V-Ray 5, update 2 - now available!

[matanov]

Hello,

V-Ray 5, update 2 is now available for download from our website.

New key features:

V-Ray Decal - Project V-Ray Decal onto surfaces at any angle without extra UVW work or disturbing any underlying materials for quickly making anything from IndyCars and container labels to cracks, stains and scratches. (how to use V-Ray Decal)

Sharpen/Blur layer in V-Ray Frame Buffer - V-Ray 5’s extensive post-processing capabilities are bolstered with batch image processing and a new Sharpen/Blur layer for even more artistic control without leaving 3ds Max.

Chaos Cosmos materials - More than 200 free, high-quality materials have been added to Chaos Cosmos. Just drag & drop onto surfaces for immediate use and adjust them as you’d like. For more information, see the Chaos Cosmos Browser page.

V-Ray Instancer lights distribution - More versatile ways of distributing lights in the scene. Instance your lights based on any kind of particle system.

Atmospheric light contribution control - Improved control to speed up your lighting setup. Easily tweak how much an individual light illuminates the environment fog around it.

Extended material override - In addition to update 1's extensive global override functions, you can now preserve a scene's materials' original reflection, coat, sheen, and displacement. See more at the Global Switches page.

Extended V-Ray Dirt - New advanced options in VRayDirt ensure precise and agile control over weathering effects.

Chaos Cloud updates - An improved cloud rendering experience to speed up project delivery. Displacement is now consistent with V-Ray for 3ds Max, and we've added initial support for SiNi scatter and Anima 4D. See all supported features in Chaos Cloud here.


Once again I've highlighted some other interesting additions that deserve attention from the release notes:

Official release, update 2 (Oct 26, 2021) (full release notes)

New features:

VRayDecal

• An easy way of projecting one material on top of another;

VRayLight

• Add contribution per light for atmospherics;

Cosmos

• Cosmos Materials support; // Mind that this will be the distribute channel for V-Ray materials from Chaos from now on. There will be no further development on V-Ray Material Library.

VRay

• Override material preserve functionality option for material displacement;
• Override material preserve functionality option for Reflection/Coat/Sheen;
• Curvature texture support for isolating Convex or Concave values;
• VRayBlendMtl material to blend the displacement maps of the sub-materials;
• Add support for animation exporting for the OSL plugin in Max;

VRayMtl

• Implement the thin-walled mode of the VRayMtl on the GPU;
• Implement the new volumetric translucency modes of the VRayMtl on the GPU;

V-Ray, VRayInstancer

• Lights as source objects for the VRayInstancer; // For light instancing with Forest Pack, you'll need an updated FP plugin (expect news from iToo)

.vrscene exporter / Chaos Cloud

• SiNi Software scattering plugins export; // An updated versions of SiNi plugins is needed.
• Anima 4D characters support for V-Ray GPU and Chaos Cloud; // As an initial implementation exported vrscenes might become big and slow to upload. This will be improved for future versions.
• Dot-delimited frame number option in VRayStandalone;

V-Ray, VRayScene

• Initial USD support in VRayScene node; // Viewport preview and rendering of USD files is now supported. We are working on expanding the possibilities around USD workflows in the future.

VFB

• Add a Sharpen/Blur post effect layer;
• Integrate rendering log in the new frame buffer;
• Option to create an "effectsResult" channel when only Lens Effects layer is enabled (no Denoiser);
• Option to bake Lens Effects intensity into the Glare channel;
• Add an option for adding VFB color corrections to all render channels when saving to separate files;
• Add option to set shortcuts for all VFB2 menu items;
• Batch image processing in VFB2 for vrimg files; // We plan to develop this further based on your requests.
• Ability to add color corrections to the VFB Background layer

VRayDisplacementMod

• Support for Creases modifier with VRayDisplacementMod subdivision;

V-Ray, VRayMultiSubTex, VRayTriplanarTex, V-Ray GPU

• Extend the randomization options in VRayMultiSubTex;

V-Ray GPU

• Implement support for the total lighting render element;
• Support for Sparse Volumes on GPU using Nvidia's NanoVDB library;

VRayIES

• Expose IES light shape and size to MAXScript;

VRayMultiSubTex

• Element recognition in VRayProxy;

VRayOSL, V-Ray, VRayGLSL, V-Ray GPU, VRayMDL

• Support for camera shaders;

VRayVolumeGrid

• Add Absorption color for the Volumetric Shader for CPU rendering;

V-Ray, V-Ray GPU

• Cryptomatte with progressive sampling;

[matanov]

Starting with V-Ray 5 Update 2, VRayMtl, VRayFastSSS2, VRay2SidedMtl, VRayAlSurfaceMtl, VRayColor, VRayProxy and VRayClipper use QT for their GUI in 3ds Max versions 2018 and later. This means they will follow 3ds Max’s logic for RMB actions on the spinners. RMB will reset the values to minimum and Ctrl+right-click will set the values to their default.

