V-Ray Next for Maya Beta 1 now available!

[Mihail.Djurev]

V-Ray Next for Maya is now in open beta and everyone can try it out!

We also have a new section in the forum that is open for everyone that wants to give their feedback:
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...-beta-for-maya

Here are the highlights of this release:

- New IPR architecture - the IPR architecture has been redesigned allowing instant feedback and supports for animations.

- New Toon shading - the new V-Ray Toon material (VRayToonMtl) allows for complex non-photorealistic cel shading. The V-Ray Toon shader for outlines (VRayToon) has also been updated with new features.

- Adaptive Dome Light - the new Adaptive Dome Light delivers faster, cleaner and more accurate image-based lighting. It also eliminates the need for separate light portals.

- Auto Exposure & Auto White Balance - the V-Ray Physical Camera is enhanced with options for Auto Exposure & Auto White Balance.

- Integrated NVIDIA AI Denoiser - NVIDIA AI Denoiser is available as an alternative denoising engine. Note: For Beta 1, this feature is available on Windows only.

- Faster GPU Rendering Architecture - V-Ray GPU has been redesigned for better performance and faster parallel processing.

- GPU Volumetric Rendering – V-Ray GPU supports volumetric effects such as fog, smoke and fire.

- New Hair Shader - the new hair material (VRayHairNextMtl) renders more realistic hair with intuitive melanin color controls and with accurate highlights.

- Denoise Render Elements - denoised Render Elements can now be seamlessly recomposed back into a denoised beauty pass.

- VRayMtl - a new "Metalness" parameter is available for easy support of PBR workflows.

- V-Ray SDK - updated rendering architecture that takes full advantage of modern hardware, including optimized vector calculations using SSE 4.2 and customized Intel® Embree ray tracing library 2.13.

- Layered Alembic Workflows – now supporting Alembic 1.7 with layering to enable faster, more efficient handling and updating of Alembic data.


Here's a little video showcasing the new IPR, AI denoiser on V-Ray GPU:


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

[Mihail.Djurev]

Here's the change log:

New features:
(*) V-Ray IPR: Interactive IPR with instant updates;
(*) VRayDomeLight: Adaptive Dome Light;
(*) VRayHairNextMtl: New Hair shader with melanin controls;
(*) VRayToonMtl: Introduced new advanced toon cel shading;
(*) V-Ray: Automatic camera exposure and white balance;
(*) VRayMtl: Added "metalness" parameter to the VRayMtl for easy support of PBR workflows;
(*) V-Ray Cloud: Added support for Cloud rendering;
(*) V-Ray: Render in the cloud button in the V-Ray shelf;
(*) Denoiser: Denoising per render element in the Maya UI;
(*) Denoiser: Optix denoiser in Maya for Windows;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Implemented new rendering architecture resulting in better performance;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Add support for adaptive dome light;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Add support for volumetric rendering;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Add support for glossy Fresnel;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Improved GPU 3D displacement;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Initial support for VRayEnvironmentFog (without textures);
(*) V-Ray GPU: Initial support of VRayVolumeGrid (brute force probabilistic volume sampling only);
(*) V-Ray GPU: Initial support for VRscans (VRayScannedMtl);
(*) V-Ray: Added Drag-n-drop support for V-Ray file types;
(*) V-Ray: V-Ray can now cache files locally in order to avoid locking original files;
(*) VRayProxy: Support for Alembic layers;
(*) VRayToon: Added option for rendering toon edges on material boundaries;
(*) VRayToon: Reworked depth-based line width;
(*) VRayToon: Added an option for view-based line width control;
(*) SamplerInfo: Added face index and barycentric coords to TexSamplerInfo;
(*) VRayFur: Add dynamic tessellation option;
(*) V-Ray: Update the SDK to make greater use of SSE instructions for 3D vector, color and matrix operations;
(*) V-Ray: Require CPU with SSE 4.2 to support SIMD optimizations;
(*) V-Ray: Support for floatMath utility node with texture inputs;
(*) Viewport 2.0: Added texture preview for VRayScannedMtl;
(*) V-Ray: Added option for the global minimum hair width;
(*) Denoiser: Added an option to VDenoise command line for choosing an output directory;
(*) Viewport 2.0: Dome light texture is now visible in environment reflections in Viewport 2.0 material previews;
(*) VFB: Maya scene path is saved in VFB History and can be used to open the scene;

