Build 1.5 SP5

Official release

Date - 6 May 2010

New features

• Added VRaySamplerInfoTex texture and VRaySamplerInfo render element;
• Added VRayObjectSelect render element which allows to extract objects with specific IDs into a separate element;

Modified features

• Added an option to the VRayPhysicalCamera to perform image distortion based on a texture map;
• Allow ther user to specify texture bounds for 3d displacement;
• Added displacement slot to VRayFastSSS2 material;
• Added "prepass id" parameter to VRayFastSSS2 material so that multiple materials can share the same illumination map;
• Added displacement slot to VRayLightMtl material;
• The color parameter of VRayIES lights is now animatable;
• The min/max z-depth values for the VRayZDepth render element are now animatable;
• Support for reflection occlusion in VRayDirt;
• Support for environment sampling in VRayDirt;
• Support for Particle Flow vertex color mapping and particle visibility;
• Support for the "Use transparent shadows" option with Arch&Design materials;
• The clipping planes for the VRayPhysicalCamera are now displayed in the viewport;
• Added an option "show cone" to the VRayPhysicalCamera to control the display of the camera in the viewports;
• Ability to save and load color correction curves for the VFB in Adobe(r) PhotoShop(r) .acv format;
• Support for pixel aspect ratio display in the V-Ray VFB;
• Support for anaglyph stereo preview in the V-Ray VFB;
• Support for LUT color correction in the V-Ray VFB from .cube files;
• Ability to display the value of the corrected colors in the V-Ray VFB pixel info dialog;
• The "Dynamic memory limit" parameter can be set to zero to remove any limit;

Bug fixes

• Motion blur for Hair&Fur in "mr prim" mode does not match the "buffer" mode;
• Occasional random crashes in 3ds Max 2010 due to progress bar updates;
• Fixed invalid smoothed normals causing issues with displacement;
• Fixed AA artifacts with thin bright lines when using Adaptive DMC image sampler;
• Stuck buckets with perfectly transparent surfaces and GI;
• Incorrect vignetting for VRayPhysicalCamera when using horizontal/vertical offset;
• setVRaySilentMode() should disable the dialog for overwriting raw .vrimg files;
• Missing reflections in VRayFastSSS2 when it is a coat material inside a VRayBlendMtl;
• Incorrect bump mapping for GI when using time-interpolated irradiance maps;
• Fixed artifacts with VRayFastSSS2 when one of the scatter color components is zero;
• Fixed incorrect normal map with VRayNormalMap on VRayProxy objects;
• Fixed crash with animated irradiance maps and objects with zero scale;
• The color of VRayIES lights was not animatable;
• VRayIES lights did not produce photon-mapped caustics;
• Fixed invalid normals with VRayEdgesTex in the bump slot;

Build 1.5 SP4a

Official release

Date - 27 November 2009

Modified features

• Added support for projection mapping when doing texture baking;
• Added an option to link the V-Ray VFB to PDPlayer;

Bug fixes

• Turning off "Affect specular" for a dome light made it invisible to reflections as well;
• Fixed a crash when importing a particular .vrmesh file;
• Fixed crash with VRayFastSSS2 material with VRayDirt map and a standard light with VRayShadowMap;
• The "prepass samples" option in the motion blur rollout did not work;
• Fixed stuck buckets with VRayEnvironmentFog and mesh gizmos;
• Fixed issues with VRayEnvironmentFog and mesh gizmos with modifiers;
• User could not remove gizmos/lights from VRayEnvironmentFog;
• ParticleFlow instancing did not render all mapping channels of original mesh;
• Fixed crash with VFB region render when region is outside of image;
• Turned off by default the option to save the DR servers to the scene (caused slowdown on scene save if servers are offline);
• Fixed some licensing issues;

Build 1.50.SP4

Official release

Date - 15 October 2009

New features

• Added VRayAmbientLight;

Modified features

• Improved multithreading on multi-core machines;
• Ability to specify gizmo falloff for VRayEnvironmentFog;
• Ability to use arbitrary meshes as gizmos for VRayEnvironmentFog;
• Option to exclude the background from VRayEnvironmentFog;
• "Show last VFB" command works even when there is no VFB (e.g. scene is just opened);
• Added CIE sky models to the VRaySun and VRaySky;
• It is now possible to submit DR servers list for DR though backburner;
• Added option for the VRayIES light to not use area speculars;
• Added Kelvin temperature settings for the color of VRayLights;
• VFB history is now turned off when 3ds Max is in slave mode;
• Output .vrimg and split channel paths are listed in the Asset Tracker;
• GI cache files (irradiance maps, light cache etc) are listed in the Asset Tracker;

Bug fixes

• DR fails with large .max files;
• Crash with Remove button for gizmos and lights in VRayEnvironmentFog;
• Crash with Hair&Fur in 3ds Max Design 2010;
• Issue with Arch&Design materials in multi/sub-object material;
• It should not be possible to export already created VRayProxy objects as .vrmesh files;
• Fixed invalid colors with texture-mapped lights when the texture contains black areas;
• Fixed occasional license errors with codes (-209), (-9) and (1000) on slow networks;
• Fixed a crash when using a combination of VRayLightMtl materials and VrayDirt with "Work with transparency" enabled;
• Cloning the V-Ray renderer did not clone the override material exclusion list;
• Fixed problems with velocity channel and objects close to the camera;
• VRayToon was black on directly visible dome lights;
• Fixed issue with VRayToon and opacity mapped objects;
• Fixed a problem with hilights in VRayFastSSS2 material;
• Fixed different buckets with interpolated glossy reflections and DR;
• Multi-matte render element did not work with VRaySphereFade;
• Fixed crash with DR in specific cases;
• The MAXScript for exporting .vrscene files now exports "RGB Multiply", "RGB Tint", "ColorCorrect" and "ColorCorrection" textures;

Build 1.50.SP3a

Official release

Date - 7 April 2009

New features

• Compatibility with 3ds Max 2010;
• Native rendering of 3ds Max Hair&Fur in 3ds Max 2010 when using "mr prim" mode in the Hair&Fur render effect;

Bug fixes

• Fixed crash with region rendering in the V-Ray VFB;
• Fixed a problem with the velocity render element (values were too big);
• Fixed invalid colors with global ambient occlusion amount greater than 1.0;
• VRayDirt parameters were not listed properly in Track View;
• Arch&Design materials did not render inside multi/subobject materials;
• Fixed very slow rendering with VRayEnvironmentFog and animated Noise textures;
• Fixed splotches with time-interpolated irradiance maps and "Use camera path" option enabled;
• Fixed crash with distributed rendering and irradiance maps;
• Volume caustics not working with mapped fog density;
• Fixed crash with VRayBlendMtl material on rendering if Material Editor renderer is Default Scanline;
• Fixed crash when the rendering is cancelled;

Build 1.50.SP3

Official release

Date - 1 March 2009 (cumulative changelog since build 1.50.SP2)

New features

• VRayFastSSS2 material for simulating accurate sub-surface scattering;
• VRayEnvironmentFog atmospheric effect;
• VRayLightMtl has options to generate direct light;
• VRayLight has a "Mesh" mode to allow geometric lights;
• Support for the 3ds Max Arch&Design material (most basic options are supported);
• Support for vector displacement in VRayDisplacementMod;
• Global ambient occlusion for all supported GI engines (irradiance map, light cache, photon map);
• Added VRayVectorDisplBake material and VRayNormalMap textures to help produce and use textures for vector displacement;

