V-Ray 3.2 released

New features:

• (*) VRayVolumeGrid: Added support for rendering of fluid simulation data (Phoenix FD, Field3D and OpenVDB);
• (*) V-Ray: Added ability to add/remove DR servers on the fly from the Render Progress window;
• (*) V-Ray: The DR servers list is re-read whenever the vray_dr.cfg file is modified during rendering;
• (*) V-Ray: Added button to open the V-Ray messages log window;
• (*) V-Ray: Added camera object properties to control the number of transformation samples for camera motion blur;
• (*) V-Ray: Added support for 3ds Max 2016, including the new Physical Camera and Physical Camera Exposure Control;
• (*) V-Ray: MaxScript parameter to control the DMC random seed;
• (*) V-Ray: The V-Ray object properties allow to specify a given map channel as velocity channel (useful with some Alembic importers);
• (*) V-Ray: Provided tooltip descriptions for most of the renderer settings;
• (*) V-Ray RT CPU: Support for VRayEnvironmentFog;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for Composite map rendering;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for displacement;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for VRayMtl anisotropy;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added UDIM tag support;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Implemented QMC sampling for CUDA engine;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Initial support for texture baking;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Support for spherical panorama cameras;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for 3ds Max Spot and Omni lights Decay and Near/Far Attenuation parameters;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for textures output Bezier curve output color correction;
• (*) VRayProxy: Added better methods for generating viewport preview meshes based on mesh simplification;
• (*) VRayProxy: Added Show whole mesh viewport display option;
• (*) VRayProxy: Support for exporting the VRayInstancer as a .vrmesh file preserving the instancing;
• (*) VRayStereoscopic: Support for stereo spherical/cylindrical panorama cameras;
• (*) VFB: Added ability to load the render settings for an image from the history window;
• (*) VFB: Can be zoomed in/out with the regular +/-/* keys (useful for remote access from mobile devices);
• (*) VRayCurvatureMap: A new texture similar to VRayDirt; useful for detecting mesh curvature;
• (*) VRayFur: Faster rendering; can now be accelerated by Embree;
• (*) Hair&Fur: Faster rendering; can now be accelerated by Embree;
• (*) VRayInstancer: Added ability to override node and V-Ray object properties of the source objects;
• (*) VRayInstancer: Added parameters to control the random seed, render percentage;
• (*) VRayInstancer: Added an experimental option for multithreaded instance generation (only for the V-Ray portion of the code);
• (*) VRayLight: Added a line that shows the orientation of the dome lights in the viewport, it also shows the center of VRayHDRI wrapping;
• (*) VRayOSLMtl: Added support for vray_subsurface() closure;
• (*) VRayOSLMtl: Added support for vray_hair() closure;
• (*) VRayOSLMtl/VRayOSLTex: Support for drop-down controls;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Added support for loading PNG grayscale with alpha images;
• (*) Texture baking: Additional bake elements for render to texture: VRayMtlReflectIORBake, VRayReflectionFilterMap;
• (*) V-Ray scene converter: Added initial implementation of conversion of Corona materials and lights;
• (*) ply2vrmesh: Support for conversion of particles from .geo and .bgeo files;
• (*) vrayspawner.exe can assign separate DR nodes to different processor groups;

Modified features:

• (*) V-Ray: Reduced light cache leaks through a new parameter "Leak prevention";
• (*) V-Ray: New default settings for the light cache;
• (*) V-Ray: The GI subdivs multiplier in the V-Ray object properties has been renamed to "Subdivs multiplier" and affects all shading samples for the particular object;
• (*) V-Ray: The render mask can work with transparent and not Visible to Camera objects along the ray paths;
• (*) V-Ray: The render mask on selected objects is intersected by VRayLights;
• (*) V-Ray: Setting the Global subdivs multiplier to 0.0 does not affect the irradiance map and other reflection/refraction interpolation maps;
• (*) V-Ray: Added UI view switcher to the Global DMC sampler rollout;
• (*) V-Ray: Changed the default motion blur duration value to 0.5;
• (*) V-Ray: Improved handling of meshes and proxies that are invisible to the camera;
• (*) V-Ray: Speed up of the "transforming vertices" phase in scenes with many objects;
• (*) V-Ray: Simplified the "default" view of the light cache rollout;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for Falloff texmap in VRayVRmatMtl;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Cleaner glossy reflections from area lights;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Implemented Light Cache support for motion blurred hairs;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Implemented more robust common tasks execution, leading to about 10% render speed gain;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Optimized system CPU memory usage for bitmap textures;
• (*) V-Ray Toolbar: Changed the default alignment to floating for 3ds Max 2016 and later due to issues with default docking;
• (*) VFB: Added VRAY_BLENDED_GUI environment variable that, when set to 0, allows to run the VFB in a separate thread like before, otherwise it runs in the 3ds Max main thread by default;
• (*) VFB: Better contrast function that preserves the black and white points;
• (*) VFB: The render region coordinates are stored normalized to the image size;
• (*) VFB: The vfbControl MaxScript function supports loading of color correction files;
• (*) VFB: The vfbControl MaxScript function does not cause the VFB to show anymore;
• (*) VFB: The "Edit comment" window appears under the mouse cursor when shown;
• (*) VFB: The "Close" button in the "Edit comment" window is changed to "Save and close";
• (*) V-Ray Quick settings: Light cache's Pre-filter is no more affected;
• (*) VRayCarPaint: Added max reflection depth control;
• (*) VRayExposureControl: Added MaxScript access to the "active" and "processBG" options;
• (*) VRayFastSSS2: Changed trace reflections to enabled by default;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Allow negative values for the U/V Crop/Place parameters in VRayHDRI;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Added option to generates IFL lists with full file paths rather than relative;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Faster rendering of tiled textures when the tiled memory limit is reached;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Improved elliptical filtering;
• (*) VRayLight: Simplify the interface options layout;
• (*) VRayProxy: Instancing for Alembic meshes is enabled by default;
• (*) VRayScatterVolumeMtl: Improved calculations;
• (*) VRayToon: Added support for layers in the include/exclude list;
• (*) V-Ray Light Lister: Made the light names fields wider and the list is sorted by the lights names;
• (*) .vrmesh exporter: Added support for VRayInstancer when "Export each mesh to separate file" option is selected;
• (*) .vrscene exporter: The render state of objects is exported;
• (*) Installer: Adding exceptions for applications and ports to the firewall;
• (*) Lens analyzer: Added ability to generate texture for physical camera distortion map;
• (*) ply2vrmesh: Preserve UV set names for .geo/.bgeo files;

Bug fixes:

• (*) V-Ray: Creating VRayFur either from the V-Ray Toolbar or the menus, was not attaching it to the source object's transformation;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when loading Alembic files containing particles with invalid positions;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when rendering a scripted material that extends a 3ds Max native material;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed a crash when rendering primitives with no faces with Embree;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed crash when rendering absolutely straight, motion blurred hairs with Embree;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed hang if cancelling the render during irradiance map calculation phase when DR;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed a random crash at the end of a render if "Get resolution from MAX" option is unchecked;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed artifacts when rendering hairs with Embree;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed some of the quad menu items registering more than once;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed issue where toggling the "Default Lights" option also changed VFB resolution preset;
• (*) V-Ray: Fixed unhandled exception when doing distributed rendering an animation with any of the irradiance map incremental modes;
• (*) V-Ray: Standard 3ds Max materials were not rendering with VRayOverrideMtl;
• (*) V-Ray: Writing output with the "Separate render channels" can be interrupted;
• (*) V-Ray/V-Ray RT CPU: Removed occurring bright pixels with progressive sampling;
• (*) VRayPhysicalCamera: Fixed wrong physical camera distortion when distortion map is used;
• (*) VRayMtl: Fixed wrong shadows with opacity of VRayMtl in VRay2sidedMtl in VRayBlendMtl;
• (*) V-Ray RT: 3ds Max UI was freezing during and for some time after render to texture with large resolutions;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Added support for animated UVW coordinates;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Animation frames were duplicated;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Changing map channels during Active Shade was not re-exported;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Divide shading subdivs was not exported;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed crash due to leaking animated mesh light meshes;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed crash when VRayLight has Bercon Noise or Bercon Wood texture;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed incorrectly exported displacement plugin when it is animated;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed incorrectly exported material names starting with digits;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed random hang during "Waiting for renderer..." stage when rendering as production renderer;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed some of the messages in the console appearing on the same line;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Fixed VFB occasionally freezing during rendering;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Mesh light was missing if "Replace mesh with light" was off;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Render server may crash on exit if there is a physical camera in the scene;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Refraction environment map was used when Reflection/Refraction environment are disabled;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Removed unnecessary displaced mesh re-exports;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Rendering stops after VRayMtl Displace weight is changed;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Texmap animation was not exported when the texmap was attached to VRayDisplacementMod or Output map;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The 3ds Max render windows have data from the wrong render element when VRayMtlSelect is used in production rendering;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The DMC sampler frame data was not updated properly along animation, interfering with Lock noise pattern;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The Generate caustics option in VRayWrapperMtl was not exported;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The Lock noise pattern option was not exported properly;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The SSS2 render element was not exported;
• (*) V-Ray RT: The VFB always pops up when rendering with as production renderer, even if switched off;
• (*) V-Ray RT: VRayLight with Composite map was rendered black when base layer transparency was 0.0;
• (*) V-Ray RT: VRayLightMtl was always emitting on back side;
• (*) V-Ray RT: VRayProxy was rendering with frames offset in ping-pong playback mode;
• (*) V-Ray RT: Wrong Alpha channel when rendering as production renderer and native 3ds Max frame buffer is used;
• (*) V-Ray RT CPU: The VRayEdgesTex Hidden edges option was ignored;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Added support for procedural textures attached to VRayLights;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Camera vignetting is applied on directly visible VRayLights in the Alpha channel;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Fixed crash when restarting the rendering session;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Fixed crash with VRayFastSSS2;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Fixed rendering of VRayFastSSS2 in the VRayLightSelect render element;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Fixed wrong refraction rendering with VRayVRmatMtl;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Fixed wrong shading with mapped reflection glossiness;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Instanced dome lights with different transformations render wrong;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Optimized displaced geometry memory usage and skipped unnecessary re-exporting;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: Rect lights were producing incorrect shadow when lit by another rect light;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: VRayLight direct light was clamped with Max ray intensity value;
• (*) V-Ray RT GPU: VRayLights did not appear in VRaySelfIllumination render element;
• (*) VFB: Curve color correction control is not updated when loading from file;
• (*) VFB: Fixed messed image when switching from large image to a smaller one during comparison;
• (*) VFB: No color corrections are applied in saved render output file;
• (*) VFB: Some color correction parameters' values were not resetting;
• (*) VFB: The RGB color is still restored from the lens effects source, even if the lens effects mode is "Render elements only";
• (*) V-Ray Quick settings: Fixed issue preventing the loading of custom presets;
• (*) Hair&Fur: Fixed wrong color of VRayHairInfoTex in VRayMtl on motion blurred hairs;
• (*) Hair&Fur: Fixed occasionally wrong shading results (-1.#IND);
• (*) VRay2SidedMtl: Fixed rendering black with "multiply by front diffuse" in certain situations;
• (*) VRayClipper: Fixed a crash with multiple clippers one of which has material ID enabled when rendering with V-Ray RT;
• (*) VRayDirt: Fixed result affected by the geometry inside the shaded object when invert normal is enabled;
• (*) VRayFastSSS2: Fixed a crash when rendering with Object-based illumination map;
• (*) VRayHairMtl: Wrong shading results when blended with VRayBlendMtl;
• (*) VRayHDRI: Interpolation and filtering options are not working if "Clear cache on render end" is enabled;
• (*) VRayIES: Fixed a crash on VRayIES color temperature change with disabled viewport shading;
• (*) VRayInstancer: Cancelling a render during "Updating instances" causes a crash at the end of the render;
• (*) VRayLensEffects: Glare mask was not working when using DR through network rendering jobs;
• (*) VRayMetaball: Animated parameters of the VRayMetaball object do not update the preview in the viewport;
• (*) VRayMetaball: Changing Particle inputs for VRayMetaballs via MaxScript doesn't refresh in UI automatically;
• (*) VRayMtl: Fixed GTR/GGX wrong results when GTR tail falloff is different from 2.0;
• (*) VRayMtl: Fixed GTR/GGX invalid results with glossiness value of 1.0;
• (*) VRayMtl: The "Affect channels" option for refraction doesn't work when dispersion is enabled;
• (*) VRayOrnatrixMod: Fixed a crash when using Bitmap texture with .ifl sequence for Thickness map in Render settings;
• (*) VRayOrnatrixMod: Ox Render Settings were not applied to the exact group specified in the modifier;
• (*) VRayOSLMtl/VRayOSLTex: Fixed the tab order for shader parameters controls;
• (*) VRayPhysicalCamera: Camera tilt parameters are not properly updated in the viewport for hidden cameras;
• (*) VRayProxy: Slow import of proxy meshes with the weld option on;
• (*) VRayVRmatMtl: Fixed bug when exporting textures that have no tiling disabling and mapping type set to Explicit map channel;
• (*) .vrscene exporter: Rendering exported animation scenes should append frame numbers to the output images;
• (*) ply2vrmesh: Fixed conversion of PRT files with many particles;

There will be a patch next week that adds a Cube 6x1 camera with stereo support and some minor fixes.

You can download V-Ray 3.2 from Chaos Group site (link for registered users of V-Ray).

Main image from Chaos Group Gallery, by Peter Guthrie.