Modified features:
(*) V-Ray: Faster multi-segmented motion blur geometry with embree;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Changes will refresh in IPR in animation;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimized V-Ray GPU default settings for faster rendering;
(*) V-Ray: Better resource management for tiled textures;
(*) V-Ray/VRayProxy: Faster render start with instanced alembic proxy;
(*) V-Ray: Optimized instancer export;
(*) V-Ray: Improved export speed for Object Properties and other sets;
(*) V-Ray: Improved export time when exporting large mesh that has multiple materials connected;
(*) V-Ray: Improved export speed for a material on multiple objects;
(*) VFB: Reworked the post-effects pipeline to avoid Lens effects overriding the denoised image;
(*) V-Ray: Better render time estimation for progressive sampling;
(*) V-Ray: Optimize the use of DR servers (early free servers at the end of a render so that they can join other jobs);
(*) V-Ray: Update Embree to version 2.13;
(*) V-Ray: Removed the Photon subdivs and Diffuse multiplier options for V-Ray lights;
(*) V-Ray: Removed the ShInfo node from the UI;
(*) V-Ray: Removed Photon Map and Spherical Harmonics as GI engines;
(*) V-Ray: Removed SkinMtl and Simbiont from the UI.;
(*) V-Ray: Removed embree use packets option from the UI;
(*) Denoiser: Removed the denoiser multipass mode;
(*) VRayMtl: Removed the highlight glossiness parameter and the lock button from the VRayMtl UI;
(*) V-Ray: Removed redundant TexSwitch exported for VRayVertexColor when using name;
(*) V-Ray: Removed obsolete prepass and object-based multiple scattering options from SSS2 and Skin material;
(*) VRayPhysicalCamera: VRayPhysicalCamera attribute will be turned on by default on creation;
(*) VRayPhysicalCamera: Vignetting is now off by default with VRayPhysicalCamera;
(*) V-Ray: Stereoscopic and Dome Camera attributes are now turned on by default when creating the attributes;
(*) VRayScene: Will not clone lights if instance is not loading them;
(*) Cryptomatte: Improved cryptomatte material mattes with multiple materials on a single object;
(*) Material importer: Material importer will now use the scene name if available;
(*) Viewport 2.0: Support for Switch material;
(*) Viewport 2.0: Support for Mtl2Sided;
(*) V-Ray: Stable and converging integer render elements when using progressive;
(*) VFB: Added the VFB "Track mouse" lock option to the vfbcontrol command;
(*) V-Ray: The rendered procedural textures now resemble the viewport look more;
(*) V-Ray: Added "Post effects rate" option to the System rollout to control lens effects and denoiser update frequency percentage;
(*) V-Ray: Switched to UTF-8 V-Ray core to be compatible with vrscenes from other host applications;
(*) Light Lister: Add a "Help" button at the upper right corner in V-Ray Light lister;
(*) Light Lister: Improved V-Ray light lister to work with render layers;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Fixed unnecessary refreshes when proxy is selected;
(*) ply2vrmesh: added ply2vrmesh -perObject info;
(*) ply2vrmesh: Add support for ZBrush vertex color channel data;
(*) VRayToon: VRayToon render element can still be rendered even if VRayToon is disabled;
(*) Added VRAY_VFB_COLOR_CORRECT_ALL envvar to allow color correcting everything in the VFB only;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Improve GPU Light Linker memory efficiency;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Added a a separate option for production GPU ray bundle size;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Faster VRayDirt & rounded corners in some cases;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Support for VRayDirt "Consider same object only"
(*) V-Ray GPU: Better sampling of glossy materials;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Optimize GPU displacement/subdivision compile times;

[Mihail.Djurev]

Change log (continued):