Modified features

• V-Ray requires a SSE2-capable processor even for 32-bit versions;
• Reduced flickering for time-interpolated irradiance maps;
• Support for volumetric irradiance maps, light cache and photon maps;
• VRayFur uses volumetric irradiance maps/light cache to speed up rendering;
• VRaySun is never visible to GI rays (removes spots from the sun in the irradiance map);
• The "Default lights" option now has three possible values - "off", "on" and "off with GI";
• Added MAXScript access to the include/exclude lists of VRayLights (including VRaySun and VRayIES) through the "excludeList", "includeList" and "inclExclType" MAXScript properties;
• Camera information (transformation, FOV etc) is written to .vrimg and OpenEXR files when using the "Raw image file" option of the V-Ray VFB; vrimg2exr also translates this information;
• Support for region rendering directly in the V-Ray VFB;
• The "Affect alpha" option of VRayMtl has been replaced with "Affect channels" option and allows propagation of all render elements, not only the alpha channel;
• The alpha channel is correct for glossy refractions that have the "Affect channels" option set to "Color+alpha" or "All channels";
• The "Use irradiance map" option in VRayMtl materials now concerns the light cache too;
• VRayDirt texture has include/exclude options for objects that should affect and should be affected by the dirt texture;
• The default Distribution parameter of VRayDirt is set to 1.0 (corresponds to using the dirt for ambient occlusion);
• Camera overrides (e.g. spherical, box etc), work when rendering through a VRayPhysicalCamera, picking the exposure from it;
• Added another preview option to VRayProxy (preview from file as faces instead of edges);
• Added animation export parameters to the meshExport() MAXScript function;
• Option to specify the maximum number of faces in the preview of exported .vrmesh files;
• VRayProxy has the possibility to extract the geometry from the .vrmesh file as a 3ds Max mesh;
• When exporing a .vrmesh file, V-Ray will put up a warning if the file already exists;
• In VRayProxy objects, a sequence of '#' characters in the file name is replaced with the current frame number;
• Added "Horizontal offset" and "Vertical offset" parameters to VRayPhysicalCamera;
• Added "Horizontal shift" parameter to the physical camera;
• The MultiMatte render element has an "affect matte objects";
• The MultiMatte render element works with transparent objects;
• The VRayZDepth render element works with transparent objects (when "Enable filtering" is ON);
• The VRayZDepth render element has filtering enabled by default;
• Added "Affect matte objects" option to VRayExtraTex render element;
• VRayExtraTex render element works with transparent objects;
• Render element names reverted to VRay* (without underscore);
• Option to restart render slaves for DR after the rendering completes;
• The distributed rendering settings window can be resized now;
• Check/uncheck all selected servers in DR settings dialog;
• Support for the incremental modes of the irradiance map in distributed rendering;
• V-Ray will transfer the 3ds Max gamma settings for DR rendering;
• Some small changes in the network code to see if DR is more reliable;

Bug fixes

• Textures saved from RTT were black;
• Fixed an error in the V-Ray materials conversion script for Raytrace materials;
• Camera transformation sampling for motion blur now matches that of scene objects for the same number of geometry samples;
• Camera motion blur now works when rendering frames outside the current animation range;
• VRayFastSSS2 material was not visible in the VRayMtlSelect render element;
• Fixed issues when using alternate licensing servers;
• VRay2SidedMtl material did not list the translucency texture map in Track View;
• VRayLightMtl did not work with color and transparency mapping when the "Direct illumination" option was enabled;
• VRayLightMtl did not work with the "Emit on backside" option when the "Direct illumination" option was enabled;
• VRayEdgexTex did not keep its name when saved to a material library;
• Running the V-Ray material conversion script on scenes containing Arch&Design materials produced an error;
• Crash if using an override material with interpolated reflections/refractions;
• Orthographic views render straight lines instead of curves when using PowerNurbs;
• Fixed crash with displacement;
• VRayFur density map did not work with Falloff map in Distance blend/Object mode;
• The exposure slider in the V-Ray VFB could be moved out of the color corrections window;
• Exposure correction in the VFB was not applied when 3ds Max scene is loaded;
• New thumbs could be added to the exposure slider;
• V-Ray generated z-depth channel in the GBuffer did not match the scanline renderer;
• Velocity channel info not correct for moving cameras if the motion blur parameters of V-Ray are not the default ones (even when V-Ray moblur is off);
• Fixed a crash when unloading dynamic geometry;
• VRayCompTex did not list its textures as sub-anims to 3ds Max;
• The browse file dialog for VRayIES lights now uses the *.ies filter by default;
• VRayToon did not support the 3ds Max atmospheric gizmo access methods;
• Crashes with VRayHDRI while rendering with open material editor;
• Incorrect with W mapping coordinate of VRayFur;
• Changing the color mode of VRayIES to "Temperature" did not enable the temperature spinner until the light is re-selected;
• VRayFastSSS did not list its textures as sub-anims to 3ds Max;
• V-Ray evaluated all objects at time 0 before starting the rendering - this is now done only when using the irradiance map animation modes;
• VRayProxy .vrmesh files not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRayHDRI maps not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRayIES profiles not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRaySimbiont shaders not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• Issues exporting .vrmesh files with the '#' character in the names (now these are replaced with '_');
• Object properties not preserved when objects are automatically converted to proxies during .vrmesh export;
• Issues animating the vertical shift using the "Guess vertical shift" button;
• DR slaves could hang in an indefinite state while rendering;
• DR slaves rendered black buckets if rendering was cancelled while receiving the .max scene of a previous render;
• Incorrect sampling rate with the Adaptive subdivision image sampler and the "Don't affect final colors" option on;

Build 1.50.SP3

Beta release

Date - 02 February 2009

Modified features

• V-Ray core version number updated to 1.70.00;
• V-Ray for 3ds Max version updated to 1.50.SP3;
• VRayEnvironmentFog produces matching lighting for area lights and GI;
• Some UI improvements for VRayEnvironmentFog (added cut-off and max. steps parameters);
• V-Ray will transfer the 3ds Max gamma settings for DR rendering;
• New mode for single scattering "Raytraced (refractive)" for rendering transparent objects in VRayFastSSS2;
• Option to restart render slaves for DR after the rendering completes;
• Faster rendering for VRayFastSSS2;

Bug fixes

• Textures saved from RTT were black;

Build 1.60.35

Date - 09 December 2008

Modified features

• Support for the incremental modes of the irradiance map in distributed rendering;
• Somewhat better support for the Arch&Design material (bump map amount, textures on/off, custom falloff function, metallic reflections, highlights only, reflection/refraction depth);
• The "Default lights" option now has three possible values - "off", "on" and "off with GI";
• The "Affect alpha" option of VRayMtl has been replaced with "Affect channels" option and allows propagation of all render elements, not only the alpha channel;
• VRayDirt texture will render black on objects excluded from it, rather than with the "Unoccluded" color;
• The alpha channel is correct for glossy refractions that have the "Affect channels" option set to "Color+alpha" or "All channels";
• The VRayLight has an option to replace the original mesh with the light when in "Mesh" mode;
• Added MAXScript access to the include/exclude lists of VRayLights (including VRaySun and VRayIES) through the "excludeList", "includeList" and "inclExclType" MAXScript properties;
• The distributed rendering settings window can be resized now;
• Check/uncheck all selected servers in DR settings dialog;
• Camera information (transformation, FOV etc) is written to .vrimg and OpenEXR files when using the "Raw image file" option of the V-Ray VFB; vrimg2exr also translates this information;

