Changelog

7.0.0 - 2013-10-02

• Shader parameter modification during and IPR render is x100 times faster, even for complex geometry.
• Fixed crop region from i-display that now renders in a separate thread.
• Clean up of the "Extra Attributes" section of 3Delight for Maya custom DAG nodes for more recent Maya versions.

6.0.51 - 2013-09-28

• Made swatch rendering more responsive. Modifying a parameter in 3Delight materials immediately re-starts a new swatch render.
• 3Delight Material now honours the "Visible in reflections" / "Visible in refractions" render stats attributes.
• Fixed "3Delight > Render" menu item; it now correctly chooses the currently active render pass for rendering.
• Fixed "Render" shelf button that would not allow rendering to separate thread. Same for ; hotkey.
• When rendering Maya Hair / nHair / paint effects hair, the render stats attributes are now fetched on the connected hairSystemShape.
• Fixed issue with aov_occlusion & 3Delight Material when using its transparency attribute (issue 4749).
• Fixed blinking of the swatch when changing materials.
• The size of the swatch is now 128x128.
• Reduce unnecessary related nodes displayed in secondary tabs in the AE when it is displaying a RenderMan shader node. This can make the AE respond much faster in some cases.
• Fixed issue with Maya's Surface Shader node when incandescence aov is requested (issue 4817).
• Initial render pass and render globals node are now created only when needed, not as soon as the plugin is loaded or a scene opened (issue 4794 and 4740).
• Fixed possible offsets in the rendered render regions in the Maya Render View.
• Fixed possible resolution mismatch when beginning an IPR session (issue 4808).
• Fixed active render pass that was seemingly impossible to delete (issue 4740).

6.0.50 - 2013-09-04

• WARNING: if you are using the Maya 3Delight Material, you will have to re-create the material nodes since a needed change has broken compatibility.
• For use in scripts: calls to “delightRender($render_pass)” are now blocking again (i.e. returns when rendering is done). Use “delightRenderFromGUI” to allow possible rendering in separate thread while running Maya in GUI mode. Note that starting a render from the 3Delight menus, shelf, or AE button will continue to render to a separate thread when possible.
• Rendering operations from the 3Delight shelf and the 3Delight menu are uniform.
• Added a “3Delight > Render” menu item; it renders the “active” render pass (as set in the “Render Settings” dialog). Exactly like clicking on the “Render” 3Delight shelf button.
• Starting a render from a 3Delight shelf button, 3Delight menu item or the render pass AE’s “Render this pass” will now set the “active render pass” (in the “Render Settings” dialog) to the chosen render pass before proceeding with the render.
• Removed the “Last Rendered render pass” menu items from the 3Delight menus. The “active” render pass is also the last rendered pass; it is shown by a check mark next to the active render pass name.
• There is always an active render pass in the scene. Deleting the active render pass will create a new one automatically.
• Added an accelerator for “3Delight > Render” operation - hitting “;” will render the active render pass.

6.0.49 - 2013-08-22

• Fixed issue with “deepexr” display driver that could not be found at render time.
• Added “Abort Render” in the 3Delight menu; the Render Pass’ “Render This Pass” also changes to “Abort Render” when a rendering is in progress.
• Added some primitive variables produced on RiCurves by 3dfm_shave plugin: SHAVEambdiff, SHAVEopacity, SHAVEspec, SHAVEgloss, SHAVEselfshad, SHAVEspec_color, SHAVEspec_color2.
• Shading Change: the shave.sl RenderMan shader has been updated to reflect the one provided in Shave and a Haircut v8. The shading is slightly different than the previous version.
• “shave.sl” RenderMan shader now supports indirect illumination and outputs 3Delight for Maya’s built-in Global Illumination AOVs.
• Added 3dfm_shave plugin for Maya 2013 and 2014.

6.0.48 - 2013-07-25

• Moved “Occlusion” AOV to Global Illumination → Auxiliary to Auxiliary submenu.
• Fixed MEL error when creating an ‘Archive Pass’ from the RIB Archive node AE.
• Maya’s “Render Current Frame” does not override the “Layer to Render” rendering attribute anymore (leaving it at <current> will let Maya specify which layer must be rendered).
• OS X packages will now install to /Applications/3DelightForMaya; the “rendermn.ini” file under the installation dir will now be preserved when installing a newer package (OS X only).
• Removed “framebuffer” from the list of display drivers.
• Added “deepEXR” in the list of display drivers. It works with 32-bit float and 16-bit float bit depths.
• Fixed issue with some GI aov output and mia_material_x* surface shaders.

