Build 6.00.21

Official Release

Date - Dec. 13, 2022

New features

V-Ray

• Integrated the Chaos Cosmos asset library for Houdini 19 and up, under Windows
• Implemented the V-Ray Profiler
• Implemented the V-Ray Memory Tracker
• Added Adaptive Bucket Splitting
• Implemented the V-Ray Enmesh for render-time generation of patterns over a mesh surface
• Updated V-Ray IPR for better interactive feedback

Lights

• Added V-Ray Procedural Clouds in the Sun Light
• Added "Finite Dome" option to Dome Light
• V-Ray Light Cache is now available in IPR
• Added "Grouped Lights" option for Light Select AOV
• Added "Volumetric Contribution" control for Lights
• Added new "PRG Clear Sky" model for V-Ray Sun
• Added support for Location/Date/Time in V-Ray Sun

Volumes

• Added Volume Shader "Absorption Color" support
• Added Volume Shader "Phase Function" (anisotropic scattering) support
• Added support for Vector fields for the Volume Grid Shader

Materials

• Added Thin Film layer for V-Ray Material
• Added new random walk scattering "SSS" and "Volumetric" modes for V-Ray Material Translucency
• Added Coat and Sheen layers for V-Ray Material

Textures

• Now shipping the "MakeTX" utility with V-Ray for Houdini
• Implemented V-Ray Random VOP to generate a random value in the range of 0-1 based on an Float or Color input
• Curvature texture can now work either in "Convex" or "Concave" mode
• Added input sockets for arbitrary "rest" attributes for the TriPlanar texture

AOV

• Added "Temporal Mode", "Hardware Acceleration" and "Denoise Alpha" options for the V-Ray Denoiser

VFB

• Added "Panorama View" and "Proportion Guides" option for the V-Ray Frame Buffer

Export

• Rest attributes for Alembics are read directly from the ABC file thus reducing export time
• Significant time to first pixel optimizations for Alembic and VDB caches

Workflow

• Implemented "Material Overrides" system for Objects under the V-Ray Renderer ROP

Solaris

V-Ray

• Add V-Ray support for Solaris Render Region Tool
• Add support for USDZ files
• Added Plate Workflow support through the V-Ray Environment settings on the Dome Light LOP
• Add texture tint/simple color correction controls for Dome and Rect lights
• Implemented LPE light tags support for lights in Solaris
• Add support for Motion blur based on velocity attribute
• Add support for integer PrimVars with User Integer VOP
• Add Deep Output support
• Add support for "constant" PrimVars in Cryptomatte
• Add Camera Overscan support
• Add support for writing Cryptomatte data though husk
• Add support for live volumes
• Add V-Ray Environment Fog
• Add Viewport Denoiser Result toggle
• Add support for MaterialX position and normal output via husk
• Add V-Ray Proxy support with V-Ray Proxy LOP
• Add support for native Houdini volumes
• Add "V-Ray Render Vars" LOP HDA similar to the Karma standard variables with presets for common AOVs
• Add Hair Properties in Geometry Render Settings LOP
• Add "Render as Disc" option for points in Geometry Render Settings LOP
• Add NSamples/Velocity support
• Add Bercon Noise support
• Add Deep Output support for VDBs
• Add support for Nested Instancing
• Add Visibility Settings for Volumes in Solaris
• Add Deep EXR options in Render Settings LOP
• GPU crash to desktop with instanced geometry
• Crash when the shader has wrong input connector type
• Combine texture causes a crash
• Crash when enabling and disabling the “instanceable” option of the Configure Primitive LOP
• Hydra delegate crash to desktop in CentOS
• Scene import (All) crashes in Python in Houdini 19.5
• Crash to desktop with new GeomInstancer plugin
• Meshlight causes "EXCEPTION IN CORE"
• Crash when toggling any of the Render Geometry Settings LOP options
• Light Linker not working
• Preview shader is rendered grayscale - Linux only
• Switching BRDFs inside the V-Ray Material Builder does not update the Viewport
• Randomizer VOP does not work
• Mismatch between Karma and V-Ray renders for points with “pscale”
• V-Ray skips point with index 0 when rendering points
• TexUserScalar does not work
• Opacity of V-Ray material is not working when color output of ImageFile VOP is used
• PrimVars/User Color on points is not rendered
• Invisible parameter state of lights is ignored when changing delegates
• Velocity blur for Volumes is not working
• Remap texture does not work in "Color" mode
• Impossible to select anything in the viewport when V-Ray is set as the Viewport Renderer
• Adding a dot in the shader graph breaks the shader
• Mesh Light Texture is not used or exported to the VRScene
• Expose "Max. MipMap Resolution" in the Render Settings LOP > Options > Textures
• Some parameters are not taken into account when saving Deep data
• Missing "Affect Reflections" toggle on V-Ray light properties
• Light material with "Direct Illumination" enabled does not update color changes in the Viewport
• Displacement isn't present in final render through husk
• Wrong default value export for "Preserve Map Borders" parameter when using subdivision
• Hair when "Use Embree" is disabled is missing from the final render through husk
• Chaining Switch VOPs does not work
• Memory leak with husk and specific scene
• LPE render var settings are not exported
• Change render var format to color3f for color elements in VRayStandardRenderVars LOP
• Image File VOP always uses "Inverse Gamma" as "Transfer Function"
• "Use" options for Environment settings from Dome Light for GI/Reflect/Refract/Secondary Matte are not considered
• Spotlight angle does not match Karma
• Spotlight softness affects only shadows but the light borders are always sharp
• Integer attributes are not supported
• Material Output VOP does not trigger an update in Houdini 19.0
• Missing vertex, face and normals lists for reference mesh when importing alembics with rest attributes
• Vector primvars are not picked up
• Render Settings LOP fails to load V-Ray UI due to ds file typo
• Different color mapping between render passes
• "Override Settings Globally" for Displacement is not working
• Displacement VOP parameter "Use Global Settings" is ignored
• Remap texture in "Float to Color" mode does not work with Blend material
• Geometry goes missing after switching delegate to V-Ray to Karma and back to V-Ray
• Viewport selection doesn't work
• Overscan is not saved in husk's output EXR
• V-Ray Remap node adds gamma shift
• Empty viewport/render after switching delegates