Bug fixes

• Fixed an error in the V-Ray materials conversion script for Raytrace materials;
• Camera transformation sampling for motion blur now matches that of scene objects for the same number of geometry samples;
• Camera motion blur now works when rendering frames outside the current animation range;
• VRayFastSSS2 material was not visible in the VRayMtlSelect render element;
• Fixed issues when using alternate licensing servers;
• VRay2SidedMtl material did not list the translucency texture map in Track View;
• VRayLightMtl did not work with color and transparency mapping when the "Direct illumination" option was enabled;
• VRayLightMtl did not work with the "Emit on backside" option when the "Direct illumination" option was enabled;
• VRayEdgexTex did not keep its name when saved to a material library;
• Running the V-Ray material conversion script on scenes containing Arch&Design materials produced an error;
• Crash if using an override material with interpolated reflections/refractions;
• Orthographic views render straight lines instead of curves when using PowerNurbs;
• Level of detail utility (LOD) not working with V-Ray;

Build 1.60.34

Date - 05 September 2008

New features

• VRayFastSSS2 material for simulating accurate sub-surface scattering;

Modified features

• VRayLightMtl has options to generate direct light;
• Better transition between different subdivision levels for 3d displacement;
• VRayLight has a "Mesh" mode to allow geometric lights;
• Support for texture mapped VRayLights in "Mesh" mode;
• Initial support for region rendering directly in the V-Ray VFB;
• Reduced flickering for time-interpolated irradiance maps;
• Support for photon mapping for VRayLights in "Mesh" mode;
• The "Use irradiance map" option in VRayMtl materials now concerns the light cache too;
• Support for volumetric irradiance maps, light cache and photon maps;
• VRayFur uses volumetric irradiance maps/light cache to speed up rendering;
• VRaySun is never visible to GI rays (removes spots from the sun in the irradiance map);
• VRayDirt texture has include/exclude options for objects that should affect and should be affected by the dirt texture;
• The default Distribution parameter of VRayDirt is set to 1.0 (corresponds to using the dirt for ambient occlusion);
• V-Ray is now compiled with version 11 of the Intel C++ compiler;
• V-Ray requires a SSE2-capable processor even for 32-bit versions;

Bug fixes

• Fixed crash with displacement;
• VRayFur density map did not work with Falloff map in Distance blend/Object mode;
• The exposure slider in the V-Ray VFB could be moved out of the color corrections window;
• Exposure correction in the VFB was not applied when 3ds Max scene is loaded;
• New thumbs could be added to the exposure slider;
• V-Ray generated z-depth channel in the GBuffer did not match the scanline renderer;
• Velocity channel info not correct for moving cameras if the motion blur parameters of V-Ray are not the default ones (even when V-Ray moblur is off);
• Fixed a crash when unloading dynamic geometry;

Build 1.60.33

Date - 22 August 2008

Modified features

• Support for vector displacement in VRayDisplacementMod;
• Added another preview option to VRayProxy (preview from file as faces instead of edges);
• Camera overrides (e.g. spherical, box etc), work when rendering through a VRayPhysicalCamera, picking the exposure from it;

Bug fixes

• VRayCompTex did not list its textures as sub-anims to 3ds Max;
• The browse file dialog for VRayIES lights now uses the *.ies filter by default;
• VRayToon did not support the 3ds Max atmospheric gizmo access methods;
• Crashes with VRayHDRI while rendering with open material editor;
• Incorrect with W mapping coordinate of VRayFur;
• Changing the color mode of VRayIES to "Temperature" did not enable the temperature spinner until the light is re-selected;

Build 1.60.32

Date - 24 July 2008

Modified features

• Added animation export parameters to the meshExport() MAXScript function;
• Option to specify the maximum number of faces in the preview of exported .vrmesh files;
• VRayProxy has the possibility to extract the geometry from the .vrmesh file as a 3ds Max mesh;
• When exporing a .vrmesh file, V-Ray will put up a warning if the file already exists;

Bug fixes

• VRayFastSSS did not list its textures as sub-anims to 3ds Max;
• V-Ray evaluated all objects at time 0 before starting the rendering - this is now done only when using the irradiance map animation modes;
• VRayProxy .vrmesh files not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRayHDRI maps not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRayIES profiles not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• VRaySimbiont shaders not archived when using File > Archive is 3ds Max 9 and later;
• Issues exporting .vrmesh files with the '#' character in the names (now these are replaced with '_');
• Object properties not preserved when objects are automatically converted to proxies during .vrmesh export;

Build 1.60.31

Date - 26 June 2008

Modified features

• Some tweaks to the "Horizontal offset" and "Vertical offset" parameters of the VRayPhysicalCamera;
• The MultiMatte render element has an "affect matte objects";
• The MultiMatte render element works with transparent objects;
• The VRayZDepth render element works with transparent objects (when "Enable filtering" is ON);
• The VRayZDepth render element has filtering enabled by default;

Build 1.60.30

Date - 25 June 2008

Modified features

• Added "Horizontal offset" and "Vertical offset" parameters to the VRayPhysicalCamera;

Build 1.60.29

Date - 17 June 2008

Modified features

• Added "Affect matte objects" option to VRayExtraTex render element;
• VRayExtraTex render element works with transparent objects;
• In VRayProxy objects, a sequence of '#' characters in the file name is replaced with the current frame number;
• Render element names reverted to VRay* (without underscore);
• Added "Horizontal shift" parameter to the physical camera;

Bug fixes

• Issues animating the vertical shift using the "Guess vertical shift" button;

Build 1.60.28

Date - 9 June 2008

Bug fixes

• DR slaves could hang in an indefinite state while rendering;
• DR slaves rendered black buckets if rendering was cancelled while receiving the .max scene of a previous render;

Build 1.60.27

Date - 4 June 2008

Bug fixes

• Incorrect sampling rate with the Adaptive subdivision image sampler and the "Don't affect final colors" option on;

Build 1.60.26

Date - 10 May 2008

Modified features

• Some small changes in the network code to see if DR is more reliable;

Build 1.50.SP2

Date - 11 April 2008
(cumulative changelog since build 1.50.SP1)