Bug fixes:
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed slow proxy loading after version 3.52.03;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed CUDA crash with MDL;
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed broken material IDs when simplifying for proxy preview;
(*) V-Ray IPR: Fixed IPR always refreshed on scene save;
(*) MaterialSelect: Fixed some materials in MaterialSelect RE to be picked up when put as selection set;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed scenes with render mask showing images from previous renders;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed noise lines in the subdivided geometry;
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed Viewport proxy file override;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed crash when deleting materials from Hypershade;
(*) Denoiser/VFB/IPR: Fixed the entire image outside the region getting denoised in IPR;
(*) V-Ray GPU: Fixed CUDA crash with VRayFurSampler, Random by strand;
(*) VFB: Fixed possible mouse pointer capture from the VFB when starting;
(*) VRaySunSky: Fixed VRaySun and Sky viewport preview was inverted in Maya 2015/2016;
(*) Viewport 2.0: Flipped ENV preview faces to point inwards, otherwise backface culling hides them;
(*) VRayScene: Fixed unexpected moving of a texture projection inside the vrscene when moving the vrscene in Maya;
(*) VRayScene: Override snippet is not loading plugins from the parent scene;
(*) Cryptomatte: Fixed artifacts in cryptomatte with "Affect all channels";
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed alembic sequences loaded via Proxy node not updating in the viewport until updated in Attribute Editor;
(*) V-Ray DR: Fixed Assets added with UNC path not transferring to Linux;
(*) V-Ray: Ported the curves from PhoenixFD to VRay textures in Maya;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed file texture colorGain not working in animation;
(*) Fixed TexGLSL crash when the shader path is set to a directory on Linux;
(*) Fixed a fatal error building the scene with animation curves;
(*) Fixed crash when rendering animation with disabled light cache and light select render element, after a previous render;
(*) Fixed crash when rendering the swatch for a vrscene witha a VRMat attached;
(*) Fixed crash with instancer and attached displacement node to the source object;
(*) Fixed IPR crash when moving the camera and rendering in DR;
(*) Fixed retrieving of imgFormatStr via script for default png;
(*) Fixed setting focus point from the VFB in IPR not working with wide angle cameras;
(*) Fixed string attributes on VRayPluginNode failing if there's a default value;
(*) Fixed smooth method in texture filter attributes not dimming in the UI when filter is not smooth;
(*) Fixed missing velocity from renderable curves in a specific case;
(*) Fixed VRayProxy Material Assignments File not working with subdivision;
(*) Fixed GI getting re-enabled on scene open when GPU is the production renderer;
(*) Fixed resumed render not finishing if only subdivs are used as a finishing criterion;
(*) Fixed vraymayaslave not registering as a service on systemd startup Linux systems;
(*) Fixed the cursor not turning to a cross when using the RMB menu in the VFB;
(*) Fixed negative reported progress with ptex baking;
(*) Fixed warning displayed when opening a scene with a dome light;
(*) Fixed VDenoise crash when denoising only "effectsResult" element of an animation;
(*) Fixed ptex baking light select not containing reflections;
(*) Fixed error when creating osl shader and assigning parameter on Linux;
(*) Fixed multiple vraySettings node getting created with scene namespace;
(*) Fixed dome light with domeSpherical=0 displayed wrong in the viewport;
(*) Fixed crash when importing materials which have nodes with similar names which differ only in invalid characters;
(*) Fixed wrong glossy Fresnel import when importing layer based VRayMtl from vrscene;
(*) Fixed wrong import of the color space of file nodes in color managed Mayas (>=2016);
(*) The material importer didn't refresh material names on edited vrscene files - fixed.;
(*) Fixed vrscene file handles remaining open after scene is no longer used by the material importer;
(*) Fixed dim distance 0 is imported as 1 from BRDFGGX;
(*) Fixed SamplerInfo vector attribute connections of not getting imported by the material importer;
(*) Fixed wrong import of remap nodes when importing materials from vrscene;
(*) Fixed Remap Ramp Nodes not getting imported properly from vrscene;
(*) Fixed imported lambert material from vrscene not rendering the same as the original;
(*) Fixed alpha output from TexAColorOp not connecting after importing material from vrscene;
(*) Fixed duplicate file nodes created when importing a material from vrscene;
(*) Fixed artifacts with VRayEnvironmentFog in a gizmo with camera located outside the gizmo;
(*) Fixed installation if the Maya root folder is changed by user action;
(*) Fixed VRayUserColor not working corectly with proxy GPU Mesh preview;
(*) Warnings like OpenSubdiv "Warning: Vertex XXX specified to be sharp does not exist" now respect verbosity settings;
(*) Fixed Maya fluids having wrong texture mapping with Auto Resize and Grid Coordinate Method;
(*) Fixed artifacts with a scaled directional rectangle light illuminating a surface at small grazing angles;
(*) Fixed TexAColorOp multipliers getting imported as 0 when importing materials from a vrscene;
(*) Fixed wrong default installation directory on some Linux distribution;
(*) Fixed errors when opening and rendering scenes with camera projected textures;
(*) Fixed "Completed renders only" checkbox not getting un-dimmed properly in VFB History Settings;
(*) Fixed animated objects dissapearring when rendering in Viewport IPR and the timeline is running;
(*) Fixed VRaySky preview in Viewport 2.0 not displayed properly if Z is set as UP-axis;
(*) Fixed Overscan feature in DR;
(*) Fixed Geosun's animation not working when rendered in batch with mayapy;
(*) Fixed VRayClipper affecting VRayDirt with default settings;
(*) Cannot override string parameters with empty string on the command line - fixed;
(*) Fixed Maya GPU cache not working with relative paths;
(*) Fixed Instanced vrscenes with instancer inside not rendering;
(*) Fixed wrong texture on rectangle light Viewport 2.0 preview;
(*) Fixed Viewport 2.0 flipped environment reflections in Maya 2016;
(*) Fixed VRscene files containing BRDFDiffuse not importing correctly;
(*) Fixed Maya Fluids with Auto Resize using Phoenix FD shader erroneously rendering with object motion blur during resize;

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

[Fredrik Averpil]

Oh, awesome!

[flat]

(*) ply2vrmesh: Add support for ZBrush vertex color channel data;

I've been eagerly waiting for it.
Thank you!