Modified features

Alembic

• Add support for SOP and OBJ level transform for Alembic primitives piped into a Mesh Light
• Add support for Object Properties "Geometry Samples" for per frame particle Alembics with multiple subsamples

Chaos Cosmos

• Ability to re-import the same model from Cosmos browser without using the same node
• Keep the last imported object's node selected

IPR

• Assigning a material to many objects while IPR is running is very slow and blocks the UI
• Update V-Ray Softbox texture changes in IPR
• Changes to geometry added as a gizmo for Fog effect causes the fog to disappear in IPR
• Isolate for IPR in Light Lister does not show its status and it is impossible to find isolated light in a big list of lights
• Add support for IPR Progressive spiral pattern similar to May and Max plugins
• Remove V-Ray IPR ROP node - only keep Renderer ROP node
• Export IPR "GI Depth" 16 bounces if V-Ray Material with Translucency mode SSS is present
• Decouple IPR updates for surface and shader so e.g. displacement shader is not updated when changing the surface shader

Lights

• Dome Light - hide Adaptivity parameter and enable Adaptive Dome by default
• Light Mix - add support for HDAs when the light parameters are exposed at the HDAs top level
• Light Mix - add "Name" parameter for Grouped lights mode

Materials

• Hide the Volume Shader "Scale Opacity by Scene Units" option under Smoke tab
• Disable "Compensate Energy" for Hair material by default
• Rename "Use Subdivision from Material" to "Use Displacement from Override Material"
• Pick Velocity Blur Multiplier fix for Volume Grid Shader for single vector fields
• Update V-Ray Material Translucency parameter names when Type is changed from "SSS" to "Volumetric"
• Set V-Ray Material Reflection and Refraction depth to default 8
• Hide "Multiply by Particle Age" toggle on the Foam shader
• Add support for VRScene material overrides with Rayserver Instancer and Pattern ID texture through "scene_name" shader override
• Support SOP level material assignment to volumes
• Extend shader import to support custom plugins
• Expose input texture slots for "depth" and "amount" parameters for V-Ray Material Translucency
• Add support for camera shaders to Physical Camera
• Add support for exclusion flag in Material Overrides object list
• Add support for bundles in Material Overrides object list
• MtlX Switch to V-Ray

