Official Release
Date – June 13, 2018
Download – Build 4.03.01
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
- Added option for rendering toon edges on material boundaries
- Reworked depth-based line width
- Added an option for view-based line width control
V-Ray
- Automatic camera exposure
- Render in the cloud button in the V-Ray shelf
- V-Ray can now cache files locally in order to avoid locking original files
- Support for floatMath utility node with texture inputs
- Added option for the global minimum hair width
Update the SDK to make greater use of SSE instructions for 3D vector, color and matrix operations
Require CPU with SSE 4.2 to support SIMD optimizations
- Added Drag-n-drop support for V-Ray file types
VRayMtl
- Added "metalness" parameter to the VRayMtl for easy support of PBR workflows
V-Ray Cloud
- Added support for Cloud rendering
Denoiser
- Denoising per render element in the Maya UI
- Optix denoiser in Maya for Windows
- Added an option to VDenoise command line for choosing an output directory
V-Ray GPU
Implemented new rendering architecture resulting in better performance
Add support for adaptive dome light
Add support for volumetric rendering
Add support for glossy Fresnel
Improved GPU 3D displacement
Initial support for VRayEnvironmentFog (without textures)
Initial support of VRayVolumeGrid (brute force probabilistic volume sampling only)
Initial support for VRscans (VRayScannedMtl)
VRayProxy
- Support for Alembic layers
SamplerInfo
- Added face index and barycentric coords to TexSamplerInfo
VRayFur
- Add dynamic tessellation option
Viewport 2.0
- Added texture preview for VRayScannedMtl
- 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
- Optimized instancer export
- Improved export speed for Object Properties and other sets
- Improved export time when exporting large mesh that has multiple materials connected
- Improved export speed for a material on multiple objects
- Removed the Photon subdivs and Diffuse multiplier options for V-Ray lights
- Removed the ShInfo node from the UI
- Removed Photon Map and Spherical Harmonics as GI engines
- Removed SkinMtl and Simbiont from the UI.
- Removed embree use packets option from the UI
- Removed redundant TexSwitch exported for VRayVertexColor when using name
- Removed obsolete prepass and object-based multiple scattering options from SSS2 and Skin material
- Stereoscopic and Dome Camera attributes are now turned on by default when creating the attributes
- Stable and converging integer render elements when using progressive
- The rendered procedural textures now resemble the viewport look more
- Added "Post effects rate" option to the System rollout to control lens effects and denoiser update frequency percentage
- Switched to UTF-8 V-Ray core to be compatible with vrscenes from other host applications
Better render time estimation for progressive sampling
Optimize the use of DR servers (early free servers at the end of a render so that they can join other jobs)
Update Embree to version 2.13
V-Ray IPR
- Changes will refresh in IPR in animation
- Fixed unnecessary refreshes when proxy is selected
V-Ray GPU
- Optimized V-Ray GPU default settings for faster rendering
- Added a separate option for production GPU ray bundle size
- Improve GPU Light Linker memory efficiency
- Faster VRayDirt & rounded corners in some cases
- Support for VRayDirt "Consider same object only"
- Better sampling of glossy materials
- Optimize GPU displacement/subdivision compile times
V-Ray/VRayProxy
- Faster render start with instanced alembic proxy
VFB
- Reworked the post-effects pipeline to avoid Lens effects overriding the denoised image
- Added the VFB "Track mouse" lock option to the vfbcontrol command
- Added VRAY_VFB_COLOR_CORRECT_ALL envvar to allow color correcting everything in the VFB only
Denoiser
- Removed the denoiser multipass mode
VRayMtl
- Removed the highlight glossiness parameter and the lock button from the VRayMtl UI
VRayPhysicalCamera
- VRayPhysicalCamera attribute will be turned on by default on creation
- Vignetting is now off by default with VRayPhysicalCamera
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
- Support for Mtl2Sided
Light Lister
- Add a "Help" button at the upper right corner in V-Ray Light lister
- Improved V-Ray light lister to work with render layers
ply2vrmesh
- Added ply2vrmesh -perObject info
- Add support for ZBrush vertex color channel data
VRayToon
- VRayToon render element can still be rendered even if VRayToon is disabled
Bug Fixes
VRayProxy
- Fixed slow proxy loading after version 3.52.03
- Fixed broken material IDs when simplifying for proxy preview
- Fixed Viewport proxy file override
- Fixed alembic sequences loaded via Proxy node not updating in the viewport until updated in Attribute Editor
V-Ray GPU
- Fixed CUDA crash with MDL
- Fixed CUDA crash with VRayFurSampler, Random by strand
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
- Fixed noise lines in the subdivided geometry
- Fixed crash when deleting materials from Hypershade
- Ported the curves from PhoenixFD to VRay textures in Maya
- Fixed file texture colorGain not working in animation
Denoiser/VFB/IPR
- Fixed the entire image outside the region getting denoised in IPR
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
- Override snippet is not loading plugins from the parent scene
Cryptomatte
- Fixed artifacts in cryptomatte with "Affect all channels"
V-Ray DR
- Fixed Assets added with UNC path not transferring to Linux
Miscellaneous
- 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 with 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 (from Maya 2016 and after)
- 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 undimmed 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