New features

• Compatibility with 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max Design 2009;
• Support for animated deforming meshes to .vrmesh files and the VRayProxy object;
• Support for Lighting Analysis Overlay render effect in 3ds Max 2009;
• VRayIES light;
• VRaySimbiontMtl material (allows rendering of DarkTree materials directly by V-Ray);
• Rectangle VRayLights can be mapped with a texture map, similar to dome lights;
• VRayShadowMap shadow generator for standard lights (useful for reducing flickering of VRayFur in animations; works with all V-Ray geometry objects like proxies, fur etc.);
• VRay_Illuminance render element;
• VRay_SelfIlluminationMap texture baking element;
• VRay_BumpNormals render element and VRayBumpNormalsMap bake render element to extract bump-mapped normals;
• VRay_ExtraTex render element to store the result from the calculation of any extra texture map on shaded surfaces without the need to actually apply the map in their materials (can be used with VRayDirt for AO pass, or with Vertex Color map for UVW channels pass, or with Falloff map for custom z-depth pass or top/bottom etc);
• VRay_SampleRate render element to show the image sampling rate into a separate element;
• The installation includes MAX.vray Defaults profile for 3ds Max;

Modified features

• Added "Preserve tweaks on load" option for VRaySimbiontMtl;
• DTE components now included with the installation;
• Support for "Show map in viewports" of VRayMtl can be disabled by setting the environment variable VRAY_SHOW_MTL_MAPS to 0;
• Added hidden parameter "option_clampTextures" to VRayMtl, which is true by default for newly created materials (old scenes render as before);
• Faster and multithreaded preparation of texture-mapped VRayLights;
• Improved sampling of texture-mapped VRayLights;
• Added more white balance presets to the VRayPhyscal camera (D50, D55, D65 and D75 corresponding to the CIE standard illuminants);
• The default white balance preset for the VRayPhsycal camera is now the D65 illuminant;
• More reliable memory handling for the V-Ray VFB for large images;
• Mapped rectangle lights now use the alpha of the texture map for transparency;
• The information in .vrmesh files is now compressed by default (makes newly created proxies incompatible with older versions);
• Reduced memory requirements in certain situations;
• In RTT (render to texture) mode, V-Ray now always creates floating-point frame buffers for the bake elements;
• vrimg2exr tool flushes the standard output more regularly;
• Added "Soften" parameter to the BRDF parameters of VRayMtl;
• vrimg2exr tool has an option for gamma correction;
• vrimg2exr tool can convert non-RGB channels (velocity, zdepth etc) when used with the '-channel' option;
• Added a hidden parameter lightcache_minPathsPerSample to control usage of light cache samples during the light cache calculation phase (reduces bias in the light cache when a small number of subdivs are used);
• VRaySun target line is now dimmed in the viewports when the sun light is off;
• VRayProxy objects have a new "point" display mode;

Bug fixes

• Fixed crash when loading scene in 3ds Max 2009;
• VRayFur did not generate velocity channel information;
• Fixed misaligned buckets on render slaves with DR;
• DR with "Don't render final image" caused render slaves to drop after the first frame;
• VRaySun did not display correctly with viewport shading model set to "Best";
• Fixed crash when canceling a DR rendering before the actual render has started;
• The Tweaks rollout of VRaySimbiontMtl turned blank if other rollouts were opened/closed;
• Material editor now updates faster if no license is found;
• All parameters of VRayHDRI appeared named as "Spin" in TrackView;
• The multipliers of VRayHDRI were not animatable;
• Fixed memory leak in the V-Ray license server when the status of the server is requested;
• Fixed memory leak in the new sampler for texture-mapped VRayLight's;
• Browsing for a non-animated irradiance map ending with a number caused that number to be truncated;
• Problem with VRayIES light with soft shadows in the lighting render elements;
• Fixed wrong bounding box of VRayProxy objects;
• Issues with SpeedTree texture filtering;
• Fixed bright spots on matte objects with irradiance map with low settings;
• Fixed problems in VRayMtl with Falloff map and bump map at grazing angles;
• Crash when exporting more than 100 objects to one .vrmesh file;
• VRayShadowMap did not consider light exclude lists and object "Cast shadows" properties;
• Fixed artifacts when rendering dynamic geometry with motion blur;
• Different rendering results between Intel/AMD machines with 64-bit V-Ray;
• Groups within groups did not work with the V-Ray Override mtl exclusion list, as well as with light exclusion lists;
• Exclusion lists for V-Ray lights not imported properly when merging the lights from another file;
• Fixed wrong velocity channel for proxies with Scale parameter different than 1.0;
• ply2vrmesh failed for .ply files with error "wrong format";
• Fixed problem with transparent VRayLightMtl materials and GI;
• Fixed problems in alpha channel when mixing V-Ray and standard 3ds Max materials (e.g. VRayMtl inside a 3ds Max Blend material etc);
• Fixed problems with filtering of some procedural textures (e.g. Gradient Ramp);
• Fixed problems with Falloff map at grazing angles;
• Fixed potential divide-by-zero problems with glossy hilights because of the "Soften" BRDF parameter;
• Fixed precision loss when using the V-Ray VFB render region override options;
• Fixed problem with Particle Flow freezing in certain cases on object preparation during rendering;
• The y-coordinate (green component) of VRayVelocity render element was flipped compared to the 3ds Max one;
• The result from the adaptive DMC image sampler could be different with the "Don't affect colors" option on;
• The vrayspawner.exe application will automatically look for a 3dsviz.exe file, if no 3dsmax.exe can be found;
• The internal V-Ray replacement material for the 3ds Max multi/subobject material now matches the 3ds Max one when an ID is greater than specified in the material;
• MAXScript error using the V-Ray scene converter in 3ds Max 2008;
• Fixed crashes with VRayMtl and DirectX with the "Show map in viewport" option on;
• Objects with visibility<1.0 rendered brighter with GI than they should be;
• Bug with dome lights (from build 1.50.14 only);
• Background seen through matte objects not sampled properly for AA (from 1.50.SP1 only);
• No reflections on VRayMtl if Fresnel reflections are enabled, the Fresnel IOR is locked to the refractive one, and the material has opacity map;
• Dynamic raycaster limit did not work properly for values above 4095;
• Issues with VRayDirt when baking very dense meshes;
• Incorrect rendering progress bar display in DR mode;
• The mesh export to .vrscene file ignored mesh normals;

Build 1.60.25

Date - 10 April 2008

Modified features

• Added "Preserve tweaks on load" option for VRaySimbiontMtl;
• DTE components included with the installation;
• Support for "Show map in viewports" of VRayMtl can be disabled by setting the environment variable VRAY_SHOW_MTL_MAPS to 0;

Bug fixes

• Fixed misaligned buckets on render slaves with DR;
• DR with "Don't render final image" caused render slaves to drop after the first frame;
• VRaySun did not display correctly with viewport shading model set to "Best";
• Fixed crash when canceling a DR rendering before the actual render has started;
• The Tweaks rollout of VRaySimbiontMtl turned blank if other rollouts were opened/closed;
• Material editor now updates faster if no license is found;
• All parameters of VRayHDRI appeared named as "Spin" in TrackView;
• Fixed memory leak in the V-Ray license server when the status of the server is requested;
• Fixed memory leak in the new sampler for texture-mapped VRayLight's;

Build 1.60.24

Date - 2 April 2008

New features

• Support for Lighting Analysis Overlay render effect in 3ds Max 2009;

Modified features

• Added hidden parameter "option_clampTextures" to VRayMtl, which is true by default;

Bug fixes

• Browsing for a non-animated irradiance map ending with a number caused that number to be truncated;

