found. Let me take a detailed look through your gallery, I'm sure I'll find some things I'd like to hack in. :O)

You seem to have given up on Blender/Vray and are sticking to Vue. How come?

The only reason I've stopped using Blender/VRay is because I haven't downloaded the demo.  It's hard to go with the demo restrictions after you've been using the beta :)

Is it really fast? Or what makes it stand out I mean ?

I like the way light behaves in Vray with easy setups.

in the very top pic: 5 lights-four omnis in the light meshes and a shadowless fill omni near the camera

Middle pics: a sun from the outside and an omni in the hall near the camera for fill

Bottom: a sun from the outside and a shadowless omni near the camera for fill

Below: a sun from the outside and a shadowless omni near the camera for fill

There are other apps that light that quick and easy though. I think the depth of focus in combination with the lighting is what sets Vray apart from what I see.

for the quality you get, VRay is blindingly fast.  Easy to set up (to get a basic result out of it) but very tweakable if needed. 
There's a reason a lot of ArchViz stuff is done in VRay :)

Sounds interesting I will check it out! Thanks.

Attached Link: Stair case demo

Grab Frank's staircase demo at . . . . . .

That'll get ya going and keep me informed as to your results. I'd like to see this really develop.

I think you can get the staircase demo from the same place you get the Blender - VRay script.  That's where I got it anyway