Textures

• Rename new sky model to "PRG Clear Sky" from "Improved" to match V-Ray for Maya
• Missing import for Tex Float Correct
• Add UV mapping tab for V-Ray Procedural textures with some UVW presets
• Remove "Lighting" mode from Gradient Ramp texture
• The TriPlanar texture now has input slots for the "frame_offset" and "texture_rotation" parameters

OSL

• Changing OSL code wipes all parameter values

Volumes

• Update the Foam Shader UI
• Delete old Volume Shader ramps code

Rendering

• Expose "Minimum Shading Rate" parameter on the Renderer ROP
• Expose "Metalness" and "Roughness" render elements
• Add "Ignore Render Region" option under Renderer Export tab "Batch Render" section for VRScene export
• Export proper Foam Shader "Advanced" tab visibility options when particles are in ROP node "Phantom" list
• Set "oprelative" to "/obj" instead of "." for V-Ray Renderer ROP
• Add option to set Renderer's "RGB Color Space" based on an environment variable
• Add support for animated textures in the "Render Mask" option of the Renderer ROP
• Add Renderer ROP option for multiple shader overrides for multiple object sets based on the Pattern ID workflow
• Add a Render Settings Lights option to "Disable Light Visibility" with an operator list for specifying the lights to affect
• Export the smoke volume to VRScene even if rendering of smoke is disabled to ensure the transform is inherited from the smoke field
• Match default render settings with V-Ray for Maya and 3dsMax

V-Ray

• Forbid loading of VDBs in the Volume Grid Cache SOP
• Update Image File VOP defaults in V-Ray 5.2
• 2D displacement per primitive needs to be supported by V-Ray.
• Add support for Houdini 18.5.759
• Dirt "Consider Same Object Only" option produces different results when used with packed primitives vs mesh geometry
• Improve message for failing to find .vdb and writing raw data
• Change default image file filter to "Sharp MipMap" for Image File VOP
• Update Physical Camera Cinematic Shutter Offset/Angle default ranges
• Change "VRScans" name to the "Chaos Scans"
• Improve ACEScg workflow in V-Ray for Houdini
• Update "Max. MipMap Resolution" parameter range
• Reduce DWAA EXR compression RAM usage
• Update the "Back To Beauty (Advanced)" AOV preset to ensure proper results automatically
• Old scenes with physical camera show warning for missing parameters
• Update V-Ray Renderer ROP shape in the palette

Exporter

• Speed up export of instanced VDBs
• Add optional warning for exporting large live geometries on export
• Speed up VRScene export for instanced geometry

Installer

• Remove installer python logic in favor of Houdini's houdini_python keyword in packages
• Add method for accepting EULA when installing V-Ray with the ZIP builds