Build 1.60.23

Date - 26 Mar 2008

New features

• Added VRay_Illuminance render element;
• Added the VRaySimbiontMtl material to the installation;
• The installation includes MAX.vray Defaults profile for 3ds Max;
• Added VRay_SelfIlluminationMap texture baking element;

Modified features

• Faster and multithreaded preparation of texture-mapped VRayLights;
• Improved sampling of texture-mapped VRayLights;

Bug fixes

• Problem with VRayIES light with soft shadows in the lighting render elements;
• Fixed wrong bounding box of VRayProxy objects;
• Issues with SpeedTree texture filtering;
• Crash when exporting more than 100 objects to one .vrmesh file;
• VRayShadowMap did not consider light exclude lists and object "Cast shadows" properties;

Build 1.60.22

Date - 04 Mar 2008

Bug fixes

• Fixed precision loss for dynamic geometry with motion blur;
• Different rendering results between Intel/AMD machines with 64-bit V-Ray;
• Groups within groups did not work with the V-Ray Override mtl exclusion list, as well as with light exclusion lists;
• Exclusion lists for V-Ray lights not imported properly when merging the lights from another file;

Build 1.60.21

Date - 29 Feb 2008

New features

• Added VRay_BumpNormals render element and VRayBumpNormalsMap bake render element to extract bump-mapped normals;
• Added VRay_ExtraTex render element to store the result from the calculation of any extra texture map on shaded surfaces without the need to actually apply the map in their materials (can be used with VRayDirt for AO pass, or with Vertex Color map for UVW channels pass, or with Falloff map for custom z-depth pass or top/bottom etc);
• Added VRay_SampleRate render element to show the image sampling rate into a separate element;
• Added VRayIES light (initial implementation, needs more work);

Modified features

• Added more white balance presets to the VRayPhyscal camera (D50, D55, D65 and D75 corresponding to the CIE standard illuminants);
• The default white balance preset for the VRayPhsycal camera is now the D65 illuminant;
• More reliable memory handling for the V-Ray VFB for large images;

Bug fixes

• Fixed wrong velocity channel for proxies with Scale parameter different than 1.0;
• ply2vrmesh failed for .ply files with error "wrong format";

Build 1.60.20

Date - 18 Feb 2008

New features

• Added VRayShadowMap shadow generator (useful for reducing flickering of VRayFur in animations; works with all V-Ray geometry objects like proxies, fur etc.);

Modified features

• Mapped rectangle lights now use the alpha of the texture map for transparency;
• Added support for animated deforming meshes to .vrmesh files and the VRayProxy object;
• The information in .vrmesh files is now compressed by default (makes newly created proxies incompatible with older versions);
• Reduced memory requirements in certain situations;

Bug fixes

• Fixed problem with transparent VRayLightMtl materials and GI;

Build 1.60.19

Date - 6 Feb 2008

Bug fixes

• Fixed bright spots on matte objects with irradiance map with low settings;
• Fixed problems in VRayMtl with Falloff map and bump map at grazing angles;

Build 1.60.18

Date - 29 Jan 2008

Modified features

• In RTT (render to texture) mode, V-Ray now always creates floating-point frame buffers for the bake elements;

Bug fixes

• Fixed problems in alpha channel when mixing V-Ray and standard 3ds Max materials (e.g. VRayMtl inside a 3ds Max Blend material etc);
• Fixed problems with filtering of some procedural textures (e.g. Gradient Ramp);
• Fixed problems with Falloff map at grazing angles;

Build 1.60.17

Date - 25 Jan 2008

Modified features

• vrimg2exr tool flushes the standard output more regularly;
• Added "soften" parameter to the BRDF parameters of VRayMtl;
• Initial compatibility with 3ds Max 2009;

Bug fixes

• Fixed potential divide-by-zero problems with glossy hilights because of the "Soften" BRDF parameter;
• Fixed precision loss when using the V-Ray VFB render region override options;
• Fixed problem with Particle Flow freezing in certain cases on object preparation during rendering;
• The y-coordinate (green component) of VRayVelocity render element was flipped compared to the 3ds Max one;
• The result from the adaptive DMC image sampler could be different with the "Don't affect colors" option on;
• The vrayspawner.exe application will automatically look for a 3dsviz.exe file, if no 3dsmax.exe can be found;

Build 1.60.16

Date - 04 Dec 2007

Modified features

• vrimg2exr tool has an option for gamma correction;
• vrimg2exr tool can convert non-RGB channels (velocity, zdepth etc) when used with the '-channel' option;

Bug fixes

• The internal V-Ray replacement material for the 3ds Max multi/subobject material now matches the 3ds Max one when an ID is greater than specified in the material;
• MAXScript error using the V-Ray scene converter in 3ds Max 2008;
• Fixed crashes with VRayMtl and DirectX with the "Show map in viewport" option on;

Build 1.60.15

Date - 03 Dec 2007

Modified features

• Added a hidden parameter lightcache_minPathsPerSample to control usage of light cache samples during the light cache calculation phase (reduces bias in the light cache when a small number of subdivs are used);
• Advanced main development branch to version to 1.60.xx (1.50.xx remains for updates to V-Ray 1.5);

Bug fixes

• Objects with visibility<1.0 rendered brighter with GI than they should be;
• Bug with dome lights (from build 1.50.14 only);
• Background seen through matte objects not sampled properly for AA (from 1.50.SP1 only);

Build 1.50.14

Date - 26 Nov 2007

Modified features

• VRaySun target line is now dimmed in the viewports when the sun light is off;
• Rectangle VRayLight's can be mapped with a texture map, similar to dome lights;

Bug fixes

• No reflections on VRayMtl if Fresnel reflections are enabled, the Fresnel IOR is locked to the refractive one, and the material has opacity map;
• Dynamic raycaster limit did not work properly for values above 4095;

Build 1.50.13

Date - 16 Nov 2007

Bug fixes

• The mesh export to .vrscene file ignored mesh normals;

Build 1.50.12

Date - 15 Nov 2007

Modified feature

• VRayProxy objects have a new "point" display mode;

Bug fixes

• Issues with VRayDirt when baking very dense meshes;
• Incorrect rendering progress bar display in DR mode;

Build 1.50.SP1

Date - 9 Nov 2007

Modified features

• If registered as a service, the V-Ray license server will be restarted automatically if it closes unexpectedly;
• VRayMtl has texture maps for anisotropy and anisotropy orientation;
• The "Clamp output" option now always affects the image, regardless of the "Don't affect colors" option for the color mapping;
• VRayProxy has a Scale parameter that allows it to work with the "Rescale World Units" utility;
• Schlick sampling is now the only path sampler supported by V-Ray;
• More reliable communication between V-Ray and the V-Ray license server;
• Added "Taper" parameter to VRayFur;
• VRayCompTex can now be used as a bump map;
• Color mapping will not affect background seen on matte objects if "Affect background" option is off;

