V-Ray 1.5 SP1 for Maya released

The first Service Pack for V-Ray for Maya after release includes numerous new features, significant improvements and modifications.

Chaos Group today announced the availability of the new V-Ray for Maya 1.50 SP1. Some of the new features in V-Ray for Maya include support for V- Ray Fur and Maya Hair, also the V- Ray Light Dome texture and environment textures are now visible in Maya's viewport. V-Ray for Maya now supports reflection occlusion in V-Ray Dirt texture.

V-Ray for Maya 1.50 SP1 will be available for download on 18th of June 2010 from Chaos Group download section. The new Service Pack is compatible with Maya 2011.

The new Service Pack will be for free for all current users of V-Ray for Maya.

Change log for V-Ray/Maya/Win - 1.50.SP1

[new feature] Support for VRayFur;
[new feature] Support for Maya Hair;
[new feature] Reflection occlusion in V-Ray Dirt texture;
[new feature] VRayLightDome texture and environment textures to be visible in Maya's viewport;
[new feature] Add a VRayBumpMtl that allows to add bump to any other material;

[feature request] Implement an easy interface to adding render elements through MEL commands;
[feature request] Implement velocity output for Maya hair;
[feature request] Add support for the motion blur switch in shape nodes;
[feature request] Implement the camera pre-scale, film translate, film roll pivot, film roll value, film roll order, post-scale parameters;
[feature request] Add option in the V-Ray object properties whether to override the Object ID as set by the Object ID dynamic attribute, or not;
[feature request] Add reflection and refraction exit colors;
[feature request] Add extra V-Ray attributes for gamma correction to File textures;
[feature request] Support for streak and multistreak particle render types;
[feature request] Add shadow color for the dome light;
[feature request] Add a checkbox to lock the threshold of the adaptive DMC image sampler to the threshold of the DMC sampler;
[feature request] Consider moving the swatch rendering option to Window/Rendering Editors/VRay;
[feature request] Save the render elements on a "Save Settings as Preset" command from the "Render Settings" dialog;
[feature request] Support for point and multipoint particle render types;
[feature request] Add Cook variable antialiasing filter;
[feature request] Antialiasing filter enable/disable option;
[feature request] Add a VRAY_TEXTURES_LOAD_16BIT_AS_8BIT to control loading of 16-bit TIFF and PNG textures;
[feature request] Implement the camera pre-scale, film translate, film roll pivot, film roll value, film roll order, post-scale parameters;
[feature request] Add option to specify displacement bounds in the V-Ray "Displacement control" attributes for an object;
[feature request] Add VRaySphereFade to V-Ray for Maya;
[feature request] Ability to add extra information to OpenEXR files;
[feature request] Add diffuse and specular contribution multipliers to V-Ray lights;
[feature request] The batch camera name should be appended to the end of the image filename when there are multiple renderable cameras;
[feature request] DR Bucket Element;
[feature request] Option for z-depth render element to take the z-boundaries from the camera;
[feature request] Add the "Affect matte objects" option to the MultiMatte render element;
[feature request] Add the cutoff threshold to the VRayLightMtl material for the direct illumination option;
[feature request] Vector Displacement;
[feature request] Support sprite particle type;
[feature request] An option to clear the previous image in the Render view;
[feature request] Option to allow negative shader colors;
[feature request] Support for the uvCoord, rayDirection, tangentUCamera, tangentVCamera, pixelCenter outputs of the samplerInfo node;
[feature request] Ability to connect textures to the attributes of a 2d placement node;
[feature request] Ability to change the color of the shadows for the VRaySun;
[feature request] Add Start Menu options to (un)register the V-Ray render server as a Windows service;
[feature request] Option for the VRaySun to not cast shadows from atmospherics;
[feature request] Possibility to change the background of the material swatches to a solid color or another environment texture;
[feature request] When creating a mesh from a proxy, polygons should be emitted instead of triangles;
[feature request] Request licenses from the alternate license servers when the primary has run out of licenses.;
[feature request] Add vrayUserAttributes on NURBS surfaces as well;
[feature request] An option to install the license server as a service (demon) on Linux;
[feature request] Implement 2d displacement mode;
