V-Ray 3.10.01 is now available for download from our website. Before you get too excited, let me say that we will have a patch next week with some minor fixes, so it may be best to wait until then. Nevertheless, if you find any issues, please let us know.
We had a build yesterday that didn’t work correctly; if you downloaded that, please get an updated installation from our website. We apologize for this inconvenience.
There is a short video demonstrating some of the new features here:
The full changelog from the previous release is as follows:
New features:
(*) V-Ray: Further optimizations for render speed;
(*) Updated to OpenEXR 2.2.0 and added new DWA compression options to VRayOptionsRe;
(*) Support for point cloud rendering in 3ds Max 2015;
(*) Built-in DMC samples calculator for VRayLight, VRayMtl and brute force GI;
(*) .vrmesh viewer: Added a .vrmesh viewer tool for previewing .vrmesh and Alembic files in a standalone OpenGL application;
(*) Embree: Update to Embree 2.3;
(*) Embree: Proxies and instances can now be accelerated by Embree;
(*) Embree: Can now accelerate hair rendering for Ornatrix and HairFarm;
(*) V-Ray: Added “GI filter multiplier” option to the Global switches rollout to control texture filtering for GI rays for VRayHDRI;
(*) V-Ray: Secondary matte environment background slot to control the appearance of matte objects in reflections/refractions;
(*) V-Ray: When created, V-Ray will automatically load a preset named “default” if there is one (allows for customized default values);
(*) V-Ray RT: Support for Carbon Scatter;
(*) V-Ray RT: Support for the V-Ray VFB for ActiveShade session;
(*) V-Ray RT CPU: Support for the VRayClipper object;
(*) V-Ray RT CPU: Support for Ornatrix and HairFarm rendering;
(*) V-Ray RT GPU: Support for using the light cache for GPU rendering;
(*) V-Ray RT GPU: Support for coherent tracing (may improve rendering performance);
(*) V-Ray RT GPU CUDA: Support for the nVidia Maxwell GPU architecture;
(*) V-Ray RT GPU CUDA: Support for the VRayFastSSS2 material;
(*) V-Ray RT GPU CUDA: Initial support for hair rendering for Ornatrix and HairFarm;
(*) V-Ray RT GPU CUDA: On-the-fly recompilation of the GPU kernel to include only features used by the particular scene;
(*) VFB: Ability to dock/undock History window and Color Corrections window to the main VFB window;
(*) VFB: Added highlight burn color correction to the VFB;
(*) VFB: Added “background image” color correction to the VFB;
(*) VFB: Added white balance color correction;
(*) VFB: Added the ability to save multi-channel .vrimg and OpenEXR files from the VFB UI;
(*) VFB: Added the ability to load arbitrary file formats in the V-Ray VFB for post-processing;
(*) VRayInstancer: Implement a new geometric plugin for instancing objects on a ParticleFlow and other particle systems;
(*) VRayHDRI: Added image preview in the file open dialog;
(*) VRayHDRI: Added controls to specify UDIM/UVTILE tiles for the preview in material editor;
(*) VRayScatterVolumeMtl: Greatly improved calculations; ability to use the light cache;
(*) VRayScannedMtl: Support rendering of scanned real-world BRDF materials;
(*) VRayProxy: Support for hair and particle instances;
(*) VRayProxy: Support for subdivision objects in Alembic files using OpenSubdiv;
(*) VRayLight: Disc light shape;
(*) VRayLight, VRayIES, VRaySun: Added parameters to control the diffuse and specular contributions separately;
(*) VRayLightSelect render element: Added “mode” parameter to allow extracting the full/raw/diffuse/specular contribution of specific lights;
(*) VRayMtl: Added GGX BRDF model;
(*) VRayMtl: Added clip opacity mode option for faster rendering of trees etc;
(*) VRayMultiSubTex: Extended with new randomized modes for choosing colors;
(*) VRayVelocity render element: Added include/exclude list;
(*) ply2vrmesh: Added export options to export specified frames to separate files;
(*) ply2vrmesh: Added Alembic frame offset output to the files;
(*) ply2vrmesh: Added option to merge two or more .vrmesh files into one;
(*) vrimg2exr: Added -multiPart option to vrimg2exr that produces an OpenEXR 2 file with each render element in its own “part”;
Modified features:
(*) V-Ray: Added an option to open the V-Ray messages window on error or warning only;
(*) V-Ray: Added by Object IDs selection method for Render mask;
(*) V-Ray: Added MaxScript access to the Trace sets include/exclude flag;
(*) V-Ray: Added %numPasses and %numSubdivs stamp keywords;
(*) V-Ray: “Camera Motion Blur” is controlled independently on “Motion Blur” setting;
(*) V-Ray: Embree enabled by default;
(*) V-Ray: Improved render speed when not using any render elements;
(*) V-Ray: Light cache “Use for glossy rays” option is enabled by default;
(*) V-Ray: Optimized hair rendering in general;
(*) V-Ray: Reduced memory usage for hair and particles;
(*) V-Ray: Renamed the “Time independent” option to “Lock noise pattern” in the DMC sampler rollout;
(*) V-Ray: The default GI methods are set to Brute force/Light cache;
(*) V-Ray: The default image sampler set to Progressive;