Bug fixes

• Compatibility issues with 3ds Max 2008;
• Restarting spawner on a machine causes clients to crash (when not rendering);
• Crash when rendering renderable splines;
• Crash at end of rendering when using VRayDomeCamera;
• Crash when rendering VRayLight's with the scanline renderer;
• Multi/sub materials with both a refractive and opacity-mapped materials rendered the refractive materials wrong;
• The V-Ray license server did not list the number of engaged/free licesnes properly in the status web page;
• The Panorama Exporter utility did not work properly;
• VRayDirt could fall in an infinite cycle when applied on transparent objects itself;
• When used with the -channel option, VRImg2EXR created additional empty channels in the resulting .exr file;
• Inconsistent noise patterns between identical frames in animation;
• Crashes under VIZ 2008 when loading scenes with VRayMtl materials with the "Show map in viewport" button and DirectX viewport display;
• The number of light cache samples taken on the image could be lower than specified by the light cache Subdivs value;
• VRayToon did not work with camera clipping;
• VRayLight in skylight portal mode with the "Simple" option checked used the 3ds Max background, rather than the GI environment override specified in the V-Ray Environment rollout;
• VRayLight with multiplier 0.0 now renders as though the light is turned off (resulting in faster renders in this case);
• Reduced memory consumption per connection for the V-Ray license server;
• VRaySun did not produce shadow render elements (VRayShadow, VRayMatteShadow etc) render elements;
• The 3ds Max Composite material could produce incorrect alpha when used with transparent VRayMtl materials;
• Slow rendering of objects with alpha contribution less than or equal to 0.0;
• Distributed rendering though BackBurner was not working properly;
• VRaySky could produce negative colors when the sun is below the horizon;
• The raw lighting render elements did not respect opacity mapping;
• The V-Ray scene converter script does not disable maps in the resulting VRayMtl materials when there are no map assigned in the original ones;
• Objects not visible to GI blocked caustics;
• Dark edges on glossy materials with VRayEdgesTex as bump map;
• Irradiance map samples were not distributed correctly if the "Don't affect colors" option for Color mapping was on;
• VRayWrapperMtl did not work inside a VRayBlendMtl material;

Build 1.50.00 final

New features

• New render elements: VRayMatteShadow, VRayTotalLighting, VRayRawTotalLighting;
• Added exporter script to the .vrscene file format supported by the standalone version of V-Ray;
• Animation modes for the irradiance map (added two new modes "Animation (prepass)" and "Animation (rendering)" along with a paramter to control the blend between frames;

Modified features

Core engine

• Increased rendering speed for some types of scenes;
• By default V-Ray no longer uses rQMC sampling; instead, a modified version of Schlick sampling is used (noise is reduced in certain situations);

Installation

• Updated WIBU-key drivers for 32- and 64-bit Windows* (including Windows* Vista*) are included with the installation;
• The uninstaller will unregister any V-Ray services as well (DR spawner, license server etc.);
• The installation has three options for the type of installation (full workstation installation; render slave installation; and license server only);

Lights and cameras

• New photometric models for VRaySun, VRaySky, VRayPhysicalCamera and VRayLights;
• Global option to work in the system lighting units of 3dsmax for consistent results with 3dsmax photometric lights;
• VRayLight has a "Cutoff threshold" parameter, which allows to reduce render times in scenes with many weak lights;
• VRayLight has an "Affect reflections" option to control reflection visibility separately from speculars;
• VRayLight has a "Simple portal" option that speeds up the rendering by considering environment color only (rather than tracing behind the portal);
• VRayLight has a "Cast shadows" option;
• VRayLight objects now produce accurate motion blur when animated;
• VRaySun is now compatible with the 3dsmax Daylight system and can be selected as a sun type;
• VRaySky will now pick the first VRaySun light in the scene that is enabled (rather than the first one at all);
• VRayPhysicalCamera supports horizon line in the viewports, clipping and environment near and far ranges;
• VRayPhysicalCamera has a parameter for controlling the amount of vignetting;

Disributed rendering (DR)

• DR is now supported for Render-to-texture;
• DR can now be started as a BackBurner job;
• Render slaves can be added on the fly to the distributed rendering;
• (note: the servers must still first be added as DR servers list in the DR settings);
• (note: if more than 1 network adapters are installed on the slave, set the VRAY_DR_SUBNET env. variable);
• If "Check for missing files" option is checked, DR will now fail on the render slaves if some maps cannot be found, instead or rendering wrong buckets;

Geometry

• New default "Auto" mode for the "Default geometry" parameter automatically detects heavy meshes and instances and renders them as dynamic geometry to save RAM;
• The ply2vrmesh converter now supports .obj files and has some .obj-specific options;
• VRayProxy objects display faster in the viewports;
• VRayProxy will now re-link the .vrmesh file at each frame, rather than only at the render start;
• VRayProxy objects now produce motion blur when the proxy transformation is animated;
• VRayProxy objects now generate velocity information for image motion blur when their transformation is animated;
• VRayProxy objects now declare the .vrmesh files to the Asset Tracker in 3ds Max 9;

Materials and textures

• Added exclude list for material override in the Global Switches rollout;
• Matte objects with the "Shadows" option checked will now generate VRayRawLighting, VRayRawShadow and VRayMatteShadow elements;
• VRayDirt has an option "Work with transparency", which causes it to take into account the transparency of occluding objects;
• VRayHDRI has a "Render multiplier" parameter, which additionally modifies the map only at render time;
• VRayHDRI maps now declare their files to the Asset Tracker in 3ds Max 9;
• VRayMtl has a new "hybrid" SSS model;
• VRayMtl now has an "Envrionment priority" option to control environment override behaviour between different materials;
• VRayMtl now has a "Roughness" parameter that allows to produce effects close to dusty surfaces (like skin or the surface of the Moon);
• VRayColor texture has an option to apply gamma correction to the displayed color in the UI;
• VRayFastSSS material has been reworked to use the irradiance map interpolation mechanism for faster and smoother results;
• VRayEdgesTex can now be used as a bump map to produce a rounded-corners effect on triangle meshes;
• VRayMtlWrapper has the options "No GI on other mattes" and "GI surface ID" added to it;
• VRayOverrideMtl has a shadow override option;

GI solutions

• The irradiance map viewer will print out the progress of merging irradiance maps;
• The autosave file names for irradiance/light cache/photon/caustics maps are now updated at each frame, rather than only at the render start;
• The irradiance/light cache/photon/caustics maps are auto-saved as soon as they are computed, rather than at the end of the frame/rendering;
• The "Save maps per frame" option has been removed from the GI rollout;

Render output

• "Don't affect colors" option for color mapping; useful if you only need the sampling adaptation to be performed;
• "Clamp Level" option for color mapping (specifies the level at which colors are clamped, if clamping is on);
• Options for directly controlling the render mode (region, crop etc) of the V-Ray VFB;
• When rendering to texture (RTT) the 3dsmax VFB is now always generated, regardless of whether the V-Ray VFB is on or off;
• V-Ray will write a tiled OpenEXR file directly to disk, similar to a raw .vrimg file, if the raw file name ends in ".exr";

Others

• VRayDisplacementMod now supports high-dynamic range textures for displacement in "2d landscape" mode;
• V-Ray will now force multithreading when 3dsmax is in slave mode, regardless of the 3dsmax multithreading option;
• Added "Affect alpha" option to VRaySphereFade;
• VRaySphereFade works correctly with transparent objects;
• VRayFur can now generate motion blur with more than 2 geometry samples;
• The default value for the number of light cache passes is now 8;
• The parameters of the renderer have been split into several tabs in the Render Scene dialog for 3ds Max 9 and later;