[feature request] Check for VRayProxy objects with the same parameters and export them only once;
[feature request] Support for RampShaders;
[feature request] When chaning intensity units of V-Ray lights, the intensity should be converted so as to produce the same visual result;
[feature request] Have an estimated time remaining added to the feedback;
[feature request] Change the default values for "Reflection amount" and "Refraction amount" to 0.0 in VRayObjectProperties/MtlWrapper;
[feature request] Print a time stamp in the log file, like in the 3ds Max and standalone versions;
[feature request] Node that support switch on place3dTexture node;
[feature request] Include caustics and diffuse multipliers for the lights;
[feature request] Correct velocity channel through refractions for materials with "Affect channels" set to "All channels";
[feature request] Add displacement node for controlling displacement map separately from shader nodes;
[feature request] Print an error or warning if a light cache or photon map or caustics map file cannot be loaded;
[feature request] Replace column character ':' with double underscore instead of single one in the exported .vrscene file;
[feature request] Projection texture for the spot lights;
[feature request] Hide Maya render window, while rendering in VFB;
[feature request] When rendering fails for some reason in batch mode, we should return an error code through Render.exe;
[feature request] Implement Decay regions options for Maya spot lights;
[feature request] Environment texture override per shading group;
[feature request] Add the "optLevel" option for SettingsRaycaster to the Maya UI;
[feature request] Implement cameraNearClipPlane and cameraFarClipPlane of the samplerInfo node;
[feature request] Ability to attach custom string attributes to shapes;
[feature request] Option in the V-Ray proxy export dialog to specify the sampling interval for motion blur;
[feature request] -facesPerVoxel option for ply2vrmesh;
[feature request] -previewFaces option for ply2vrmesh to specify the number of faces in the preview;
[feature request] An option in VRayLightMtl material to compensate for the camera exposure;
[feature request] Give the user the ability to specify additional paths where V-Ray plug-ins are loaded from;
[feature request] Possibility to use a sequence of .vrmesh files for a proxy object (e.g. "myFile_%04d.vrmesh");
[feature request] Add an option to choose which fragment to use for unfiltered render elements (best coverage or closest);
[feature request] Support for Spot light dropoff attribute;
[feature request] BRDF Soften;
[feature request] Ray distance parameter for the dome light;
[feature request] Time and date features to the physical sun and sky;
[feature request] Try to remove any calls to Maya MEL commands when rendering in batch mode;
[feature request] Add a dynamic attribute for transforms that can tell the exporter to skip that node and everything below it in the DAG;
[feature request] Kelvin temperature settings for the color of VRayLights;
[feature request] Option for the VRayProxy object to display the entire geometry instead of the preview;
[feature request] Camera distortion based on .lens files for the physical camera;
[feature request] Ray distance parameter for GI rays;
[feature request] Implement CIE sky model;
[feature request] Render slave only installation type;
[feature request] Primary Visibility option in the VRayObjectProperties;
[feature request] Add log rotation support to the license server under *nix;
[feature request] Light material direct illumination option;
[feature request] Use the data window specified in OpenEXR files to place the bitmap;
[feature request] Add a global switch to enable glossy reflections/refractions like in 3ds Max;
[feature request] Add verbose messages level for the output window in Maya;
[feature request] Need "affect channels" option for vraymtl refraction the way that it exists in Max;
[feature request] Possibility to set the FOV of the physical camera;
[feature request] Add ObjectID extra attribute to geometry nodes (mesh, nurbs, transform, etc);
[feature request] The VRayDomeLight target and emit distances needs to be visible in the viewport;
[feature request] Support for the Stencil node;
[feature request] When rendering subdivision surfaces, UV coordinates should be subdivided as well;
[feature request] Better precision when rendering large scenes;
[feature request] The license server exits silently when the listening port is busy;
[feature request] Add an option to the V-Ray object properties to ignore them;
[feature request] Implement motion blur for UVWGenMayaPlace2dTexture parameters;