(*) V-Ray: The image sampler parameters rollout is unfolded by default;
(*) V-Ray: VFB is cleared always when doing network rendering with render mask;
(*) V-Ray RT: Improved refresh speed;
(*) V-Ray RT: Removed the Show Mask option from the user interface, the mask is written in VRaySampleRate render element for the progressive sampler;
(*) VFB: Improved anaglyph stereoscopic preview to reduce retinal rivalry;
(*) VFB: Improved initialization speed of the History window when there are a lot of images in the history;
(*) VFB: The vfbControl MaxScript function returns values for the commands that have states;
(*) VFB: Made the History window compliant with the 3ds Max color theme;
(*) .vrscene exporter: Added combo box to select between Scene Animation/Frame range, the latter remembers the start/end values;
(*) VRay2SidedMtl: Added ability to filter the translucency effect through the diffuse color of the front-facing side;
(*) VRayClipper: More robust and faster algorithm is used;
(*) VRayDirt: Added “double sided” option;
(*) VRayDirt: The distribution parameter can now take negative values for more defined edges;
(*) VRayFastSSS2: Added opacity texture slot;
(*) VRayHairFarmMod and VRayOrnatrixMod: Faster rendering of hair;
(*) VRayHDRI: Added MaxScript access to “coords” parameters;
(*) VRayLight: Added the ability to display the light name in the viewport;
(*) VRayLight: Somewhat faster sampling of rectangle lights;
(*) VRayMtl: Multiple layers of glass rendered with noise;
(*) VRayOSLMtl/VRayOSLTex: Improved shader cache logic, now the compiled shaders reside entirely in a memory buffer;
(*) VRayOSLMtl/VRayOSLTex: Removed dependency of shader name on the shader file name;
(*) VRayProxy: Export texture coordinates for .vrmesh preview, if preview mesh is specified;
(*) VRayProxy: Same proxies are automatically instantiated;
(*) VRayProxy: Show proxy color set names in Vertex Color texture “Channel Name” list;
(*) VRayProxy: Show the extra color channels from Alembic files in the “Channel Name” drop-down of Vertex Color maps applied to the proxy object;
(*) VRayProxy: Support for Material ID channel when rendering with point clouds;
(*) VRayShadow: Made the U, V, W Area shadow sizes animatable in the VRayShadows params rollout;
Bug fixes:
(*) Progressive sampler: Adaptive image sampling based on the Noise threshold did not work correctly;
(*) Progressive sampler: Fixed crash with region rendering and sample rate render element;
(*) Progressive sampler: Switch to sRGB color mapping for AA, leading to faster sampling;
(*) Crashes with building the SD tree in specific scene;
(*) Render mask was not exported to .vrscene files;
(*) DR: X-Ref scenes were not transfered with DR option “Transfer missing assets”;
(*) Fixed incorrect depth with camera motion blur for deep image output;
(*) Fixed a crash with “Render to fields” enabled on 3ds Max 2012;
(*) Fixed unhandled exception error when rendering geometry imported from Revit;
(*) Fixed render crash with ProBoolean scene geometry;
(*) Fixed slow SD tree build on many-core machines;
(*) 3ds Max crashed with pressing “Last VFB” button when V-Ray RT is set for Production renderer;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Embree crash on AMD machines;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Embree crashes with specific scenes;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed incorrect rendering of 3ds Max Populate with motion blur with Embree;
(*) V-Ray: DR hosts saved in scene were appended to the hosts list and used for consequent renderers;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when rendering a scene with ParticleFlow that is not generating geometry;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed imageSampler_renderMask_texmap MaxScript property name;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed issue where VRayMtl’s “Affect all channels” affects matte surfaces visible through refractive objects;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed light leaks when rendering bump mapping on surfaces that face away from the light;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed Render mask with Light Cache as secondary GI engine, causes darker final result;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed rendering wrong object when render selection mask is used with object that has Renderable property disabled;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed tiled EXR clipping to half-float precision;
(*) V-Ray: Fixed wrong error message “error: Auto-backup is enabled at file…” appearing when license is not found;
(*) V-Ray: Strand index was not returned to shaders (e.g. Ox Hair);
(*) V-Ray RT: Adaptive image sampling based on the Noise threshold did not work correctly;
(*) V-Ray RT: Fixed progress window update;
(*) V-Ray mesh exporter: Fixed crash when exporting point clouds with “lowest level point size” < 1.0;
(*) V-Ray mesh exporter: Particle systems were not exported with the “Export all selected objects in a single file” option