Known issues

• When rendering a 3dsmax Raytrace material applied on VRayProxy objects, V-Ray will crash; removing the Raytrace material prevents the crash;
• Instancing a group inside a ParticleFlow system may cause a crash, if the original group is rendered as well; hiding the instanced group prevents the crash;

Bug fixes

• "Affect shadows" and "Affect alpha" options did not work for VRayMtls inside a Multi/subobject material (RC3 bug);
• Moving VRayPhysicalCamera caused spurious MacroRecorder events about the target distance changing;
• Problems with 2D displacement (RC3 bug);
• Automatically created VRaySky did not have a name;
• Horizontal scrolling problems with the V-Ray messages window;
• VRayOverrideMtl could cause 3dsmax to crash;
• Multi/subobject material inside a VRayBlendMtl etc. did not render;
• 64-bit V-Ray could fall into an infinite cycle when rendering 2d displacement;
• Some rare raycaster precision errors were fixed;
• Starting/finishing rendering could be extremely slow in 3dsmax R9;
• VRayHDRI always took at least 10 MB of memory, regardless of actual image size (RC3 bug);
• Incorrect irradiance map density and texture sharpness when using camera clipping planes;
• Missing files (textures/VRayProxies etc) were not always detected correctly;
• Distributed rendering between mixed 32/64-bit V-Ray versions did not work properly;
• Standard materials with transparency did not render properly (RC3 bug);
• No motion blur for ParticleFlow on 64-bit 3dsmax;
• Color corrections from the V-Ray VFB were applied to the alpha channel when splitting the render channels to files;
• Crash with the "Show map in viewport" option for VRayMtl when using Direct3D (RC3 bug);
• Textures with mapping channels greater than 1 are now correctly shown in the Material Editor;
• The "Global light level" options from the Environment dialog now affect the color of VRayLights and standard 3dsmax lights;
• VRayBlendMtl did not list the blend textures as sub-anims;
• If "Render to raw image file" option for the V-Ray VFB was ON, but the file name is empty, V-Ray would freeze while rendering;
• The parameters of VRayMtlWrapper did not have proper names in Track View;
• If the primary GI engine was light cache or photon map but GI is turned off, standard materials would render black;
• VRayMtl materials with low glossiness inside a VRayBlendMtl could produce polygonal artifacts on shadow/light boundaries;
• The pixel aspect ratio from the Render Scene dialog was ignored when rendering with DR to the 3dsmax VFB;
• A low-dynamic range 3dsmax frame buffer was used even when saving to a high-dynamic range file format (.exr, .hdr etc);
• Problems when rendering animations in DR mode with light cache as both primary and secondary engine;
• Small rectangle area lights could produce artifacts for points lying close to the light plane;
• Somewhat better memory management for proxies and dynamic meshes;
• Crashes with VRayFur on animated objects when using motion blur;
• Incorrect environment color with several VRayLights in "dome" mode;
• "Crop" render mode with the V-Ray VFB did not work for animations;
• Sporadic crashes when using the "Camera Map Per Pixel" texture inside V-Ray materials (VRayMtl, VRayLightMtl etc);
• VRayBmpFilter did not always display its bitmap texture successfully;
• VRayBmpFilter could produce invalid colors;
• Photon mapping could produce wrong GI on transparent surfaces;
• Crashes with interpolated glossy reflections/refractions if there is only 1 sample in the interpolation map;
• Irradiance map produced incorrect results when used with VRayLight in "Light portal" mode;
• Faceting on low-poly geometry when using anisotropic reflections with UV-channel mapping;
• Incorrect sampling with gamma color correction when some of the pixel RGB components is zero;
• In 3dsmax 9, VRayMtlWrapper, VRay2SidedMtl, VRayOverrideMtl could crash when reset from the Material Editor;
• Some V-Ray materials (e.g. VRayMtl) did not reset when the "Reset" button from the Material Editor was used;
• The contents of the V-Ray VFB was not cleared regardless of the "Previous render" option in the System rollout;
• V-Ray sun could produce brighter highlights than is correct when its size multiplier is much greater than 1.0;
• Banding with very small spherical VRayLights;
• SSS with VRayMtl did not work properly with intersecting refractive objects;
• Problems with dome light and matte/shadow materials with GI on;
• VRayBlendMtl in additive mode produced incorrect alpha channel;
• VRayHDRI did not free is memory with the freeSceneBitmaps() MAXScript command;
• Crash when rendering disconnected Particle Flow events;
• In 3dsmax 9, clearing a texture in VRayMtl could cause a crash, if the texture is visible in the viewport;
• In 64-bit 3dsmax, the Dynamic raycaster memory spinner was still limited to 4096 MB;
• In some cases VRayFur did not render properly;
• Wrong mapping coordinates for VRayFur when motion blur was enabled;
• Incorrect velocity G-Buffer channel due to camera movement for scaled cameras;
• Distortion map for VRayToon had no effect;
• Light cache prefiltering ignored GI surface IDs;
• VRayLight's appeared in reflections for objects excluded from the lights;
• Light cache files saved on 32-bit machines did not load properly on 64-bit machines and vice-versa;
• When rendering a high-resolution image with the "Hilbert" region sequence, V-Ray could crash;
• A light which had "Affect diffuse" option off still contributed to the diffuse lighting channels;
• When mass-editing V-Ray object or light properties, greyed out properties with different values across the nodes were incorrecly applied to the nodes;
• Area VRayShadows with Box type did not respect the rotation of the light;
• DR render slaves crashed when photometric Linear or Area lights were contained in the scene;
• VRayFastSSS displayed black in the viewports;
• VRImg2Exr tool gave error when converting large .vrimg files rendered in "region" mode;
• MAXScript error when adding VRayCausticsMap to the RTT bake elements;
• When rendering animations with DR, slaves faster than the client machine could fail to contribute to some of the frames;
• Using RoyalRender client as a service caused a wxWidgets error when no-one is logged on the machine;
• V-Ray may fail to render the last few buckets of an image;

Build 1.50.RC3

Date - 18 Oct 2006

New features

• Support for 3dsmax R9 32- and 64-bit versions;
• The V-Ray shading SDK is now a part of the V-Ray installation;
• Added "Guess vertical shift" button to the VRayPhysicalCamera;
• Added "Distortion type" for the VRayPhysicalCamera. The "Cubic" distortion type is used in programs like SynthEyes or Boujou and allows exact camera matching with these programs;
• Added an option "Invisible" for the VRaySun to avoid speckles on mirror surfaces;

Modified features

• The DOF planes of the VRayPhysicalCamera match more closely the actual DOF effect;
• The V-Ray presets file name can now be changed from the default;
• Better memory management for large HDR maps in VRayHDRI;
• VRayLightMtl has an option to use an opacity map;
• The V-Ray converter script now supports the standard 3dsmax Blend, Shellac, DoubleSided and Architectural materials and converts them to the respective V-Ray counterparts;
• VRayMtl now can show the diffuse texture map in the viewport;
• The V-Ray license server is registered in "Automatic" service mode instead of "Manual";

Known issues

• "Affect shadows" and "Affect alpha" options do not work for VRayMtl's inside a Multi/subobject material. This will be fixed as soon as possible;