6.0.47 - 2013-07-06

• Fixed issue where no rendering was occurring for some users on Windows.

6.0.46 - 2013-06-20

• Rendering no longer freezes the maya UI.
• New default path for network cache directory (for new render pass nodes). It is now “<default>”, which is /var/tmp/3DelightCache on Linux & Mac, and %TEMP%/3DelightCache on Windows.
• New render pass nodes now have a default statistics file name.

6.0.45 - 2013-06-08

• General Render Pass UI re-organization. This is still in progress.
• Fixed errors related to “defaultRenderPass” that could arise when reading older scenes.
• Fixed render pass “sample motion” setting having no effect when rendering with “Path Tracer”.
• Render Pass → Use Imager Shader and Environment Use As Background now controlled by “Scene Elements → Background Fill”.
• Removed “Basic” and “Full” render passes. Now all render passes are created with all attributes by default. Adding and removing attributes still works as before.

6.0.44 - 2013-05-02

• Fixed environment “tint” attribute value not saved (issue 4456).
• Moved Render Pass → Quality → Max Diffuse Depth and Max Specular Depth to new “Ray Tracing” group;
• Added Render Pass → Ray Tracing → Enable Ray Tracing attribute; it is ‘on’ by default.
• Render Pass’ Ray Trace Max Depth attribute is now obsolete. The max depth is now always set to the larger of diffuse max depth or specular max depth.
• Changed how previous Render Pass → Advanced → Hider option is presented. It is now “Rendering Algorithm” and at the top of the pass UI.
• Added plugin for Maya 2014 for Mac, Windows and Linux (64-bit only for all three).
• Point cloud based GI is now single bounce only.
• Fixed a performance issue with fluids and raytraced shadows.

6.0.43 - 2013-04-18

• Fixed issue that prevented scenes with references from rendering correctly using maya in batch mode or the “Render” command line utility.
• Global illumination isn’t performed by a special light anymore (”maya_gi_light”). That functionality is now offered by a standard co-shader. This fixes some issues and allows per light output of global illumination. However, it will no longer automatically add global illumination to compiled renderman shaders which do not include the code to do so.

6.0.42 - 2013-04-17

• Added a “3Delight Material” in the HyperShade. The material can simulate a variety of surfaces using a dual-layer model (coated materials) and an easy to use parameter set.
• The following attributes of the render pass are now deprecated:
  • Shadow Maps → use Surface Shaders In Shadows
  • Shadow Maps → use Displacement Shaders In Shadows
  • Shadow Maps → use Atmosphere Shaders In Shadows
  • Shadow Maps → use Interior Shaders In Shadows
  • Shadow Maps → shadow Map Z Threshold
• Shadow maps (regular depth maps and deep maps) are now rendered by default using all shaders. Old render pass nodes stating otherwise will work as before.
• Shadow maps (depth maps) are rendered with a Z Threshold of 0, meaning that the object will appear opaque in the shadow map even when its opacity is defined by its shader. It is recommended to use deep shadow maps in this case. Maya Fur will appear correctly in shadow maps. Old render passes that stil specify a different Z Threshold will work as before.
• “Moved “Shadow Maps → depth filter” and “Shadow Maps → volume interpretation” to “Advanced”.
• “Shadow Maps” attribute group in the render pass is now named “Shadows”.
• Fixed an issue when loading references.

6.0.41 - 2013-04-06

• Fixed file handle leak when using maya fur (error message indicated “too many files open”).
• Better performance for “Path Tracing” global illumination rendering.
• When creating or loading a reference, 3Delight for Maya nodes will now be updated unless they are locked. Not updating your locked 3Delight for Maya nodes may cause errors (as before).

6.0.40 - 2013-04-04

• Attempt to resolve possible race condition related to RIB directory creation.
• The Render Pass’ Environment attributes are now outside of the Global Illumination options. They are used by the GI computation but are still effective when GI is off; the environment will be visible in reflections; for Maya shaders, this contribution is modulated by their “Reflectivity” attribute and added to the color specified by the “Reflected Color” attribute.
• Global illumination options’ “Occlusion” and “Fast IBL” effects are now deprecated. The Render Pass now offers a choice of algorithm for the GI computation: Path Tracing or Point Cloud. They are identical to the last package’s “Full Global Illumination” and “Point-Based Full Global Illumination” effects, respectively.
• The environment shape now has “intensity” and “tint” attributes. They have the same effect as the render pass’ “Environment Intensity” and “Environment Color Gain” attributes, respectively; their effect is of course limited to their environment shape.
• The following attributes of the render pass are now deprecated:
  • Global Illumination → Environment Intensity
  • Global Illumination → Environment Color Gain
  • Global Illumination → Environment Specularity
  • Global Illumination → Cast Shadows from Environment
• The render pass deprecated attributes that were not changed from their default values are deleted automatically. The resulting rendering will still be the same.