VFB

• Add support for VFB control through environment variables

Bug Fixes

IPR

• VFB2 isn't updating the V-Ray Log information
• Debug flag does not work when a VOP node inside a Material Builder is assigned to the geometry
• Animated Ocean Spectra Mask is not updated on frame change
• Exporting a VRScene in "Export" mode directly after running IPR causes empty standalone renders
• Renderer "Override Camera Resolution" option changes do not update IPR
• Referenced Shader changes do not update IPR
• Parameter changes for nodes inside Material Builder piped into Multi ID material do not affect IPR
• Material Override when using Distance Texture is lost when starting second IPR session
• Persistent updates or crash when changing a Volume Shader parameter assigned at the SOP level
• Render Region disappears on Production render or IPR start
• Material Overrides are lost when changing the Timeline frame during IPR when Extra Texture with the override object in its Exclude list is present
• Removing a Decal object from the SOP network does not affect IPR
• No updates for displacement assigned at the SOP level to Alembic primitives
• Renderer ROP Objects list does not update IPR
• Deleting objects or lights does not affect IPR
• V-Ray Proxy SOP is not updated in IPR
• Geometry goes missing during IPR if there are nodes that are linked to the camera transforms in the scene
• Lost ExtraTexture elements after the first one, on frame change, and if they have the same object in Exclude List
• Material assignments for Multi ID Material are lost when using an input Material Builder instead of BRDF
• Slowly generated mesh is not updated
• No update when enabling/disabling the ROP Material Override options
• Geometry that is hidden when IPR is started remains invisible even when unhidden during IPR
• Unnecessary refresh when changing folders on a BRDF node
• Renderer Camera settings do not update IPR
• Viewport does not update view changes
• Light Instancer not updated
• V-Ray Object Properties are not updated in GPU IPR
• Rendered objects would occasionally disappear when making changes to their geometry or adding additional objects to the scene
• Material assignments are ignored in for the entire scene if a debug flag is present on a VOP node
• Displacement per primitive not always updated in IPR
• "Render with Take" uses the correct take then refreshes and reverts to Main during IPR
• Toon Effect is updated in IPR only once
• Any changes done while IPR is running cause the Fog effect to disappear
• IPR update broken in 5.x for Light Instancer
• Velocity blur is not updated when changing "Shutter Speed" of Physical Camera
• Sun parameters do not update Sky texture for IPR when used in a Dome Light
• Hang if VFB IPR button is clicked multiple times before IPR starts
• Crash with partitioned alembic when using Motion Blur and Displacement
• Crash with Alembics using Displacement and Material AOVs
• Random crash during IPR or when attempting to start a production render
• Crash when toggling on/off the Mesh Light's "Use SOP Geometry" option
• Crash when changing the "Motion Blur Multiplayer" on the Volume Shader
• Setting "Screen Window Size" to negative during IPR crashes V-Ray and Houdini
• Crash when starting IPR first then Production Render if "Cache Bitmaps" is enabled
• Crash when disabling the V-Ray Physical Camera during IPR in "Render View" or Viewport
• Crash if starting a production render after an IPR session

Rendering

• OSL crash when redrawing UI after render
• Crash with Light Mix on render start
• Crash rendering groomed fur/hair with V-Ray
• Crash when attempting to render a volume without volume shader assigned to it
• Karma hangs on GUI sequence renders when V-Ray is installed
• Freeze on production render start with Rayserver Instancer and Displacement
• Crash if render is quickly started, stopped and started again multiple times
• "-imgFile" flag for standalone rendering causes double output
• VFB is brought to foreground on every frame when rendering a sequence, even when Houdini is minimized
• Wrong frame token exported when using $F4 tag for textures
• Per-primitive displacement does not render correctly
• Add support for vray_renderable packed attribute
• Texture for Dome light is not exported when using a referenced Image File VOP
• Geometry nodes in an Object network inside a parent Geometry node are rendered even when the parent Geometry node has visibility disabled
• Color AOV name expression is not evaluated for VFB
• Material Overrides do not work for more than one object in pattern list
• Forced hidden object with material override does not have material in render
• Overscan disables render region
• When using shader overrides with VRScene SOP the render becomes darker
• NUMA slowdown when rendering Alembics
• Double camera export when using a Switcher to change the render camera per frame
• VFB Render Region in viewport is not always rendered
• Render Region resizes unproportionally when Camera Resolution is increased
• "Visible in Refraction" causes wrong render output when a glossy material is present
• Baked volumes in VRScene produce empty renders in some frames
• Render Mask in "Object" mode does not work
• Physical Camera missing "specify_focus" export causes wrong DoF renders

GPU

• V-Ray Material Translucency parameters are grayed out for GPU but should not be anymore
• Wrong Light Linking export for GPU
• Matte Surface not working in GPU render for poly geometry
• Lighting discrepancy between CPU and GPU results when Direct light is used with Intensity higher than 1
• Square artifacts on using Adaptive Dome light on GPU
• CPU instead of RTX mode is started
• Image sequence as texture not rendered on GPU
• Attributes for shading with User Color and User Float do not work for Alembic hair and particles on the GPU
• Freeze with specific volume when using GPU
• Crash with a specific setup including V-Ray UV Explicit and BerconNoise

