V-Ray for Maya 3.5 is now available!

[Mihail.Djurev]

V-Ray for Maya 3.5 is now available for download on the Chaos website!

The new version comes with adaptive lights, resumable rendering and many other new features and bug fixes.

Here's a short video overview of the new features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK6mtpilhFY

This is a free update for all V-Ray for Maya 3.0 users.

Here's the full change log:

New features:
(*) V-Ray: Adaptive lights;
(*) V-Ray: Resumable rendering;
(*) V-Ray: ALSurface shader support;
(*) V-Ray: In-Process IPR;
(*) V-Ray: Glossy Fresnel option;
(*) VFB: Added Start IPR button to the VFB;
(*) VFB: Added Pause IPR button to the VFB;
(*) VFB: "Use Project Path" option in V-Ray VFB render history settings;
(*) V-Ray: Added new Render mask mode: "Isolate Selection";
(*) V-Ray: Support for Interactive Groomable Splines in Maya 2017;
(*) V-Ray: Implemented AOV callbacks for 2017 Render setup;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Added an ability to select scene objects from the VFB window;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Added an option to select object material directly from the VFB window;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Added an option to pick focus point by clicking on the VFB window;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene node can now use a sequence of .vrscene files and load them automatically on frame change;
(*) V-Ray: Added integer user attributes;
(*) V-Ray: Support for negative focus distance values for the V-RayStereoscopic camera;
(*) V-Ray: Added a switch texture to VRayMultiSubTex;
(*) V-Ray: Added a checkbox that disables render elements in IPR;
(*) V-Ray: Added raw filter elements for the diffuse, reflection and refraction channels;
(*) VFB: Implemented hardware accelerated lens effects;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for adaptive lights in CUDA (both in production and in IPR);
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized the V-Ray Material in Maya;
(*) V-Ray GPU/VRayStochasticFlakesMtl: Added GPU support;
(*) V-Ray GPU/VRayAerialPerspective: Added GPU support;
(*) V-Ray GPU/VRayClipper: GPU support for the planar VRayClipper;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for the directionality attribute of the Rect Light;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for Render ID render element in GPU;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for Render mask;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for matte materials shadow catcher;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Ability to load precalculated Irradiance Map GI cache files;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for velocity render element;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for Atmosphere render element;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for physical camera distortion;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Added a "low thread priority" option;