6.0.39 - 2013-03-23

• Added support for the following parameters when instancing fluid shapes : Texture Time, Frequency, Texture Origin, Texture Scale as well as all noise related parameters (issue 4167)
• Fluids now support the “texture rotate” parameter (issue 4167).
• Improved performance and memory usage of particle cloud objects (issue 4167).
• Volume instancing on nParticles now works (issue 4167).
• Render Pass’ “Global Illumination → Photon Maps” is now “Caustics” and out of the “Global Illumination” attribute group.
• The following render pass attributes have been deprecated - they still work as before on existing render pass nodes but are not added anymore to new render pass nodes:
  • Global Illumination → Add to Final Mix
  • Global Illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding → Cast Shadows from Environment (always “on” for new passes)
  • Global Illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding → Black Point
  • Global Illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding → White Point
  • Global Illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding → Falloff
  • Global Illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding → Falloff Exponent
  • Caustics → Render Photon Maps
  • Caustics → Photon Maps Write Mode
  • Caustics → Global Map & Caustic Map
• Removed the “Global illumination → Occlusion And Color Bleeding” frame layout; the remaing attributes are directly under “Global Illumination”.
• New “Caustics → Render Caustics” bool attribute triggers single pass caustic map rendering. Not available for old render pass nodes that already contain deprecated “Render Photon Maps” attribute.
• Added control for “Global Illumination → Accelerate Using Pre-pass”; it works only with “Full Global Illumination” effect. This attribute will be ignored if the deprecated “Render Photon Maps” is present and set to something else than “Never”.
• Note that newly created render passes will not render photon maps when Gi Effect is set to “Full Global Illumination” or “Point-Based Global Illumination”; previously, photon maps were rendered by default in these two cases.

6.0.38 - 2013-03-15

• Max Distance works again with “Full GI” effect; it now also works with “Point-Based Full GI” effect.
• Some Render Pass AE reworking in progress. More to come.

6.0.37 - 2013-03-14

• “Full Global Illumination” now uses trace() shadeop, which provides more accurate results. Note that some attributes are not supported (such as black and white point) in this mode. They will be removed in the near future.
• Restored default AOV menu in the case where there are user-defined AOV lists but no user-defined AOV menu structure.
• Geo attribs node’s “Ray-trace Displacements” attribute is now enabled by default.
• Removed geo attrib node’s “Ray-trace motion blur”; it is now always enabled.
• Fixed a bug which caused maya or 3Delight to misbehave after a while.

6.0.36 - 2013-03-08

• Important changes to the AOVs (the previous behavior can be restored by defining the _3DFM_USE_DEPRECATED_SHADING environment variable):
  1. the AOV popup menu that is displayed when right-clicking in the output variable text field has been re-designed to present elements that can be added together to produce their parent element. This is a preliminary menu structure. Note that the AOV popup menu will not be affected by the _3DFM_USE_DEPRECATED_SHADING environment variable.
  2. The AOV popup menu is fully customizable. See doc section 7.3 “Customizing Render Pass Nodes” for details.
  3. The Global Illumination effects were affecting several AOVs that were meant to be independent from the GI, such as aov_diffuse. This is now fixed.
  4. The Global Illumination effects were contributing to the specular computations of the surface shaders. This is now fixed.
  5. The Global Illumination effects were contributing “occlusion” as if it was a shadow to aov_shadow. aov_shadow now strictly contains shadowing from direct lighting. The various *no_shadow aovs now exclude direct light shadowing only.
  6. The aovs directly related to the GI effects were not taking into account the diffuse coefficients of the surface shaders. This has also been fixed.
  7. The aov_env_reflection AOV has been changed to be masked by objects in reflections. This allows the “Reflections” aov to be re-created by adding “environment reflections” and “objet reflections” aovs.
• mia_material shaders now trace reflections much faster.

