V-Ray 5 for Rhino, update 1 is now available!

[konstantin_chaos]

V-Ray 5 for Rhino, update 1 is now available!

It can be download here:
download.chaosgroup.com

After installation, you will find more detailed info about the changes in the 'VRayForRhinoReleaseNotes' and the 'changelog' files:
.\Chaos Group\V-Ray\V-Ray for Rhinoceros\VRayForRhinoReleaseNotes.html
.\Chaos Group\V-Ray\V-Ray for Rhinoceros\changelog.txt

Chaos Cosmos in V-Ray for Rhino:

Konstantin

[konstantin_chaos]

V-Ray Vision

• Screen Space Reflections for transparent materials implemented
• Cosmos assets support added
• Implemented a Level of Detail (LOD) loading and display system for all Cosmos assets. When available the Medium asset representation is loaded close to the camera. Zooming out fades the model to its Low version. If the Medium representation is not available Vision uses the Low version directly. Enable the High Quality Cosmos Assets option to load their High representation close to the camera. Note that this will increase scene load times and may affect performance
• Cosmos assets interactive transformations support added
• The way Automatic Exposure works in Vision is improved. Pitch black areas in the image are now handled more reliably. Image over-exposition is avoided in most cases
• Temporal image anti-aliasing method implemented. Make sure that the corresponding option in the Settings panel is enabled. This method requires a couple of frames to resolve to final quality but the result is significantly better compared to the old one. Temporal anti-aliasing is automatically disabled during the export of Spherical Panorama images
• Added support for the Clip Opacity Mode of the VRay Mtl. Make sure that this mode is selected for leaves and other cutouts
• The Clip opacity mode is automatically enabled for materials which names contain 'Leaves_mtl' and which opacity is mapped with texture files containing 'Leaf' in their name
• Tri-planar texture support added. Only the One Texture Mode is currently supported. The Randomization parameters are ignored. World is the only Projection Space supported
• Vision no longer stops responding when picking an output image file location two times in a row
• Added support for the Stochastic texture randomization parameters of the UVW Placement map. The other randomization modes are not supported yet
• Super Sampling option removed from the Image Export panel. Use Temporal Anti-aliasing combined with a longer Frame Delay to improve the output image aliasing/quality
• Frame Delay option added in the Image Export panel. Increase its value to allow accumulative effects to resolve before the image is saved. The Temporal Anti-aliasing for example requires approximately 30-40 frames to resolve to final quality. Note that changing the Frame Delay might increase the image export time significantly depending on your hardware
• High Quality Cosmos Assets option implemented. Use it if you want to see the High Cosmos representations close to the camera. Vision will fade to the Medium and then Low versions of the model based on the distance between the camera and the object and the area the object occupies on the screen
• The logic for selecting a UV set for a material is improved. Note that Vision currently supports only one UV set per object
• A number of issues with Multi Material assignments are resolved. Non-consecutive IDs are now handled correctly
• The Sun Light Size Multiplier value is now linked to the one in Vision. Changing the sun size in V-Ray will change the Sun disk in Vison's sky. If the Shadow Quality option in the Settings panel is set to High the Sun size also affects shadows softness
• Shadows Quality parameter implemented. The Low preset corresponds to enabling the Optimize Shadows parameter available in older versions. It uses a lower resolution shadow map during scene interactions and switches to the full resolution one once the interaction ends. Medium enables high resolution cascading shadow maps with Medium filtering quality. High is similar to Medium but enables High filtering quality for the shadow maps, enabling soft shadows from the Sun Light
• Soft Sun shadows implemented. Increasing the Sun Light Size Multiplier in V-Ray will now result in softer shadows in Vision as long as the High Shadow Quality option is selected
• The Vision window is now ordered on top of all other windows (always on top). This is a temporary workaround that prevents a host-app hang caused by the previous window parenting approach

Rebranding

• Updated installer logos and styling. Installer splash screen implemented
• Asset Editor and Chaos Cloud toolbar icons updated
• The About Window is redesigned completely and now matches the UI color theme selected in the Asset Editor Configuration
• New Chaos Black color theme implemented. It uses the new Chaos brand colors and matches the Cosmos Browser appearance
• V-Ray icon of the Vision application updated

Cosmos Integration

• Chaos Cosmos added to the installer. The Cosmos service will be automatically started after the V-Ray installation
• Downgrade of Cosmos is prevented in the installer. If a newer Cosmos version is already installed the V-Ray installer will simply skip the Cosmos installation step
• Cosmos Browser window implemented. It presents a web interface for user account management, asset browsing and import
• The Cosmos Browser window as well as all other V-Ray specific windows (Asset Editor, File Path Editor, etc.) are automatically hidden when an asset is imported to allow for its easier placement in the scene
• Importing Cosmos assets in the scene automatically enables an asset placement tool. Placing an asset will keep the tool active making it easier to place multiple asset instances around
• Drag and drop import of Cosmos assets implemented. It does not hide any of the windows currently open unlike the standard import function
• Geometry Cosmos assets support added. Such assets are displayed and managed as blackboxes - the object and its materials are hidden in a single item listed in the Asset Editor. Merging the asset with the scene for editing is also an option
• Merge function implemented for the geometry Cosmos assets. It converts the blackbox asset to a Proxy Mesh with associated materials that can be edited or changed completely. Note that exploding an asset will also remove the Medium geometry representation used in Vision and might affect scene load time and performance (only in Vision)
• Cosmos asset scene replacement function implemented. Right-click on a source asset in the Asset Editor and select Use as Replacement. Right-click on the one to replace and choose Replace in Scene
• Added support for light sources as part of Cosmos assets. The lights are by default part of the blackbox asset until it is merged. After that point the light sources become independent and editable
• Simple light management implemented for Cosmos assets containing light sources. Intensity and Color multipliers are available for changing the contained lights’ appearance
• Cosmos lights Light Mix support added. When the Group Instances Light Mix mode is used light changes can be transferred to the scene even for blackbox assets
• Cosmos environment assets support added. The HDR environments are imported as global textures in the Asset Editor that can later be connected to a Dome light or directly to the scene environment
• Cosmos asset file references are now resolved to the local Cosmos repository when opening a file. This allows users to share scenes without packing the Cosmos assets as they are available for download on both systems
• Cosmos file references can now be packed (Pack Project). A prompt message appears when invoking it. Packing the assets ensures that textures and other external files referenced by Cosmos assets are collected and included in the archive. As a result, the project will be loaded and rendered correctly on other systems even if the same Cosmos assets are not downloaded there. Use this option when submitting projects to a 3rd-party render farm. Cosmos assets will still be available for download on the destination computer even if they are not included in the archive
• Use Material Override feature implemented for geometry Cosmos assets. It allows them to be individually excluded from the global material override effect