Modified features:
(*) V-Ray IPR: More responsive IPR: Abort immediately on scene change;
(*) V-Ray: Speed improvements for the Hypershade material viewer;
(*) V-Ray: Simplified image sampler options to bucket and progressive;
(*) V-Ray: No layer token will be added for absolute paths without an explicit token;
(*) V-Ray: Ability to delete/select VRaySun and VRaySky from the right click menu on the VRay shelf;
(*) V-Ray: Swatch rendering in parallel;
(*) V-Ray: VRayMesh file info in the VRayMesh node's UI;
(*) V-Ray: Print a warning when a texture with color corrections is used as normal map;
(*) V-Ray: The rollout borders now follow the size of the Render Settings window;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Redesigned the VRayScene Manager;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Support for the multiplier parameters under the Additional Surface Properties rollout of the node;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Follow the displace/subdiv settings;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Support for light linking;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Support for the exclude list of the VRayExtraTex render element;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Support for Subdivs mult in the additional surface properties of the vrscene node;
(*) V-Ray: Adjusted the Quick Settings to account for "use local subdivs";
(*) V-Ray: Faster rendering of particle streaks;
(*) V-Ray: Support XGen delta files in export;
(*) V-Ray: Make geometry type in VRay Proxy node keyable;
(*) V-Ray: Add an option to include render elements in deep files;
(*) V-Ray: Ptex baker now obeys color clamping controls;
(*) V-Ray: Post translate python script now supports the new render setup layer overrides;
(*) VFB: The displaySRGB parameter is now exported to .vrscene.;
(*) VFB: Added "Reset V-Ray VFB position" option to the "Show V-Ray VFB" shelf button;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Added on-demand texture loading in the GPU;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Lower CPU memory usage when rendering instances;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Lower CPU and GPU memory usage when rendering textures;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Solid reflective material getting alpha dropouts;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized sampling of materials with bump maps;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized TexBezier texture;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized Rounded edges rendering;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support the Shadow option of MtlWrapper;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for UVW coordinates type in VRaySamplerInfo render element;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Native particles systems support (not only from Alembic);
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support VRayUserColor to be used for mapping channels;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed TexLayered not exporting alpha when [Alpha is Luminance] is on;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Changes on materials with baked texture are going to be reflected quicker;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for Maya projection zoom camera_view parameter;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Implemented VRayClipper "retrace";
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized VDenoise OpenCL version;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Print a warning that GPU only supports bitmaps in vrayTriplanar;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Print the OpenCL Driver version in the log;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Print a warning when max sample level is set to 0;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Print a warning when there is a render element that's not supported on the GPU;
(*) VFB: Moved the history image compare buttons from the main toolbar to history toolbar;
(*) VFB: Changed the default values of the Lens Effects;
(*) VFB: Add VFB toolbar button for copying the current channel to clipboard;
(*) V-Ray: Read user/group permissions from home folder when installing with sudo;
(*) V-Ray: Instancer: Improved random by render ID;
(*) V-Ray: The progressive sampler now finishes the current pass when the given "Render time" is surpassed;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed slow "compile geometry" phase on particular scenes;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Improved GPU utilization when the number of active pixels is too low;
(*) vdenoise.exe: Add abort on OpenCL error for vdenoise.exe;
(*) vdenoise.exe: Add -verboseLevel option for vdenoise.exe;
(*) vdenoise.exe: Add -frames option to the vdenoise.exe tool that allows to specify the frames to process;
(*) img2tiledexr.exe: img2tiledexr now stores its version and build date into the converted OpenEXR files;
(*) V-Ray: The noise level channel for vdenoise.exe can also be named "VRayNoiseLevel";
(*) V-Ray: Denoiser now doesn't save the extra files when split channels saving is enabled;
(*) VFB: Increase default VFB history maximum files count to 100 and the size on disk in MB to 10000;
(*) V-Ray: Fallback to %temp% folder for assets transfer if VRAY_ASSETS_CACHE_PATH does not exist;
(*) VRayOSLMtl/VRayOSLTex: Enable support for multiple include paths in OSL;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Hide objects that are not visible directly from camera frustum;
(*) V-Ray: Add the ability to abort writing to vrscene files and also print the progress;
(*) V-Ray: Hint on how to see the vray -help when argument parsing has failed;
(*) V-Ray: Draw the alpha channel during the undersampling phase of the progressive sampling and V-Ray GPU rendering;
(*) V-Ray: Support for interpolating geometry data for heterogeneous Alembics with velocity channel;


Best regards,
Mihail Djurev,
V-Ray for Maya Team Lead

[Mihail.Djurev]