(*) V-Ray Toolbar: Button were not working after 3ds Max Custom UI Layout load/reset;
(*) VFB: Edit boxes accept values without pressing enter;
(*) VFB: Fixed crash with Lens effects and active link to PDPlayer when an update occurs;
(*) VFB: Fixed lag when clicking between the VFB and other 3ds Max windows;
(*) V-Ray Bitmap to V-RayHDRI converter: Fixed error when converting bitmaps to tiled EXR;
(*) V-Ray Light Lister: Fixed an issue with light temperature;
(*) VRayBPTracer: Fixed calculation errors causing NAN results;
(*) VRayBPTracer: Fixed crash with particular scenes;
(*) VRayClipper: The clipper showed up with ambient occlusion;
(*) VRayClipper: The clipper affected objects from its Exclude list even when it is hidden;
(*) VRayClipper: There is ambiguous situation with instancing, rendering the last copy only;
(*) VRayColor: Color swatch and gamma were not displayed as Additional Params in the Slate material editor;
(*) VRayFastSSS2: Fixed crash when rendering the object has Dent texmap for displacement;
(*) VRayFur: Fixed fur placement on “Selected faces” for 3ds Max 2014/2015;
(*) VRayHDRI: EXR textures are always loaded as 32-bit floating point;
(*) VRayHDRI: Fixed crash with IFL input when saving in a material library;
(*) VRayHDRI: Fixed Crop/Place not working;
(*) VRayHDRI: Fixed overbright pixels occurring with specific texture values;
(*) VRayHDRI: The texture cache size for tiled textures in VRayHDRI did not work correctly for values over 2 GB;
(*) VRayLight: Fixed incorrect rendering of Dome lights with scaling, they should not take it into account;
(*) VRayMtl: Fixed Self-illumination multiplier value not taken into account;
(*) VRayOSLTex: Fixed crash when used as environment texture;
(*) VRayPhysicalCamera: Tilt/Shift parameters were not reflected in the viewport when loading a scene;
(*) VRayProxy: Cannot select in the viewport if there is a recorded preview mesh that falls outside the render-mesh bounding box;
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed crash when opening a scene containing a proxy created from an empty group;
(*) VRayProxy: Fixed incorrect UVW coordinates with point clouds;
(*) VRaySkinMtl: Fixed textured scatter radiuses not taken into account;
(*) img2tiledexr: Alpha channel was created even if there was not such in the input image;
(*) img2tiledexr: Fixed wrong pixel aspect in the output image;
Excellent! I think I will roll this out very shortly while Christmas is upon us… good time for testing. Hopefully no major bugs…
There are so many new/changed features that are actually directly useful but the features I’m personally most excited about:
(*) V-Ray: Further optimizations for render speed;
(*) Embree: Update to Embree 2.3;
(*) V-Ray: Secondary matte environment background slot to control the appearance of matte objects in reflections/refractions;
(*) V-Ray: When created, V-Ray will automatically load a preset named “default” if there is one (allows for customized default values);
(*) Embree: Proxies and instances can now be accelerated by Embree;
(*) VRayLight: Disc light shape;
(*) VRayLight, VRayIES, VRaySun: Added parameters to control the diffuse and specular contributions separately;
(*) VRayLightSelect render element: Added “mode” parameter to allow extracting the full/raw/diffuse/specular contribution of specific lights;
(*) VFB: Added highlight burn color correction to the VFB;
(*) VFB: Added “background image” color correction to the VFB;
(*) VFB: Added white balance color correction;
(*) VFB: Added the ability to save multi-channel .vrimg and OpenEXR files from the VFB UI;
(*) VFB: Added the ability to load arbitrary file formats in the V-Ray VFB for post-processing;
(*) V-Ray: Added an option to open the V-Ray messages window on error or warning only;
(*) V-Ray: Added by Object IDs selection method for Render mask;
(*) V-Ray: Embree enabled by default;
(*) V-Ray: Improved render speed when not using any render elements;
(*) V-Ray: Light cache “Use for glossy rays” option is enabled by default;
(*) V-Ray: Renamed the “Time independent” option to “Lock noise pattern” in the DMC sampler rollout;
(*) V-Ray: The default GI methods are set to Brute force/Light cache;
(*) VRayClipper: More robust and faster algorithm is used;
(*) VRayDirt: Added “double sided” option;
(*) VRayDirt: The distribution parameter can now take negative values for more defined edges;
(*) VRayLight: Added the ability to display the light name in the viewport;
(*) VRayLight: Somewhat faster sampling of rectangle lights;
(*) VRayMtl: Multiple layers of glass rendered with noise;
(*) VRayProxy: Same proxies are automatically instantiated;
(*) Progressive sampler: Adaptive image sampling based on the Noise threshold did not work correctly;
(*) Progressive sampler: Fixed crash with region rendering and sample rate render element;
(*) Progressive sampler: Switch to sRGB color mapping for AA, leading to faster sampling;
Thanks for the GGX shader, can’t wait to try it! Hopefully next time we can get multisubtex to use user definable properties, although I’m sure the random modes will have their uses.
