Hello,
3Delight 8.0 and 3Delight For Maya 4.0 are out. Here is a list
of the most important features and improvements:
3Delight For Maya
* The way 3Delight attributes are connected and interpreted
has been much improved for greater flexibility and ease of
use: it is now possible to connect only a small subset of
attributes to any given node. This feature enables a
hierarchical attribute interpretation scheme in which
undefined attributes for a given object/node are looked up
higher in the scene hierarchy.
* Images can now be rendered in background so artists can
still use Maya while rendering frames.
* The Coordinate System node can now display an environment
dome in Maya's view for easier image based lighting.
* Added render-time CSG support (boolean modeling operators).
* Improved HyperShade translation and support:
* The following nodes exactly match Maya's look:
`cloth', `ramp' and `contrast'.
* Added support for `mia_material',
`mib_ambient_occlusion' and `particlSamplerInfo'.
* Photons can trigger HyperShade shader evaluation to
get the correct surface color.
* The plug-in now honors Maya object visibility attributes
("Render Stats") in case no 3Delight visibility attributes
have been defined.
* Added more control on how particles are rendered. For
example, particles can now have a sub-pixel size.
* Added support for area lights.
* Advanced features include:
* RenderMan shader writers gain control on how
parameters are presented in the AE using a new
parameter grouping functionality.
* User definable light nodes gives the necessary
flexibility to customize RenderMan commands output
when issuing light sources.
3Delight Performance
* Ray-tracing performance, especially for specular rays, has
been significantly improved.
* Multi-threading performance has been further improved, in
both memory use and speed. 3Delight implements a true
multi-threaded rendering core meaning that all threads
share as much memory as possible.
* The photon casting algorithm has been multi-threaded.
* Improved performance and memory use on subdivision surfaces
with many texture coordinates and vertex variables. Such
geometry uses up to 5 times less memory.
* Atmosphere and interior shaders run much faster (up to an
order of magnitude) and are controlled using an independent
"volume shading rate".
Rendering Features
* Improved point-based occlusion and global illumination
delivers higher quality results without loss of performance.
* Photon mapping quality has been improved:
* Photons can trigger surface evaluation for both
caustics and color bleeding to get correct reflectance
and transmittance.
* Caustics rendering quality has been improved.
* It is now possible to cast photons from high dynamic
range environment maps.
* Displacement shaders can run on vertices (instead of
micro-polygons) for better ray-tracing efficiency.
Additionally, many displacement shaders can be assigned to
a specific object and be evaluated sequentially.
* Dicing cameras can be used to heal "pops" in displacements
during animation.
* Specular highlights from area ligths are correctly rendered
(e.g. square area lights will produce square shaped
highlights).
* Improved filtering of blurred cubic environment map lookups.
* Edge detection has been further enhanced and outlines can
now be composited directly over an output variable.
* Improved the accuracy of NURBS and conics.
* Implemented `RiScopedCoordinateSystem'.
Pipeline
* Introducing a new shader evaluation API and library: Sx.
This API exposes methods to load and execute RenderMan
shaders, in SIMD.
Shader Compiler
* Initital support of "Shader classes".
* Functions can have multiple exit points.
Tools
* `tdlmake' supports a new output file format: directory
textures. A directory texture (or "dirtex" in short), is a
standard directory with all mipmaps saved as TIFF files.
This new texture format enables a more fine grained data
transfer between the server and the network cache.
* `ptcview' can load and display photon map files.
Thank you,
The 3Delight Team