Bug fixes:
(*) V-Ray: Fixed missing shadows with motion blurred curves loaded in vray proxy;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed static vrscene nodes with animated translations not producing motion blur;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Color Correction plugin textures not working as DomeTex;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed white bitmaps being loaded with channel values greater than 1.0;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed an error when creating thumbnails using textures mapped to environment variable;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when loading a specific vrscene file with alembic hair;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed the Light Meter locator not displaying in Viewport 2.0;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed VRaySun created from Maya light lister having no target;
(*) VRayVolumeGrid: Fixed Maya fluids not generating emissive lights;
(*) VFB: Fixed Maya 2017 using 100% of 1 core when the VFB window is opened;
(*) VFB: Changing channels in VFB while docked and rendering is now possible;
(*) VFB: Fixed VFB region changing its position if Viewport IPR is started;
(*) VFB: Fixed vertical lines appearing in VFB when comparing rendered images;
(*) VFB: Fixed history Settings dialog being inaccessible for some desktop configurations;
(*) VFB: The "Close" button on the History settings window was not clickable;
(*) VFB: Fixed overlapping slider and components in the CC window;
(*) VFB: Fixed the VFB not respecting the VRAY_VFB_LUT_FILE env variable;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed override data is not obtained by third-party plugins;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed Object ID override not working with VRayScatter;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Override by type now doesn't mask override by name;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed Instancer from vrscene not being visible;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed set new material on Node not working;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed crash with Node without material;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed Node override info being stored only for first VRayScene instance;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Multiple <*> patterns are now handled correctly.;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Maya's project path is now taken into account;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Lights are now cloned for all instances;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed a crash with VRayScatter inside;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed animation overrides not working for loop mode;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed per particle rgbPP attributes on instancer not rendering from a VRayScene node;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed the VRayScene node axis getting reset to 0,0,0 if Animation Overrides are enabled;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Animation overrides were affecting the preview animation without "Use Animation Overrides" being active;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed GeomPlane not rendering;
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed errors when loading a referenced scene with a VRayMesh without a preview node;
(*) V-Ray: Texture Baking: Displacement and subdivision are now respected when baking on point clouds;
(*) V-Ray: Light Lister now refreshes on new scene and scene open;
(*) VRayDirt: Fixed black Viewport 2.0 preview with VRayDirt;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed wrong UVs with Ornatrix;
(*) V-Ray: Locking the Enable/Disable light checkbox didn't allow to "isolate" another light;
(*) V-Ray: The "Strip Paths" option now strips paths for included vrscene files;
(*) VRayStochasticFlakesMtl: Fixed bright pixels in the "specular" render element with stochastic flakes material;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed flickering when rendering with precalculated irradiance map in animation mode;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed uninverted normal maps not showing as uninverted in DR;
(*) V-Ray: Cached geometry between renders didn't detect changes to openSubdiv added to displacement node;
(*) VRayClipper: Fixed artifacts with mesh as clipper;
(*) VRayClipper: Fixed crashes with animated clipper with motion blur after rendering the first frame;
(*) V-Ray/VRaySwitchMtl: VRayUserInt texture didn't work correctly with the VRaySwitchMtl material;
(*) V-Ray: The softMinValue and softMaxValue were not set for shaders created from V-Ray Plugin;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash with samplerInfo as a material switch and V-Ray Proxy;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed IPR not working for VRay zip installation with spaces in the folder name;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed erroneous orange coloration of Render Elements enabled attribute when created on a new render layer;
(*) V-Ray: Maya image planes now work correctly in IPR;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed offset controls of ParticleTex UI;
(*) V-Ray: Removed irrelevant "by node handle" option from VRayMultiSubTex;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed error when Maya Assembly loads V-Ray Proxy representation;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Ptex baking crash when baking an animation;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed incorrect dimming of buttons inside the DR settings window;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when V-Ray is set as renderer in Hypershade's material preview;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed UV offset/distortion with UDIM textures at different camera angles;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when changing VRayObjectProperties parameter on a proxy when in IPR;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Maya Fluids with Auto Resize having wrong texture mapping when the node is scaled;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Maya Fluids with Auto Resize having wrong texture mapping in animation;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed PTex baking with VRay Proxy;
(*) V-Ray: Support for object visibility flags in Alembic files;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed ScriptJob getting called in loop on cameraChange event;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed transmission Parameters for Hair Material getting cut off in UI;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed tiled TIFF files never getting closed on Windows;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed post translate python callback value not being saved on close in Maya 2017;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed warnings when unloading V-Ray in MayaPy;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when baking PTex on proxy;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed proxy GPU preview not redrawing during playback in viewport 2;
(*) V-Ray: GPU Production mode now takes the correct Brute Force GI Depth value;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed errors when referencing scene with VRayTexOSL nodes in it;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed incorrect Motion blur interval center for Alembic animation with changing topology;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed an error when opening the Ptex options window a second time;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed new transform node creation for already removed Proxy objects when scrubbing the timeline;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed wrong shadows with Ptex baking;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed BRDFVrayMtl rendering black when the refraction color is white;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed issues when importing VRayFlakes, VRayStochasticFlakes and Mtl2sided materials from a 3Ds Max vrscene;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed BlendMtl not importing correctly from vrscene file from 3Ds Max;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when Hypershade is opened and there is a missing vrmat file;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed broken Render mask controls;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed GI Ray distance slider missing with certain settings;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when starting IPR right after Viewport IPR;
(*) V-Ray GPU: IPR didn't start if the frame is negative;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed missing alpha pixels with matte/shadow plane;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed fatal error when baking multiple objects with CUDA;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed slow Viewport 2.0 updates when scrubbing the timeline with many proxies (not animated);
(*) V-Ray: Fixed XGen cache script error when exporting to vrscene;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a memory leak with Ornatrix for Maya and VRay;
(*) V-Ray: Material preview renderer now pauses correctly when Viewport IPR starts;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed wrong motion blur with alembic via proxy containing coinciding objects;
(*) V-Ray: IPR now does not attempt to create folders for saving image output;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Ornatrix Hair from Mesh Strips not respecting width settings;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed strange Motion Blur behavior with alembic files;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed an exception when rendering a scene with max threads more than physically available;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed VRayPlaceEnvTex horizontal and vertical rotation parameters not working in batch rendering;
(*) V-Ray: Missing motion blur on alembic with instanced geometry;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when subdividing proxy and wrong merging of mapping channels;
(*) V-Ray: Support drawing new XGen Interactive Groomable Splines with V-Ray materials in the viewport;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Fixed override by name;
(*) V-Ray: VRayScene: Overwriting a texture with another one using snippets was fixed;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed separate export of vrscenes for materials, textures and bitmaps when exporting the nodes wasn't checked;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash and wrong renders with animated proxy and CUDA;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when creating frame expression as switch texture for MultiSubTex;
(*) V-Ray: Ornatrix UV coords were not exported sometimes;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash on executing the vfbControl command with "-historycomment" argument;
(*) V-Ray: Added an option to get RenderElements names from their node names;
(*) img2tiledexr.exe: Fixed broken file conversion to EXR;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed scheduling issues and lockups on machines with cgroups enabled;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed overexposed lighting when rendering with V-Ray GPU;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed the specular contribution not getting adjusted by the fog attenuation;
(*) V-Ray: Exporting vrscene to separate files will not be allowed with DR;
(*) VRayScene: VRaySun and domeLight with texture have incorrect up vector;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed non existing paths not being created relative to the project path on Linux and OSX;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed some machines not loading IFL files when accessing them from shared location;
(*) VFB: Fixed apparent moving of a point in the curves color correction window;