[modified feature] Move the the render element separator character option to the Render Elements tab;
[modified feature] Have an option to turn "Hide Render View" off;
[modified feature] Optimize shadow calculations for materials with bump mapping;
[modified feature] Speed up light linking export;
[modified feature] Have an option to turn off all swatch updates but still be able to turn on the update on some of the materials;
[modified feature] Add a mulitplier to the VRayLightMtl;
[modified feature] When creating a Maya mesh from a proxy, shaders should be properly assigned to faces;
[modified feature] Add some sanity checks for the DR hosts and "Resolve Servers" button;
[modified feature] When making proxies place pivot of proxy at location of pivot of last object selected;
[modified feature] Render Settings UI improvement;
[modified feature] The MtlWrapper implementation should call shade() on the original material, if possible;
[modified feature] Remove the "tex" prefix from the create texture from V-Ray plug-in;
[modified feature] VRayMtl tweak;
[modified feature] V-Ray Sun should be created with "Manual position" turn on;
[modified feature] Batch rendering should send progress messages back to the main Maya process;
[modified feature] Consider creating the Render elements nodes as normal dependency nodes, not shading ones;
[modified feature] Implement the "Use irradiance map" option for VRayMtl;
[modified feature] Option for simple sky portal in Vray Light;
[modified feature] Rework switch utilities to work at render time, instead of at export;
[modified feature] Importing v-ray blend mtl from file;