6.0.35 - 2013-03-02

• “Streak” particle tail length is now much closer to hardware / Mental Ray renderings (issue 4302).

6.0.34 - 2013-02-21

• Parallel compilation of shaders and conversion of textures.
• Added preliminary support for particle cloud volume rendering in 3Delight For Maya.

6.0.33 - 2013-01-31

• Fixed warning when popping up the Shader Manager / Attribs node Manager.
• Significantly reduced the processing time before the “Building Shaders” step begins. With large scenes this could take minutes. It should now be seconds.

6.0.32 - 2013-01-22

• Fluids now correctly apply the searchpath dirmap.
• Added 2013 Extension plugin version for Windows 64-bit.
• Linear workflow: added support for linearizing texture files gamma. This is enabled by turning on “Enable Color Management” in the Maya Render Settings; the input texture color profiles are specified with the Render Settings’ “Default Input Profile” and / or on the File 2D texture node’s “Color Profile” attribute. Linearized tdl versions are stored in a subdirectory (named as per the input profile) of the 3dfm textures path. Please note: TDL file used in “File” 2D texture node are not affected by this; color attributes are not gamma-corrected at this time.
• “DL_userConvertTexture” is now expected to handle an extra “string $profile” parameter. See the doc for details.
• Fixed issue on Windows with 3Delight for Maya package where the shader selector would not display shaders in $DELIGHT/Shaders.

6.0.31 - 2013-01-05

• Native MARI textures support. If your MARI files are named color1001.tif, color1002.tif, etc ... then put the file name as “colorUDIM.tif” in your file node. No need to load complicated shading networks anymore.
• Fixed issue with “duplicate display” operation that would omit some attributes (issue 4141).
• Some display attributes were left behind after a display removal or the “Displays” attribute block removal. This is now fixed.

6.0.30 - 2012-12-08

• Diffuse ray visibility is now set to “shader” by default for “beauty” rendering. Previous behaviour can be maintained by defining the “_3DFM_NO_DEFAULT_RT_VISIBILITY” env var.
• Changed default transmission visibility to “shader” (was “opaque”).
• New default values in Geo Attribs node for “transmission rays”, “diffuse rays” and “specular rays”, which are all set to “shader” by default.
• Added “pic” and “png” in the list of display drivers.
• Fixed issue with IPR using default light.

6.0.29 - 2012-11-29

• Fixed issues with Environment shape orientation ignored with the GI options (issue 4101).
• Fixed GI environment attributes ignored when using Environment shape (issue 4108).
• Fixed possible wrong environment map used when rendering with Environment shape (issue 4101 & 4108).
• Fixed issue preventing fluid nCache file from being read properly (issue 4118).
• Fixed another fluid crash issue (issue 4121).
• Fixed Geo Attribs node’s “Illumination From” attr so that group or set members are searched for lights too (issue 4126).

6.0.28 - 2012-11-13

• Fixed volume shading rate value that was handled as a integer.
• Loading a scene saved with a recent version of 3DFM in Maya using an older 3DFM plugin now produces a warning but will allow open scene operation to complete (issue 4106).
• Fixed possible slowdown caused by the progress window.

6.0.27 - 2012-11-10

• Fixed missing icons for the new shelf buttons and its separators.
• Fixed issue where IPR would not update after environment shape’s Mapping attribute value change (issue 4090).
• Fixed issue where environment shape would disrupt Maya viewport rendering.
• Fixed Relationship Editor filtering changes that would hide selected nodes from the outliner (issue 4095).
• Fixed intermittent fluid issue when reading XML files (issue 4098).
• Fixed possible crash when the fluid file / XML file is not readable (also issue 4098).

6.0.26 - 2012-10-31

• Fixed possible issue when rendering with the default light enabled.
• Fixed issue when rendering instancers / nParticles (issue 4040).
• Fixed warning when using mia_material node (issue 4068).
• Fixed issue with IPR & RenderMan light shader edits.
• Improvements to the shelf. Upon loading a new one is created and Maya will ask confirmation to delete the old 3Delight for Maya shelf.
• New “3Delight Environment” shape; connect an hypershade network to its “Texture” plug to use as an environment map. This is now the default choice for using with GI “environment” options.