V-Ray

• In a newly created blank scene using certain python code provokes a crash
• Crash with Light Mix "To Scene" option when using lights that are not inside an HDA
• Crash in a specific scene with adaptive lights
• Crash on Python module load on Linux
• UDIM tag in the output image name is missing when baking a single UDIM tile
• Fixed an OCIO slowdown in 5.10.20
• Decal include and exclude lists work on single objects only - multiple objects are ignored
• Wrong filename output when using an expression sampling a point attribute with Python
• Add support for time-dependent values for image output file name and folder path
• State of "Enable Large Mesh Warning" toggle is not saved
• Camera motion blur not working with specific builds
• Difference in Ocean surface render compared to Mantra
• Empty export for "Exclude List" in Extra Texture AOV
• Wrong default values for OCIO texture
• Wrong output for Remap texture in "Value" to "Value" mode
• Object Properties SOP overrides own settings when chained in a Geometry network
• Wrong animated visibility output for objects
• Swapped logic for "Use Main Line Controls" toggle
• Set "Adaptive Dome" to enabled by default for Dome light
• Object Level transformations are ignored for Motion Blur when "Use Velocity Blur" is enabled
• Displacement does not accept negative "Amount" values
• Environment Fog does not work with specific builds
• "Geometry Samples" option for Motion Blur for Points has no effect
• Fixed issue causing truncated paths when over 255 characters are used on Linux
• Wrong output for Integer to Float texture
• Added support for per-face string attribute sampling with the PatternID texture
• Added support for V-Ray Scenes for Texture Baking
• Added support for Cryptomatte by attribute for crowds
• Wrong output for Multi ID Texture when using "Round to Integer" option
• Fixed Volume Grid Cache SOP is ignored by Renderer "Force Objects" list
• Fixed Python issue causing empty "About V-Ray" window

VFB

• Light Mix in "Manual" mode does not pick up Light Select elements
• Do not tint RGB channels when displaying them isolated
• ".cube" files specified in the OCIO config for the OCIO View Transform are not used
• Background layer does not work
• Using an EXR as Background image with "As Foreground" enabled causes the image to go black

Lights

• Light Lister "Isolate" button does not work
• Light Select wildcard "*" for lights parameter returns all scene nodes causing a slowdown with heavy geometry
• Light Mix - Dome Light "Intensity" and "Color" are not updated when inside a locked HDA
• Light Mix crash when attempting to send the changes "To Scene" if the lights are in a locked HDA

Materials

• Material Library download fails if the provided disk path does not exist
• Cryptomatte by material ID and material HDA
• Displacement is not overridden when using multiple Material Overrides on the Renderer ROP
• Parameters set with textures for OSL Material are ignored
• Wrong material assignments when using animated Switch node and uploading to Chaos Cloud
• Enabling Motion Blur breaks Material Overrides
• Add support for Null VOP for Referenced Shader
• Unlocked Depth and Scale Max value for V-Ray Material Translucency
• Lag in V-Ray Material Builder VOP context when opening the nodes menu with Tab or RMB click
• Add support for pattern based material overrides on the Renderer ROP through Pattern ID texture
• Disabling "Primary Visibility" for object with Light material does not work
• ROP's "Disable Light Materials" does not affect Light materials with Direct Illumination enabled
• Material Override is applied to Mesh Light when using wildcard flag for selection
• Enmesh material ignores custom attributes
• Crash with material overrides enabled when a light is present in the scene and using a wildcard flag
• Hang during Light Cache step when using Decal, Rect Light and Diffuse BRDF
• Crash with HDA holding Volume Grid Shader VOPs made in 4.3 when loading the HDA in V-Ray 5 builds

Textures

• Import of Remap texture selects "color" output regardless of what input it is connected to
• Empty drop-down for OCIO tab in Image File VOP
• OCIO node is missing input texture slot
• Distance Texture Objects list is empty when a Subnetwork is specified
• Some TriPlanar texture options do not work
• Image File VOP "Transfer Function" parameter is ignored
• Distance Texture ignores animated transform of target object
• Update User Float and User Integer default attribute names
• Wrong gamma applied to textures in Dome light when using ACES
• Very small triangles are ignored when Texture Baking which causes artifacts
• Adding an object to the Distance Texture "Exclude List" will disable its visibility globally

OSL

• Particular texture file UI is not loaded
• Warnings printed with specific scene with OSL

Alembic

• Expression including frames and subframes on Alembics isn't working as expected with V-Ray Core 5.10.20
• TriPlanar swimming coordinates when using "rest" attributes with Alembic file
• Double motion blur for Mesh lights using Alembic as source geometry
• Material Overrides do not work for multiple Alembic objects
• Poor Cryptomatte element sampling over overlapping multimaterial Alembic when using Depth of Field
• Triangular artifacts on packed Alembic when texture Filtering type is not set to None or Nearest
• Primitive attributes are ignored for splines/hair
• Add support for velocity sampling even when using single-file deforming Alembics
• Primitive hair attributes are not interpolated correctly for Alembics
• Shading artifacts with Random VOP when using float attribute in Alembic file