[bug] Bitmaps for texture-mapped lights (rectangle, dome, mesh light) are loaded even if lights are disabled;
[bug] The color of a light is updated only when temperature is changed through the Attribute editor;
[bug] Issue with light linking and multiple dome lights in the scene;
[bug] The V-Ray common tab does not work when V-Ray is used as a renderer override for the current layer;
[bug] Crash with "Import mesh" feature of VRayProxy when the proxy is moved to another folder;
[bug] Scene hangs on compiling geometry with a certain NURBS surface;
[bug] Crash with textured mesh light and motion blur;
[bug] Ramp texture interpolation bump is not correct;
[bug] VRayDirt not working with transparent objects even if "Work with transparency" is enabled;
[bug] Bitmaps for texture-mapped lights (rectangle, dome, mesh light) are loaded even if lights are disabled;
[bug] Issue when adding V-Ray attributes to an object from a loaded scene that already has V-Ray attributes;
[bug] Crash when using tiled OpenEXR files for displacement;
[bug] Textures from 16-bit PNG files render as 8-bit;
[bug] The license server under Linux crashes with two or more dongles with overlapping licenses;
[bug] V-Ray Shading nodes icons in Hypershade Maya 2011 are not visible;
[bug] Blend material does not support 2 sided material;
[bug] The camera name should not be added to the name of the exported .vrscene file;
[bug] The viewport update of the physical camera does not work;
[bug] V-Ray Fur doesn't support VRayVertexColors texture;
[bug] The "V-Ray Common" tab of the settings is not described in the help index;
[bug] NaN values passed to BitmapBuffer plugins;
[bug] Some channels not correct when using "All channels" for the "Affect channels" option for refraction in VRayMtl;
[bug] When the camera name contains ':' and the file name includes the tag, V-Ray fails to create the output image on Windows;
[bug] UV coordinates used for displacement of subdivision surfaces are not smoothed;
[bug] Bump in the base material of a VRayBlendMtl material influences the coat material too;
[bug] Doing a region render while saving to a multichannel EXR file causes exceptions;
[bug] Problem with motion blur samples override in object properties and switch textures;
[bug] V-Ray light material in mesh light mode does not support textures;
[bug] Filtering a 2d texture near the edges of UV space always wraps the texture around;
[bug] Issues with normal mapping;
[bug] Issue with double slashes in plugin paths;
[bug] IPR related bugs;
[bug] Invisible lights behave differently in refractions seen through reflections since rev. 10661;
[bug] Problem with the SSS2 material in Raytraced(refractive) mode;
[bug] The cosine power of the Phong material works in a reverse way in V-Ray;
[bug] Slow rendering of tiled OpenEXR textures;
[bug] The "date" tag should be expanded internally, like the other tags, not in the UI;
[bug] Incorrect subdivision amount with motion blur and fast camera movement;
[bug] The camera space output attributes in samplerInfo don't work with motion blur and a moving camera;
[bug] Possible discrepancy between VRaySun position and the Maya GeoSun;
[bug] The alpha contribution of the MtlWrapper material doesn't work when the object is not matte;
[bug] AA artifacts with thin bright lines when using Adaptive DMC image sampler;
[bug] Problems with vrlservice on Mac OS X;
[bug] Crash with preview of dome light/environment in batch mode;
[bug] Warnings with mesh lights with zero scale;
[bug] No message is printed for successful save of a .vrimg file;
[bug] VFB - fatal error;
[bug] Meshlights ignore cutoff;
[bug] Correct ray differentials for refraction;
[bug] Secondary visibility does not work for objects with VRayLightMtl material with "Direct light" option enabled;
[bug] Layer Override option for "Treat as Physical Camera";
[bug] Batch render camera in the V-Ray Common tab cannot have a per-render layer override;
[bug] In VRayObjectProperties/MtlWrapper, the "GI amount" slider should be enabled only when "Shadows" is also enabled;
[bug] Issue with proxy objects and VRAY_ASSETS_PATH on Linux;
[bug] Support for *.psd file textures;
[bug] The "Emit distance" parameter of the VRaySun should be calculated automatically from the sun position;
[bug] Camera projection does not work with texture reference object;
[bug] Objects with primary visibility off in their VRayObjectProperties still show up in render elements;
[bug] The "File name" in VRay Common is not updated when changing the current render layer;
[bug] Crash with subdivision surfaces;
[bug] "Generate GI" and "Receive GI" options in the wrapper material and object properties have no effect;
[bug] Issue with objects with primary visibility off and VRayLightMtl material with direct illumination enabled;
[bug] By default the sun is created below the horizon; should be above;
[bug] The VRay configuration settings are in a directory that the user may have restricted access to;
[bug] Motion blur doesn't work for NURBS objects;
[bug] Wrong displacement when using plusMinusAverage utility node;
[bug] "Pause IPR" button doesn't work as expected;
[bug] Error message when using IPR;
[bug] Crash with the "Affect channels" option and image planes;
[bug] Animated bitmap textures with the same file name but different offsets are exported as the same texture;
[bug] Proxy loses shaders in proxy vraymesh nodes on import of a maya scene;
[bug] Artifacts with smoothed UV coordinates for subdivision surfaces;
[bug] Incorrect motion blur for mesh lights;
[bug] Projection texture does not work correctly with motion blur and moving camera;
[bug] Crash with matte material in specific scene;
[bug] VRay Sun Swatch does not work;
[bug] OpenEXR files with negative coordinates for the data window fail to load;
[bug] The test resolution affects the exported vrscene files;
[bug] Problem with the update on the attributes panel for Vray attributes;
[bug] Maya hangs after render in heavy scene;
[bug] Issue with "Affect matte objects" in the ExtraTex element when an object has both VRayObjectProperties and a wrapper material;
[bug] When a texture is assigned to V-Ray dome light, VRayPlaceEnvTex is not always created;
[bug] VRay IES lights may show incorrect shape in the viewports;
[bug] Motion Blur support for V-Ray Lights;
[bug] When in batch mode the tag does not work as expected;
[bug] Crash when trying to create a VRayIESLight under Linux;
[bug] Bump maps flipped in reflections;
[bug] The Maya ambient light does not work with VRay;
[bug] vrimg2exr fails to convert channels with names longer than the allowable in an .exr file (32 chars); instead it should truncate;
[bug] The standalone crashes on OS X if it cannot find the scene file;
[bug] Problem with saving images from the VFB of the standalone on Linux;
[bug] Stopping the IPR rendering while rendering is still in progress will not work;
[bug] Environment variable script does not specify shell on Linux;
[bug] The physical camera parameters are not motion blurred;
[bug] Issues when a bitmap file extension does not match the actual file format;
[bug] If manual sun position is ON, the file does not save the sun position.;
[bug] Edges texture does not work correctly with NURBS surfaces;
[bug] Some geometry can freeze Maya when exporting proxies;
[bug] Using tiled exr files results in lots of redundant file open/read/close operations which slows down the rendering;
[bug] Wrong names for render elements written in .vrimg files (since rev. 9278);
[bug] ply2vrmesh should not skip empty frames when creating .vrmesh files;
[bug] Crash when rendering certain .vrmesh files generated by ply2vrmesh with motion blur enabled;
[bug] Using certain words for the name of a node confuses the vrscene parser;
[bug] VRay4Maya crashes when the license server is on a Linux machine;
[bug] Light mesh with Render layers do not work properly.;
[bug] VrayRect Lights direction arrow does not scale up when raising U V size;
[bug] Artifacts with motion blur and displacement;
[bug] VRLService automatic startup doesn't work on some Macs;
[bug] Maya crashes when saving a scene after a combined vrmesh was autocreated;