6.0.25 - 2012-10-19

• Fluids render 20% faster.
• Added a 3Delight shelf. We advise that you rename any user-defined shelf that is named “_3Delight” before loading the new plugin to keep it intact.
• Fixed issue regarding selection changes caused by 3Delight for Maya rendering.
• New attempt to fix mouse pointer that displays a “wait cursor” indefinitely after a rendering.
• Lower thread priority during IPR rendering to allow better interaction with Maya.

6.0.24 - 2012-10-13

• Fixed self-intersection problems with motion blur and the raytrace hider.
• Fixed some refresh issues with the render progress window and attempt to fix mouse cursor that sticks to the “wait cursor”.

6.0.23 - 2012-10-03

• RenderMan Shaders are now correctly supported in IPR mode
• Fluids can use their nCache for rendering instead of 3dfm’s own fluid file (nCache must be one file per frame).
• Global Illumination diffuse effects now correctly use each shader’s diffuse coefficient.
• “Full Global Illumination” GI effect shading improvements.
• Fixed issue with referenced render pass names and the <pass> token.

6.0.22 - 2012-09-25

• Fixed IPR rendering crashes.

6.0.21 - 2012-09-25

• Objects now visible to specular rays as per render stats attr by default. This can be disabled by defining the “_3DFM_NO_DEFAULT_RT_VISIBILITY” env var.
• Fixed issue with GI & env maps generated from Hypershade nodes (such as Env Sphere).
• Fixed the rendering progress window on Maya 2012 and 2013.
• Introducing IPR support!

6.0.20 - 2012-09-01

• Fixed issue with GI “Environment → Use As Background” option.
• Moved some user RiAttributes to the beginning of the Frame Begin / End block (issue 3488).
• Self-connections on hypershade nodes are now ignored.
• Improved readability for rendering timings reported in the script editor.
• Maya 8.5 is no longer supported.

6.0.19 - 2012-08-14

• Shading Change: Improved “stucco” 3D texture implementation. Stucco will render differently with this version and future versions of 3Delight for Maya. Keep your current “rsl/stucco.h” file and overwrite the new file with your current one if you need to stay with the current results.
• Fixed issue with shaded transparency & point-based global illumination options.
• Now supporting all interpolation modes for color ramps.

6.0.18 - 2012-08-02

• Fixed clash between some of our procedure names and newly-supplied ones by Autodesk in Maya2013 (issue 3851).
• Fixed “Opposite” render stat that must be ignored when “Double Sided” render stat is enabled.
• Ray-traced shadows now honour light linking and / or the light attribs node’s “Shadow Objects” attribute. Previous behaviour (where all objects cast shadows for all lights using ray-traced shadows) can be re-actived by setting the “_3DFM_DONT_USE_TRANSMISSION_SUBSET” env var to a non-empty value. The new “Shadow Linking” attribute can be set to “Ignore Light & Shadow Links”, but this will change mapped shadows.
• Added support for shadow linking via a new “Shadow Linking” attribute in the Render Pass → Shadow Maps section. See the doc for details.

6.0.17 - 2012-06-28

• Intersecting fluid containers are now rendered correctly (issue 3567).

6.0.16 - 2012-06-15

• User init procedure for render pass, geometry attributes and light attributes nodes are now called every time the related 3Delight for Maya init procedure is called. Make sure your custom procedure can be called multiple times with the same node during a session.

6.0.15 - 2012-06-07

• Fixed issue with useBackground shader & some GI AOV (issue 3796).
• Fixed issue with RenderMan shader node UI that don’t define presets, introduced in 6.0.14
• Introducing RenderMan Material node, in Hypershade / Utilities section. See doc for details.

6.0.14 - 2012-06-05

• Fixed issue with custom surface shaders using #prepare plugs & layered shader AOV & transparency (issue 3697).
• Now hiding again delightShapeSet nodes from the outliner editor in Maya 2012.

6.0.13 - 2012-04-12

• Added support for cutout_opacity in mia_material and fixed Oi computation in mia_material (issue 3579).
• Fixed increasing render time with increasing internal scale of the fluid container (issue 3623).
• Fixed wrong fluid lighting when scale of the object is not 1 (also in issue 3623).

6.0.12 - 2012-03-10

• Assignments on sets are more predictably inherited. Sets lookup is done alphabetically and in increasing namespace depth.
• Fixed issue with GI environment colour offset (issue 3597).
• Fixed issue with grouping names that contained spaces or non-alphanumeric characters (issue 3598).
• Fixed issue with ramp shader & aov_env_specular AOV (issue 3618).
• Fixed issue where RIB archive bounding box would have wrong values when Maya linear working units (in the preferences) are set to something else than cm (issue 3619).
• Fixed issue where shape name change did not trigger shader recompilation (issue 3600).