Bug fixes

• Hiding a VRayPhysicalCamera immediately after its creation did not hide the target;
• When cloning a V-Ray material or texture, any custom attributes were not copied to the clone;
• Particle Flow material IDs were not taken into consideration;
• VRayFur crashed when the source object did not contain a mesh;
• V-Ray could crash when saving a preset if the presets file could not be opened for writing;
• Some problems when creating a VRayLight with Dome type were fixed;
• Fixed a potential crash with the viewport display of the VRaySun;
• Using the light cache with crop/blowup rendering could cause a crash;
• The "%camera" keyword for the frame stamp did not work in the V-Ray VFB;
• The VRayLight in dome mode blocked shadows from VRaySun passing through transparent objects;
• In ppt mode the alpha channel for transparent objects was not correct;
• V-Ray now fills in all nodeID/mtlID/velocity render elements rather than only the first one;
• Replaced the '�' character for automatically generated UIs with regular '.' since '�' may be a special character on some versions of Windows (e.g. Japanese);
• The sub-materials of VRayBlendMtl did not show up in Track View; VRayBlendMtl did not allow wiring of the sub-materials;
• If a standard 3dsmax skylight object is present in the scene, V-Ray will print a warning and ignore it, rather than crash;
• VRayLanczosFilter produced black images with Fixed or Adaptive QMC at 1/1 image samplers;
• The renderer did not list environment maps and the override material as subanims;
• The irradiance map viewer would crash when merging maps from the command line;
• The dome light did not list its dome texture map as sub-anim for Track View;
• Crop rendering did not work in the V-Ray VFB;
• If the VFB resolution was different from the 3dsmax one, crop and region rendering rendered a wrong part of the image;
• Rendering will be aborted if an error occurs while writing a .vrimg file;
• vrimg2exr failed if -dataWindow option is specified and the image is empty;
• In some intermediate RC3 builds, V-Ray could take a render license when network rendering;
• Creating an un-targeted VRayPhysicalCamera and moving it crashed 3dsmax;
• The "Split render channels" option for the V-Ray VFB did not set the pixel aspect ratio for the resulting images;
• Renamed the "VRayShadow" render element to "VRayShadows" as the name clashed in MAXScript with the VRayShadow shadow type;
• Added an option "Invisible" to the VRaySun to avoid the bright speckles that may happen on reflective surfaces if a single hits the sun;
• Export to a .vrmesh file did not take edited normals into account;
• "Affect shadows" and "Affect alpha" options of a VRayMtl did not work if it was inside a VRayBlendMtl;
• A Falloff map in Shadow/Light mode caused some render elements (e.g. Diffuse filter) to be rendered incorrectly;
• If a render slave is used in DR mode and it does backburner rendering at the same time, the backburner 3dsmax crashed;
• The VRaySun "Size multiplier" produced wrong results when set to 0.0 or a very low value;
• RPC objects did not render correctly with the VRayPhysicalCamera;
• VRayWireColor element produced wrong results with transparent objects;
• VRayLight in Dome mode produced wrong results with matte/shadow objects;
• VRayLight in Dome mode could produce jagged results when visible and mapped with high-resolution HDR maps;
• Some of the new materials (VRay2SidedMtl, VRayBlendMtl etc) did not work properly when used as Override materials;
• VRayLightMtl did not work with VRayBlendMtl and VRay2SidedMtl;
• Using the frame stamp with "Full width" option off and "Center" or "Right" justify could lead to crashes;

Build 1.50.RC2

Date - 7 August 2006

• VRaySun could not be used as a viewport camera;
• The installer did not install all the necessary files for vrlservice.exe and setvrlservice60.exe (libmmd.dll, msvcr70.dll and msvcp70.dll) in the appropriate location;
• DR now works with the "Incremental save" option of 3dsmax, although this may leave shadow copies of file names in the "Open recent" menu, which do not actually exist;
• V-Ray would crash for rendering in the Material Editor if a valid license could not be found;
• V-Ray could crash in distributed rendering mode;
• The default port for the V-Ray license server is changed to 30304 since it conflicted with the old VRLServer;

Build 1.50.RC1

Date - 5 August 2006

• Limited f-number for the V-Ray camera to 0.01 from below, since a value of 0.0 caused 3dsmax to hang;
• Improved multithreaded raytracing of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur etc);

Build 1.49.79

Date - July 2006

• X-Ref'd scenes now work with distributed rendering (but the camera must be in the base .max file; x-ref'd cameras don't work);

Build 1.49.78

Date - 21 July 2006

• Reorganized UI a little bit (e.g. the different irradiance map modes have been made into a drop-down list, rather than radio buttons etc);
• Gamma values from the color mapping rollout could produce black pixels when the AA filter has negative parts (e.g. Catmull-Rom);
• The "ccToDebugger" option will display only messages as specified by the V-Ray log verbose level;

Build 1.49.77

Date - 20 July 2006

• Added a color parameter to VRayColor texture that allows to use the normal 3dsmax color swatch;
• Added a "Scale" parameter to the irradiance map detail enhancement. The "world" mode is useful for fly-through animations;
• Allowed negative shutter offset for the V-Ray physical camera from the UI;
• Bucket labels in DR mode now appear in the V-Ray VFB;

Build 1.49.76

Date - 18 July 2006

• Added detail enhancement to the irradiance map. This is different than ambient occlusion in that it produces more correct results rather than just dirt;
• Channel information was not written to a .vrimg file if the image is not rendered to memory;

Build 1.49.75

Date - 17 July 2006

• Added Lock button for region X/Y size in System rollout;
• Reorganized renderer UI (System rollout in particular);
• Added "Visible in reflections" and "Visible in refractions" option in the V-Ray object properties;

Build 1.49.74

Date - 13 July 2006

• VRayFastSSS reworked and converted to a real material. Can be used with VRayMtlBlend now;

Build 1.49.73

Date - 10 July 2006

• True instance rendering for motion blur when the Dynamic geometry option is used;

Build 1.49.72

Date - 07 July 2006

• Z-Depth render element was not computed correctly;
• Render history did not show up properly;

Build 1.49.71

Date - 05 July 2006

• Fixed a problem with incorrect VRayFur mapping coordinates;

Build 1.49.70

Date - 30 June 2006

• VRayMtlSelect name is with '_' instead of '.';

Build 1.49.69

Date - 30 June 2006

• VRayMtlSelect render element added;

Build 1.49.68

Date - 29 June 2006

• Mapped dome light could produce dots in certain situations;
• Added a warning message box when trying to turn on a render element with the VFB on;

Build 1.49.67

Date - 28 June 2006

• Fixed a crash with VRayProxy if no proxy mesh file is specified;

Build 1.49.66

Date - 27 June 2006

• Render elements from VRayBlendMtl were not quite correct;
• Added V-Ray logo to the V-Ray specific materials;

Build 1.49.65

Date - 26 June 2006

• VRayBlendMtl works correctly with VRay2SidedMtl;
• VRay2SidedMtl produces correct render elements;
• GI bump mapping didn't work since the VRayBlendMtl was introduced;
• "Affect alpha" option did not work since the VRayBlendMtl was introduced;
• Added additive (shellac) mode for the VRayBlendMtl;
• Light portals render correctly when placed one in front of another;