Best regards,
Mihail Djurev,
V-Ray for Maya Team Lead

[snivlem]

Super cool...and a very generous free update for all these features and fixes.

V-Ray makes my life so much easier!

[jasonhuang1115]

congrats!! Thank you all for the hard work. Strong and solid release and thanks again releasing it as a free upgrade.

[daviddeacon]

Thank you for the update, much appreciated.

We were expecting to have to wait a little while longer. Great work.

[sharktacos]

Some great stuff here! Could you please elaborate on the following:
"Support drawing new XGen Interactive Groomable Splines with V-Ray materials in the viewport"

Does this mean that XGen with VrayHairMtl3 will now look pretty in viewport 2.0? That would be a very welcome feature. Does this work with Xgen in general, or only for Interactive Groomable Splines specifically (as opposed to spline guides which in the past also did not look good in viewport 2.0 with V-Ray materials applied)?

[yolov]

Some great stuff here! Could you please elaborate on the following:
"Support drawing new XGen Interactive Groomable Splines with V-Ray materials in the viewport"

Does this mean that XGen with VrayHairMtl3 will now look pretty in viewport 2.0? That would be a very welcome feature. Does this work with Xgen in general, or only for Interactive Groomable Splines specifically (as opposed to spline guides which in the past also did not look good in viewport 2.0 with V-Ray materials applied)?

If groomable splines have a V-Ray material applied, it should show in viewport 2.0. For the hair material, though, we only show the diffuse color, but somewhere on the to-do list it to get speculars as well.

[Morbid Angel]

That's a huge list, happy to see lots of work done for the GPU!

[sharktacos]

Thanks for the clarification Yolov.
This truly is an impressive list! I'm particularly excited about the new IPR/VFB features.

[thebeals]

Mdl?

This is an incredible list! I am so blown away, amazing job!

I noticed that MDL wasn't implemented in Maya but was in Max. This is a feature I am incredibly interested in and I was curious if you could tell me if this is on the horizon (or maybe even when) or who I could reach out to in order to get more information. Thank you!

[FSGFX]

the max help is a good start...
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...%7C+VRayMDLMtl
and the pdf from nvidia...

[Mihail.Djurev]

This is an incredible list! I am so blown away, amazing job!

I noticed that MDL wasn't implemented in Maya but was in Max. This is a feature I am incredibly interested in and I was curious if you could tell me if this is on the horizon (or maybe even when) or who I could reach out to in order to get more information. Thank you!

MDL support in Maya is one of our top priorities for the next release and is currently in development. We can't commit to any time frame when that will happen though.

[thebeals]

That is so amazing to hear! Thank you so much for the information and best of luck! Fingers crossed!

[sharktacos]

MDL support in Maya is one of our top priorities for the next release and is currently in development. We can't commit to any time frame when that will happen though.

How would you say MDL differs from OSL?

[vlado]

How would you say MDL differs from OSL?

MDL easier to support on GPU. Also, it is quite a bit simpler.

Best regards,
Vlado