6.0.11 - 2012-02-27

• Added “ignore” annotation to completely ignore a given shader parameter (issue 3534).
• Maya Fluids will render much faster when shadowing is enabled alongside deep shadow maps (issue 3568). We timed speedups of 700%.
• Fixed export of rational trim curves (issue 3567).
• Fixed issue that prevented some fluid shapes from rendering in Maya 2012 (issue 3583).
• Added support for arrays of unspecified size shader parameters in RenderMan shader nodes (issue 3512 and several others).
• Fixed overly aggressive file name manipulation affecting user-defined output files like images and RIB (issue 3566).
• Added support for the “connectednodeoptionmenu” gadget type for string array parameters of RenderMan shader nodes (issue 3588).

6.0.10 - 2012-02-13

• Shading change: revised implementation of bump2D fixes wrong bump amplitude related to camera & object scale (issue 3490).
• Fixed attribute editor issue with some 3Delight nodes and Maya 2012 SP2 (issue 3516).
• Hopefully fixed crash issues with the Render Settings window while displaying render pass attributes (issue 3497).
• Added support for a user-defined procedure that may filter the list of nodes used to evaluate the bounding box of a RIB archive (issue 3507).

6.0.9 - 2012-02-03

• “Render” & “Add / Remove Attributes” buttons are now displayed in the Render Settings window when a render pass is selected (issue 3400).
• Fixed an Hypershade translation issue with some networks (such as a vanilla envCube connected to a surface shader).
• Max file name length before it gets processed to a unique generated file name has been lowered to resolve issues on Windows.
• Added a “Camera” attribute in each Display’s “Advanced” section to allow multi-camera rendering.
• Minor cosmetic improvements to the Render Settings dialog’s display of the render pass attributes.
• Fixed issue when rendering a render pass with defined RiFilter Plugin attributes while in the 3Delight for Maya plugin (as this feature is not supported in that package).

6.0.8 - 2012-01-12

• Added support for constant string array attributes as constant primitive variables.
• Now correctly using point cloud camera’s clipping planes for GI point cloud bake pass (issue 3438).
• Crop Window settings are now ignored for the GI point cloud baking.
• New default: the RIB files produced by a Render Pass are now binary by default, which has better performance (issue 3447).
• Fixed problematic version check that prevented a scene saved with 3Delight for Maya 6.0.7 to be read with 6.0.8 loaded (issue 3449).
• RiFilterPlugin is now a 3Delight Studio Pro feature only (issue 3441).
• Fluid shapes will still be rendered when motion blur options are enabled (although fluids will still lack motion blur) (issue 3440).

6.0.7 - 2011-12-22

• Fixed issue where the “Use Imager Shader” attribute turned off would still display some sky texture when the camera is connected to a Mental Ray physical sky node.
• Added project path for fluid files and photon maps (issue 3414). This path is now where the fluid files are output.
• Rendering fluids no longer generate useless ptc file (issue 3414).
• Workaround crash in Maya 2012 when doing an Export operation. For now, the item filters used to display only 3Delight nodes in the outliner are disabled in Maya 2012 (issue 3415).
• Added GUI for RiFilters in the render pass node.
• Coordinate system nodes now can be archived in a RIB archive (issue 3427).
• Fixed fluids only lit by 1 light source (issue 3431).

6.0.6 - 2011-12-02

• Fixed broken PSD File texture node.

6.0.5 - 2011-11-30

• Added “Depth of Field” section in the render pass; it contains attributes that control the bokeh (appearance of out-of-focus portions of the image).

6.0.4 - 2011-11-24

• Fixed crash in Maya 2011 & 2012 when manipulating the display bit depth option menu.
• Fixed objects sometimes not appearing in shadow maps.
• Fixed issue with RenderMan Code nodes that prevented them from being unloaded when referenced (#3337).
• Fixed issue with RIB archive nodes that would report incorrect bounding box when using the Bbox Scale attribute. This can cause issues with directional light shadow map framing for instance.
• Lifted the point could shading rate multiplier attribute maximum value that was limited to 10.
• Default RIB archive file name now contains the frame number.
• RIB archive bounding box is now correctly defined for motion blurred objects.