Modified features:

.vrscene exporter/Chaos Cloud

• Add a warning that default lights are unsupported when exporting scenes with no other lights;
• Warning that 3ds Max output is not being saved with Standalone when there is a Separate render channels output;
• Auto rename and add a warning if there are render elements with the same name;

Cosmos

• Set the default Cosmos browser width to 480 pixels;
• Switch Cosmos proxies to preview from file, when previews are available;
• Cosmos HDRI "Import" button should replace/set the map if a Dome Light is currently selected;
• Use whole mesh (and not the embedded) preview for certain assets (vehicles) on import;
• Cosmos Import Options remembered after 3ds Max is closed;
• Bring Cosmos browser to front if it is behind other windows and the user clicks the Cosmos Browser toolbar button

V-Ray

• Improved LPE material label system;
• Update Embree to 3.13.0;
• Apply color corrections to the RGB channel when saving;
• Remove the Subdivs parameter from V-Ray Light Lister;
• Remove Quick V-Ray render settings from the Customize UI;
• Add VRaySpecularMap and VRayReflectionMap bake render elements;
• Ability to specify a camera to determine reflections for texture baking;
• Missing parameters in the MAXScript vrscene export function;
• Preserve the cosmos dialog size (and position) after 3ds Max restart;
• Preview for UDIM textures in the realistic (Nitrous) viewport;
• Auto rename duplicate channel names when auto creating LightMix render elements;
• Display an error and abort the render if there are Progressive Caustics and DR set;
• Install thumbnail handler for the VRScans files with V-Ray;
• Consistent IPR scene update with IPR camera selected when View to Render has been locked;
• Improve the data window values when using Auto mode for the VrayOptionRE;
• VFB Lens effects were exported even when V-Ray VFB is disabled;
• Per frame export for animated parameters of Composite map;
• Better performance of dynamic geometry and tiled textures on many-core machines;
• Add a custom color option for background in VRayExtraTex render element;
• Implement Qt-based user interface for VRayMtl, VRay2SidedMtl, VRayALSurfaceMtl, VRayClipper, VRayColor, VRayFastSSS2, VRayProxy; // Faster UI draw. In case you are using 2018, you'll need the latest update.
• Particles rendering with Embree;
• Rename the VRay Asset Browser's 'Add to Scene' option to 'Add to Material Editor' or relevant;
• Improved anisotropy for the V-Ray material;
• Rename the VRay Asset Browser's 'Add all to scene' to 'Add all to material editor'

V-Ray GPU

• Use small buckets when rendering with CUDA CPU Only;
• VRayDirt with "Ignore Invisible Objects" enabled should not be affected by lights that are invisible;
• Spot Lights with narrow cones have wrong penumbra with V-Ray GPU compared to CPU;
• Improve VRayTexOCIO on GPU;
• Expose VRayTotalLighting RE in V-Ray GPU UI;
• Oversaturated rendering of Mix map when mapped with values above 1

V-Ray Toolbar

• Integrate Vantage Live Link with V-Ray for 3ds Max;
• Replace the Create VRayMetaballs button in V-Ray Toolbar with Create VRayDecal button;

V-Ray, V-Ray GPU

• Improve the machine info printed in the log in V-Ray Standalone or by the -version flag;
• Calculate LC only on the GPU when V-Ray GPU is used;
• Add support for tiled textures with large amount of tiles on V-Ray GPU;
• V-Ray GPU fails to load and render tiles texture with Mudbox filename format with lowercase $u and $v;

