(Resolved) Update 2 for houdini 18.0.597?

[docaml]

Just as title says, is there a version of update 2 for houdni 18.0.597?

[tobbeo]

The latest 18.0 production build is 460, and there's an update 2 that was released only a few weeks ago. That's just for Vray Next (4.30) though.

For myself, I'd like to know a bit more about feature parity between Vray 5 and Vray Next. Obvious one is the IPR framebuffer in Vray 5 but other than that I am not sure what's new/better in the Vray 5 beta. Are there Vray Next features that are missing in Vray 5 since it's a beta?

[Gosho.Genchev]

Hey tobbeo ,

we've mentioned the knows issues here: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...y5-KnownIssues

• No Post Translate support yet
• The Light Mix element is not yet available
• VFB Render Region is ignored for Production rendering and IPR
• Physical Camera’s Exposure Value parameter does not work as intended
• PatternID and Random textures are not yet implemented for V-Ray 5
• Displacement from VOP network does not behave correctly when applied with a Material SOP to Merged meshes - only if some of the faces do not have a material with displacement assigned to them
• Incorrect message "Unsupported 2D Type for Displacement" printed when rendering with V-Ray 5 GPU

In my personal opinion, the major new features that the Houdini world would be most interested in V-Ray 5 would be the Light Path expressions and the improved acesCG support, as well as the GPU rendering improvements (Out of Core, 2D displacement support, OSL support).

Hope that helps!

[Gosho.Genchev]

Just as title says, is there a version of update 2 for houdni 18.0.597?

There are .597 builds in the nightlies section, and 18.5 builds are coming soon.

The latest V-Ray Next Update 2 production build in the Downloads section is for 18.0.566.

Hope that helps!

[tobbeo]

Request for access to nightlies please.

[chakarov]

For access to nightlies section should write to support@chaosgroup.com

[docaml]

Welll, latest nightlies have some problem with camera exposure and render region and I am not talking about vray5. Anyway, I tried to launch vray for .566 in houdini .597 and it seems that it works ok.

[GoodbyeKansas]

Hey tobbeo ,

we've mentioned the knows issues here: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...y5-KnownIssues



In my personal opinion, the major new features that the Houdini world would be most interested in V-Ray 5 would be the Light Path expressions and the improved acesCG support, as well as the GPU rendering improvements (Out of Core, 2D displacement support, OSL support).

Hope that helps!

Do we think Post Translate support is far out? Think that's the only real blocker for us at the moment. The rest would of course be nice to have fixed as well.

-- Erik

[Gosho.Genchev]

Hey GoodbyeKansas ,

Andrei just fixed that yesterday - we've tested on our end so hopefully your internal scripts will behave as expected too.

Best regards!

[tobbeo]

I agree with Fido Film (hej landsmän, alltid haft mycket respekt för ert arbete), Post Translate python is important. Gosho, I agree, light path expressions, aces and the GPU improvements you mentioned are very high of what I want to see prioritized as well. An item that's higher on my list though is regarding vrscene volume reference workflow. It would be nice to at least get a bounding box representation of any referenced volumes and at some point some preview of the voxels themselves. I love that it works, but not having any sort of preview of even the most basic kind is a bit of a downer. Most of my sim work is out of Houdini so not a big deal but there are files and certain situations that are just quicker to do in Max and using vrscenes to bring them over is fantastic.

I'll write support for nightlies, glad to hear post translate was added.

Also, thank you Gosho, I was aware of this page but wasn't sure if that was a comprehensive list. Other than the items in the list, does 4.30 offer anything that 5 doesn't at this point? Current work I'm doing is a lot of RnD. Not sure if you are willing to answer this question, but I would also like to know if V-Ray Houdini is getting the same attention as Max/Maya. It's obviously a bit behind at the moment but it's an important question regarding how much one should invest in a V-Ray/Houdini workflow. vrscene is a great bridge between Vray in different software, but I don't want to be 6+ months behind in Vray Houdini all the time.

(Sorry for hijacking your thread docami)

Hey tobbeo ,

we've mentioned the knows issues here: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...y5-KnownIssues



In my personal opinion, the major new features that the Houdini world would be most interested in V-Ray 5 would be the Light Path expressions and the improved acesCG support, as well as the GPU rendering improvements (Out of Core, 2D displacement support, OSL support).

Hope that helps!

[Gosho.Genchev]

Also, thank you Gosho, I was aware of this page but wasn't sure if that was a comprehensive list.

As far as comprehensiveness goes - we haven't updated it with issues reported to us on the forum or through the support system. There are also problems that we've hit ourselves since the Beta launch. Those listed in the documentation are major issues we wanted people to be aware of from the get go.

Other than the items in the list, does 4.30 offer anything that 5 doesn't at this point?

I can't think of such an item. If you have access to the V-Ray 5 nightlies, you'll find the Random and Pattern ID textures present, Post-Translate working, and the new VFB's render region also works (there are some minor issues we need to address there).
edit: the Volume Grid Texture is causing issues in V-Ray 5 at the moment - we added it with the intention of adding support for native ocean rendering, similar to the Ocean Sample Layers VOP for Mantra. It's a WIP and I can't really think of any other use for it besides advection displacement for volumes but that will also require extra dev work on our part.

Current work I'm doing is a lot of RnD. Not sure if you are willing to answer this question, but I would also like to know if V-Ray Houdini is getting the same attention as Max/Maya. It's obviously a bit behind at the moment but it's an important question regarding how much one should invest in a V-Ray/Houdini workflow. vrscene is a great bridge between Vray in different software, but I don't want to be 6+ months behind in Vray Houdini all the time

I understand, that's absolutely a valid concern. V-Ray for Houdini uses the V-Ray AppSDK under the hood which means new functionality comes to us the moment it goes into the AppSDK. On one hand that means we are slightly behind 3ds Max with new core features but on the other - it allows the developers to resolve problems much faster. There is a common understanding at Chaos that Houdini has been steadily gaining traction as a preferred layout/lighting/renderng tool for many individuals and studios, especially in the vfx industry, so we do try our best to build a respectable alternative to Mantra and other 3rd party engines.
With respect to 3ds Max, we will always be a tad behind - it is not a matter of unwilligness on our end but rather of internal infrastructure.

An item that's higher on my list though is regarding vrscene volume reference workflow. It would be nice to at least get a bounding box representation of any referenced volumes and at some point some preview of the voxels themselves.

I'll definitely check with the dev team if there is a straightforward solution to this. I'm afraid that we only store the transformations and shading parameters of the volume in the VRScene - unless I'm mistaken, bounding box information is stored in the VDB file itself - so this might be tricky. I'll get back to you with more information once we've talked this trough.

Hope that helps!

[tobbeo]

Thank you!