6.0.3 - 2011-10-21

• Fixed interrogation of camera’s miEnvironmentShader attribute, which may not exist.
• Fixed broken mia_material node support.
• Fixed camera name handling for shader connected to miEnvironment plug, which failed to work when the name contained a namespace for instance.
• Fixed issue where camera could not be inside the fluid container.
• Fixed shader node reload / replace operations that could fail for connected attributes.

6.0.2 - 2011-10-13

• Fixed arealight shape that were visible in some GI effect.
• Fixed old render pass “Render Photon Map” attr update that could cause AE UI problems.
• Fixed issue causing errors when displaying a render pass with several RIB fragments in the AE (mostly for Maya 2010 and older).
• Fixed issue where the scene translation would progressively take longer, frame after frame.
• Improved speed of RenderMan shader node output, especially for shaders that have many string parameters.
• Added support for Hypershade nodes connected to a camera’s “miEnvironment” plug.
• The Global Illumination options now auto-generate an environment map from the shading network connected to the “miEnvironment” camera plug, and use it for the GI effects. This is done automatically when no coordinate system is specified for the GI → Environment section. See the new “physicalSky” example scene for an idea on on how this works.

6.0.1 - 2011-09-23

• Added 3dfm_shave_2012 plugin.
• Fixed issue with misss_fast_skin_maya shader which made the subsurface scattering component appear black.
• Added Clumping Frequency attribute in the geo attribs node → Geometry → Maya Fur section. This acts as an override for the clumping frequency value of the Fur Description Node, without any maximum value restriction. Must be attached to a FurFeedbackShape node. Can also be added as a 3Delight Geometry Modifier attribute.

6.0.0 - 2011-08-30

Starting with this release, 3Delight for Maya becomes available as an individual package. This package is meant for artists and small to medium sized studios wanting to integrate the 3Delight renderer into their pipeline. 

Compared to our full 3Delight package, this package excludes:

1. RIB archive import (although scene caching using RIB fragments is functional).
2. Network caching.
3. Some command-line tools (such as renderdl) and libraries (Sx, Gx, etc ...).

Note that RIB export is functional and doesn’t take any license. Here is a list of new features and improvements since version 5.0.

Features

• Added intuitive and simple to use global illumination controls. These controls are available in each render pass and make both ray-traced and point-based global illumination very easy to use. No shader programming or pass setup is necessary.
• A new point-based global illumination algorithm offers rendering of high quality and smooth global illumination.
• Introducing a new multi-bounce global illumination algorithm that combines point-clouds and photon-maps for realistic image synthesis.
• Added progressive render mode for faster image preview.
• Introducing “Minimal Passes”: each pass can be created with a minimal set of attributes that are suitable for the intended task. This reduces clutter and risks of errors by adding only the attributes needed by the artist. “Passes templates” further improve pass management.
• Added support for multi-channel EXRs and “half-float” types.
• Improved Maya Fluids support with a look that matches Maya more faithfully. Note that only 3D Maya fluids are supported and attributes that are new to Maya 2011 are not yet supported.
• UI improvements. All around improvements to the user interface for a better user experience.

Quality and Performance

• The shading interpreter (the “virtual machine” which is responsible of shader evaluation) is now using in-house just-in-time compiler technology which translates RenderMan shaders into SSE2 machine code. This makes the shader interpretation up to three times faster and have a net speed impact on the entire render of up to 30%.
• Multi-segment motion-blur can now be shaded “once per-frame”. This can lead to speedups proportional to the number of segments used.
• Ray-tracing of occlusion and transmission rays has been greatly improved. Speedups can go anywhere between 10% and 300%.
• Improved performance of area lights when using the “illuminance” sampling mode. Acceleration can reach an order of magnitude with high sample counts and deep ray levels.
• Photon mapping quality has been greatly improved and photon maps are now 50% smaller. The photon-casting process has been multi-threaded. Speed improvement is linear with the number of cores.
• Point-cloud baking process produces a more even distribution of points and the IO (reading and writing PTC files) has been multi-threaded.
• Ray-tracing of displacements has been optimized, speedups of 30% are expected for transmission rays.
• Maya Fluids have been accelerated by an order of magnitude.
• Improved Maya Fur in both quality and performance. The fur now closely matches the one in Maya under various parametrisation. Startup time and memory usage has been reduced significantly.
• Improved support for HyperShade nodes, including skin and architectural material.
• The performance of the Relationship Editor has been greatly improved. Response times are faster when adding or deleting nodes. It is no longer updated when not displayed.