VFB

• Elapsed time is not showing in the VFB Stats tab when rendering in Bucket mode;
• Add a new function vfbcontrol #historysize that exposes current history size to MAXScript users;
• Add MAXScript command to transfer LightMix to scene;
• Add an icon for the "off" state of the VFB layers;
• The curve color correction in VFB2 shows visible banding for very low intensity images;
• Change the Source back to RGB in VFB if the VRayBackToBeauty element is disabled;
• Implement VRAY_VFB_GLOBAL_PRESET_FILE environment variable for the new VFB;
• Allow masks for Render element layers;
• Improve the Lookup table VFB2 correction;
• Cameras in Render Pull-Down button in VFB to be listed in a sorted order;
• Possible to load/save VFB2 shortcut configuration from/to file;
• VFB2 should remember collapsed state of history and layer widgets;
• Reset VFB position button in the Render Setup window;
• Disable Layer controls if the layer is disabled;

VRayCurvatureMap

• Option to ignore bump in VRayCurvature;

VRayDirt

• Streaks breakthrough for VRayDirt;
• Blur effect for streaks in VRayDirt;
• Ignore bump option for VRayDirt;
• Thin mesh mode for VRayDirt;
• Add output section to V-Ray Dirt texture;

V-Ray, VRayInstancer

• Support for reading custom data channels from Phoenix's PRT Reader in V-Ray Instancer;

V-Ray, VRayInstancer, VRayTriplanarTex

• Thinking particles instancing to support Data Channels from TP (tPDCbitmap);

V-Ray, VRaySun/VRaySky/VRayAerialPerspective

• Change the name of the "Improved" model in VRaySky to "PRG Clear Sky";

V-Ray, VRayTriplanarTex, V-Ray GPU

• Add "by node handle" randomization mode in VRayTriplanarTex;
• TriPlanar texture make textureable the "frame_offset" and "texture_rotation" parameters;

VRayAO

• Ability to exclude objects / lights from VRayAO render element;
• Add the "Ignore invisible objects" option to the VRayAO pass;

VRayBitmap

• Add "auto" mode for the color transfer function in VRayBitmap;
• Open browse window with VRayBitmap creation in 3ds Max 2022;

VRayDenoiser

• Fall back to Intel Denoiser when there is no suitable hardware for the NVIDIA Denoiser;
• Add an option to the Denoiser to take under consideration that you are rendering 360 panorama;

VRayDistanceTex

• Add the possibility to remove multiple objects from VRayDistanceTex list;

VRayEnvironmentFog

• Gray out the mapping options in VRayEnvironmentFog when the current renderer is V-Ray GPU;

VRayLight

• Make the button for texture in VRayLight larger;
• V-Ray lights' settings to be set to default value with right click on the spinners;
• Remove some old stale options from the UI to reduce complexity;
• Hide the No Decay option of V-Ray lights for new scenes;
• VRayLights to only accept multiplier values above zero;
• Don't disable adaptive dome lights if all excluded for shadows objects are already invisible for shadows;

VRayLight, VRayMtl

• Extend the Drag and drop Cosmos HDRI textures;

VRayMDL

• Ability to suppress the MDL search path prompt;

VRayMtl

• Implement new physically correct GTR anisotropy based on linear stretching of the microsurface;

VRayOSL

• Add support for animation exporting for the OSLMap plugin in Max;

VRayPhysicalCamera

• Link the values for EV and ISO to update together in VRayPhysicalCamera;

VRayScene

• Make the Auto mode of "Flip Axis" in VRayScene node to work for USD files;
• Scale setting for VRayScene node;

VRayStochasticFlakesMtl

• Remove Subdivs parameter from VRayStochasticFlakesMtl's UI;

VRayToonMtl

• Remove Subdivs parameters from VRayToonMtl's UI;

VRayUVWRandomizer

• Minor UI improvements for VRayUVWRandomizer;

VRayVolumeGrid

• Speed up frame blending with Time Bend controls;
• Enable Probabilistic Volumetrics by default for new scenes;
• Sparsify VDBs exported by the Phoenix simulation or the cache converter;
• Probabilistic shading should have an effect only with V-Ray in 3ds Max;
• Enable GPU preview and velocity streamline preview in 3ds Max 2022;
• Allow animating of the Solid, Wetting and Voxel Mode Override node properties in 3ds Max;
• Move the Preferences and About dialog from the Simulator to the Phoenix FD menu;
• Make Huffman compression of particles multi-threaded and break up the channels into pieces like the grid channels;
• Make Zip compression of particles multi-threaded;
• Sequential Tab ordering of the dialog controls in 3ds Max;

I won't post the bug fixes list here (it's too long), you can check it in full release notes.