Volumes

• Possible crash when shader for volume is not a Volume material
• Immediate crash when Denoiser and Volume material with the Volumetric Z-Depth parameter set to 'Separate V-Ray Element' is added on volumes
• Crash when try to convert particular VDB with the V-Ray VDB to AUR node
• Immediate crash when importing big “.aur” files in V-Ray Volume Grid Cache

Instancing

• Orientation of instances calculated from @N or @N + @up vectors is wrong
• Invalid velocity handling for Rayserver Instancer when using Motion Blur
• Shadow artifacts with Rayserver Instancer
• Crash with SSS and multiple instances when using new instancing plugin
• Crash with Light Instancer with scene containing 250 000 lights

Exporter

• Remove file exists check when exporting packed disk primitive volume by path to speed up VRScene export
• Slow VRScene export time for instances with Motion Blur
• Slow export of animated cached VDBs
• Very slow export and high memory usage for Mesh Light using deforming alembic as source geometry
• Wrong export for frame($F2) token in texture path
• Channel string reference for VRScene Export path on Renderer ROP with frame token causes wrong export
• VRScene export for per frame Alembic files with time offset is not animated
• Export Mesh Lights generated by Light Material with "Direct Illumination" enabled to Light Select element
• No VRScene export for animated objects after first frame when Motion Blur is Enabled
• Empty plugin export for Extra Texture element
• Empty parameters export for Distance Texture - only Objects list is exported
• Empty export for Renderer Image Sampler parameters
• Float to Color is always exported, even when the float output is connected to a float input
• Light Instancer is not exported when texture baking
• Distance Texture object is not exported if part of an Override Material
• Wrong Displacement export for "Vector Displacement" assigned through Material SOP at the SOP level
• VRScene export - missing material AOVs with Alembics and Motion Blur when Offset is 0 and Duration is 1
• Only first frame is exported to VRScene for animated objects in Distance Texture list if their visibility is disabled
• Reflect/Refract mask are exported incorrectly
• Crash if you use VRScene Shader Overrides without typing Scene Name
• Material Overrides are lost for VRScene export after the first frame
• "Clip Mesh" parameter for V-Ray Clipper is not exported
• No export for Image File OCIO tab
• Animated shader parameters are not exported for static meshes
• Proxy Export not working in latest nightly builds
• VRScene export for Mesh Lights with Alembics only uses the first frame of the sequence
• Issues with Proxy export and particles
• Multi-valued params are not exported
• Light Textures - frame ($F) token is exported in the file path instead of evaluating the expression
• Wrong export for Image File VOP into Layered texture causes no color output
• Wrong UV set export for Image File VOP when exporting a .vrscene
• When Mapping of Procedural textures is set to UV, parameters are not exported to .vrscene
• Object Scale for V-Rya Enmesh is always exported as 1.0
• Multiple plugin exports when generating per frame VRScene files
• Crash on last alembic frame export when motion blur is enabled and using per-frame alembic files

VRayScene

• Incorrect import of Remap Texture from a VRScene file exported from Maya
• Incorrect import of volumeNoise (3D noise) from a VRScene file exported from Maya
• VRScene "Unpack to Polygons" does nothing if a node named "vrayscene_unpack" is already present in the same SOP network
• VRScene "Unpack to Polygons" does not create a material network
• Crash when importing materials from .vrscene

Installer

• Issues with silent installation + config.xml
• Houdini 19.x can't open local help when V-Ray is installed due to QT lib errors

Chaos Cosmos

• Update the packing script to ignore the missing Cosmos files
• Cosmos Browser window does not store position
• Assets import is creating overlapping nodes
• Models are imported mirrored by X axis

OSX

• Crash on start with Houdini 19.5.303

UI

• Removed Hair Properties *Use Global Hair Tree" controls
• Displacement Properties shelf tool does not work
• Crash when clicking on the "Transfer Function" menu of the Image File VOP in Houdini 19.5