V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)

• Stamp layer implemented. It allows showing the render time information on top of the rendered image similar to the stamp in VFB1
• The Display Correction, Lens Effects and Denoiser layer icons are updated to be more distinguishable from those of the correction layers
• Integer, Cryptomatte and MultiMatte layer masks added. Each of the mask types require a specific render element to be present in the rendered image. Masking can be done for both Render Element and Correction layers in the Composite image editing mode. Multiple masks can be applied to a single layer
• Shortcuts editor added to the VFB Settings panel. The default hotkeys can now be reconfigured to better match a specific user workflow or avoid conflicts with the host application

Material Library

• The Material Library can now be downloaded by users that don’t have permissions to read from the Windows registry. The default library location is used in this case - `C:\%UserProfile%\Documents\V-Ray Material Library`

[konstantin_chaos]

Other Improvements & Bug Fixes

• Notifications
  • New V-Ray version notification is now displayed in the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB)
  • New V-Ray version notification is now available in the About Window
• File Path Resolving
  • The file path resolution logic executed when opening a new file is updated. Files with duplicated names located in different folders are now resolved correctly
  • The file path resolver search depth is increased to five (5 subfolders)
• Asset Editor
  • New Intel Open Image Denoise engine implemented. It can be selected from both the quick access menu in the Render rollout and the Denoiser rollout in the advanced settings panel. It is a new denoiser engine perfect for interactive rendering. It does not depend on a specific hardware - runs on any CPU (including AMD models). Can be used as an alternative to the NVIDIA AI denoiser. Make sure to set the Update Effects slider to Rapid for best interactive experience
  • Cosmos geometry asset type implemented. A preview image is loaded for each asset and a set of parameters that control the preview, material override and lights are exposed
  • Cosmos assets download implemented. It is detected if a Cosmos asset is missing in the database and a Download button is displayed in the Outliner
  • Scale parameter implemented for Proxy Meshes. Can be used for quick unit conversions in case the mesh was exported from an application or a project using different scene units
  • Normal Map texture implemented. This is a texture utilized by some Cosmos assets for Normal Map assignment. It can not be created from the UI. It may be created only when a Cosmos asset is merged
  • Explicit Normal bump mode implemented for the VRay Mtl material layer. It can not be selected from the UI but will appear if a Normal Map is used in Cosmos assets (after Merge)
  • Normal Map Flip texture implemented. It can not be created from the UI. Added to handle specific Cosmos materials
  • Self-illumination of the VRay Mtl implemented. It can not be controlled from the UI. Added to handle specific Cosmos materials
  • An issue preventing V-Ray from running on Apple machines with the new M1 CPUs is resolved
  • The Submit to Chaos Cloud icon is updated
  • Chaos Cosmos shortcut added to the Asset Editor Toolbar (in the VFB drop-down menu)
  • Adding a Translucency attribute to a material no longer prevents the Raytrace Properties from functioning correctly on GPU
  • Blend, Bump and Contour materials now work correctly with sub-materials which names start with an underscore (e.g. _Name)
  • An issue with the HDR rotation (Bitmap Spherical Rotate H) value of Light Gen textures is resolved
  • The V-Ray logo in the material library is updated
  • The GPU Memory Management option Resize is now set to Full-size textures by default. This is a temporary solution that avoids artifacts caused by the on-demand mip-mapping mode in specific situations
  • Renaming a material no longer causes index numbers (such as 001) from its name to be removed
  • The Camera Vignetting maximum value limit is removed. Higher than the previously allowed values might be useful in scenes with narrower field of view
• Integration
  • V-Ray object properties icon updated
  • V-Ray Render Grasshopper component icon updated
  • Auto Export context menu item added to the V-Ray Exporter component in Grasshopper. Enable it to automatically export a vrscene every time a definition change occurs
  • An issue preventing animated .vrmesh files from being exported by V-Ray for Grasshopper in specific situations is resolved
  • An issue preventing camera animations from the Grasshopper definitions to be rendered in the Rhino project is resolved
  • OS user names with non-latin symbols no longer prevent the installation of the Chaos License Server, Chaos Cloud and Swarm
  • An issue preventing some Proxy Mesh files from generating previews in Rhino 7 is resolved
  • Proxy Meshes part of a blocks are now reliably updated during interactive rendering when the path to the .vrmesh file is changed
  • Converting the contents of a block to a V-Ray Proxy Mesh no longer prevents the objects from being rendered
  • A number of issue preventing V-Ray from working correctly on Windows 8.1 are resolved