Solid Angle has released version 3.2.0 of Arnold for Maya (or MtoA). This plug-ins provides a bridge to the Arnold renderer from within Maya's standard interface. MtoA is now shipping with the Arnold 5.3.0.0 core.


3.2.0 - Release Date March 20, 2019

MtoA 3.2.0 is a major feature release, which is binary compatible with 3.1.* versions.

It includes the following improvements :

GPU Rendering (BETA):

You can now switch between CPU and GPU render devices interactively and expect visually similar results. NVIDIA GPUs from Turing to Maxwell architectures are supported, and Arnold will take advantage of multiple GPUs, NVLink and NVIDIA RTX hardware accelerated raytracing if available. Note that due to beta status of GPU rendering, a number of features are missing, performance is not final, and use in production is not advised. We plan to gradually improve this in subsequent releases and would appreciate your feedback.

Improved Sampling:
- Improved adaptive sampling : Adaptive sampling is now much more effective and predictable than before.
- Improved skydome sampling : Skydome light's sampling has been improved, in particular in darker areas. Note that existing scenes which were adjusted with previous versions of Arnold will now need to lower down the amount light samples for an equivalent result.
- Faster sample generation : Scenes with a high number of AA and light samples could take a very long time to start rendering. This is now much faster (some use cases went from 11 minutes to a fraction of a second, before the render starts).
Improved Shading:
- Microfacet multiple scattering : The GGX microfacet BSDF used in the standard_surface shader has been improved to account for multiple scattering between the microfacets, which is more physically correct and reduces energy loss on reflection, especially at higher roughness settings. The reflection from rough metals in particular will be significantly brighter and more saturated as a result.
- Improved randomwalk SSS : A new randomwalk_v2 SSS mode has been added that scatters more accurately and deeply through highly-transparent/optically-thin objects, which produces SSS with more saturated colors around fine surface detail and heavily backlit regions of an object
- Smart opaque : When using builtin shaders, arnold will now automatically set the opaque parameter in the shapes. Setting transparency only in the shaders will now be enough (exceptions are curves / points using min_pixel_width). Custom shaders can support this feature by setting metadatas opacity_term and transparency_term in the shaders.
- Improved bump and normal_mapping : bump and normal mapping now correct for non-physical shading normals (eg. extreme values) while preserving detail.
- Anisotropy controls for coat in aiStandardSurface
- Support for negative "Transmission Extra Roughness" in aiStandardSurface
- New aiUvProjection shader allows to do spherical / cubic / etc.. projections on a surface
- Exposing Arnold shaders aiCameraProjection, aiRampRgb, aiRampFloat, aiRgbaToFloat
Visible Lights:
- Area Lights and point lights can now be made visible to camera and transmission rays by increasing parameters camera and transmission
StandIns & gpuCache workflow improvements:
- New UI for shader assignments and overrides using arnold operators : A new UI in Standins and gpuCache allows to introspect nodes, assign shaders to specific elements, override parameters, etc... in a user friendly way. It will allow to create and edit operators attached to the Standin, that will therefore be portable across scene references.
- Standins can now load alembic files
- Show selected item in the viewport : While introspecting a Standin contents, selecting items will highlight them in the viewport. Picking in the Arnold RenderView will also select the corresponding item.
- New workflow for Standin's proxy geometries in the viewport : A new parameter ignoreGroupNodes will skip all the nodes below the Standin hierarchy for rendering. The desired proxy geometries just need to be parented to the Standin, and they will only appear in the viewport when this parameter is enabled.
- Subivision creases supported in Alembic
Export Shading trees as MaterialX files:
- New menu Export Selection to MaterialX allows to export the selected shading trees to a materialx document. It's also possible to append several looks to a single mtlx file and then to switch between both in the materialx operator. Geometrie's properties (subdivision settings, etc...) can also be baked to the file.
Operators:
- Added option to Export / Import operator graphs : New menu Export Operator Graph allows to export an operator graph to a .ass file (either the selection or the scene's graph). It's then possible to import it back to Maya, or even to another DCC.
- New include_graph operator : Includes an operator graph that was previously exported to .ass
Other:
- Improved workflow for motion vectors AOV : new attribute Instantaneous Shutter in the motion blur settings allows to get correct motion vectors AOV while rendering a still image. The shutter range will now be taken into account in the AOV.
- Faster .ass file writing : Writing to .ass, especially over Windows networks, can be dramatically faster (up to 51x reported)
- Faster OSL UDIM texture reads : Reading UDIM textures in OSL is now much faster (up to 10x reported)
- Disabled Swatch rendering by default, to avoid non-necessary excessive slowdowns
- Exposing "autobump visibility" in meshes to solve artefacts for objects appearing through sharp reflections / refractions.
- Updated to OIIO 2.1.0
Bugfixes:
- Fixes on triplanar used for displacement
- Adaptive sampling was being reset to OFF during IPR updates
- Interactivity optimizations when IPR is stopped
- Texture repeat wasn't working with custom uv sets
Incompatible Changes:
- Default specular_roughness in aiStandardSurface is now 0.2. Existing scenes that had left this parameter to its default value might now look different.
- Changes in skydome sampling require to lower down the skydome samples on existing scenes for an equivalent result and render times. For the same settings as before, the result will be less noisy but up to 30% longer.
- Removed support for NVIDIA Kepler GPUs
- Specular AOV: The sheen component has been removed from the specular AOVs
- Removed SSS on curves

About Solid Angle Maya to Arnold. Arnold is the high-quality rendering engine in Maya. Realistic rendering is easier than ever with this brute force Monte Carlo ray tracer. Physically-based rendering in Arnold accurately simulates light in the real world, but allows breaking physical laws to achieve artistic styles.
Arnold is one of the leading render plugins in the world of 3D graphics. The realism that it delivers, added to the simplicity of its interface, is what made Solid Angle's masterpiece so popular.

About Solid Angle. Solid Angle is the technology company behind the Arnold rendering software. With offices in Madrid and London, Solid Angle's customers include ILM, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rodeo FX, Luma Pictures, Image Engine, The Moving Picture Company, Digic Pictures, The Mill and Psyop. Arnold was designed to efficiently process the complex geometric datasets required for feature-length CGI animation and big-budget visual effects, while at the same time simplifying the pipeline. This unique renderer has been used to create the VFX seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Elysium, "Gravity", "Pacific Rim", Marvel's "The Avengers", and "Alice in Wonderland", to name just some. Marcos Fajardo is the founder of Solid Angle and lead architect of Arnold. The software is now available as a standalone renderer, as a C++ API and as a set of plug-ins for leading 3D applications such as Maya, Softimage and Katana on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

About Autodesk. Autodesk helps people imagine, design and create a better world. Everyone-from design professionals, engineers and architects to digital artists, students and hobbyists-uses Autodesk software to unlock their creativity and solve important challenges.

Product: Solid Angle Maya to Arnold
Version: 3.2.0
Supported Architectures: x64
Website Home Page :
http://www.solidangle.com

Language: english
System Requirements: PC
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7 and later
Software Prerequisites: Autodesk Maya 2017-2019
Size: 1.0 Gb

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