VUE, PlantFactory and PlantCatalog Exporter R5 build 5003878
Release date: June 23, 2020
VUE
[NEW] Displacement has been improved dramatically and offers three new subdivision strategies:
[NEW] Allow changing the subdivision strategy (no subdivision / uniform / dynamic).
[NEW] Avoid losing displacement whenever one adds a material layer: new option "add to underlying displacement" added to displacement tab.
Avoid clamping the displacement function.
[Multi-layer material] fixed altitude influence in per-object mode when the full range of altitude should be covered (due to displacement, the top and bottom were cut).
Avoid clamping the displacement function. Therefore, removed the displacement extension options.
[NEW]Added Intel open-source image denoiser 1.2.0 and Nvidia Optix denoisers to denoise interactive and offline path tracer renders. Nvidia Optix (if available) or Intel denoiser are enabled when reading old (pre-R5) scene or creating new one.
[NEW] [Realworldimport] import texture data from two remote imagery servers: aerial data from USGS and sentinel2 by EOX (worldwide, cloudless), topography & shaded relief from USGS. Note that USGS layers are served but very low def outside the USA.
[NEW] Automatic loading of material channels from a single filename by looking for files with the same name but with configurable tags.
[NEW] Reworked the export naming of texture maps to use the file tags: the first tag of each channel is used to name the corresponding texture map. Additionally the export as billboard now names the exported maps as x[_front/_side/_top][_alpha/_normal/...].png where x is the TPF file name.
[NEW] Added widget buttons next to preview map to rotate/flip output textures.
[NEW] Cloud Morphing supports material morphing and has received a simplified new dialogue
[NEW] MetaCloud distance field options can now be animated.
Allow render sequence to exceed animated parameter from timeline.
Animation toolbox handle both MetaCloud and MetaBalls when a MetaCloud is selected.
Morphing cloud fix on rotated MetaSpheres.
Fix in color animation (color modulation) in cloud renders.
Fixed potential crash in OpenGL old volumetric atmosphere preview.
Do not affect clouds lighting with shadow terminator.
[NEW] Reworked godray atmosphere scenes.
[NEW] 350 new content items
[NEW] The same scene object can now be added several times in an EcoSystem as separate items if its materials or transformation have changed.
[NEW] When loading a PlantFactory plant in an EcoSystem of an animated scene, a message box now asks what quality to use (instead of using "animated mesh" by default, which can take a long time to load).
Fixed the loading of objects with EcoSystems from the scene into other EcoSystems: the scene could be saved but not reloaded.
Fixed the OpenGL display of EcoSystems when using the "shaded billboards" quality (lighting, object orientation...). Now the billboards face the camera again, like in older versions of VUE, but it also better supports instances that are not vertical (i.e. Perpendicular to a terrain, or any shape).
Fixed the name of the density and scaling output nodes in the function editor when it is opened from the color tab of the EcoSystem material editor (were visible as "bump" and "transparency").
When converting a material layer to EcoSystem, reset the color output so that we can use the color map widget when enabling variable color.
[Particle systems] fixed material mismatch when loading both fireworks and waterjet particle systems in a scene.
[NEW] Added customizable slider node.
MetaCloud sphere could no longer be chosen in external dependencies (and optimizations).
Fixed transparency that could potentially be used in place of displacement.
Remove a node from the current selection is now possible.
Improved color node handles in graph.
Fixed issues with editing published parameter of MetaNode.
Improved automatic naming of MetaNode inputs and outputs.
[NEW] Allow sharing the same PlantCatalog folder for both VUE and PlantFactory.
Improved the error messages, by providing more relevant information whenever possible.
[Uninstall] avoid cleaning the renderstack without informing the user.
[NEW] [Real-world Terrain] allow importing up to 32k but warn heightfields above 8k are not editable in the terrain editor.
[NEW] [Real-world Terrain] handle longitude & latitude coordinates input in D.M.S. (Degrees minutes seconds) and D.D.M. (Degree + decimal minutes).
[NEW] Added PBR channel when exporting billboards.
[NEW] [Images] support more picture formats: jpeg2000, Terragen terrain file support is back, ESRI ehdr (bil), all tiff options (e.g. Deflate, unusual color coding like CMYK, 16- and 32bits per component gray and RGB(a) pixels), extra-large tiff (> 2GB of uncompressed data), some additional options for other formats (e.g. CMYK coding in jpeg files).
[NEW] [Obj/mtl] support 'newmap' and 'usemap' keywords when parsing obj & mtl files where texture maps are specified using this apparently older-style method (e.g. some xFrogs plants).
[Convert tools] Fixed a potential crash when converting a VUE object using displacement mapping.
Collada import/export now support utf-8 characters (which includes all European and Asian letters).
Speed up large VDB cloud OpenGL preview.
Allow loading non-geo-located pictures as heightmap-based terrains.
Support loading 32- and 64bits-precision pictures (RGB or grayscale) but only through GDAL at the moment.
[Real-world Terrain] fix missing data in end result terrain when more tiles are needed for import than fits in the disk cache.
[Real-world Terrain] fix range & increment (e.g. When wheeling) in longitude/latitude edit fields + improve error handling (no more duplicated error messages).
[Real-world Terrain/UX] fix progress bar issues, add view extent hint in left panel, add tile info in tooltip over the map view.
[Real-world Terrain] fix navigation and import near the poles.
Avoid losing link to the original plant/stone model file when loading a .vob file containing such an asset.
Fixed potentially missing maps when reading .TTPF files using seasonality parameters.
[Real-world Terrain] fix downloaded tiles not displayed in map view when navigating in an area with sub-ideal resolution level on server.
[LWO] fix invalid (and useless) transparency channel + work around invalid normal map "auto-detection" on some legacy formats that don't support them (obj, lwo, dae, cob, 3ds).
Fixed reading of files created in VUE easel.
Corrected standardization of view directions (export front / right / top view with reference to standard VUE frame, previously exported back view).
The export dialog does not reset anymore the "alpha treatment" option each time it is opened. It keeps what was set by the user, like the other options.
Avoid truncating long export names when not needed (i.e. all exports but 3ds).
Fixed unused vertices when exporting plant with top transition.
Fixed saving of image files with embedded alpha (png, tiff, tga...) Which was only 0 or 1 but not values in-between.
Fixed the opening of the VUE documentation when the default application for pdf files is a web browser (chrome, Firefox, Edge, IE).
Fix loading of content passed with relative path, e.g. in python's addplant.
Fix samples scripts shipped with VUE (except materials/displaycontourlegend.py because of wxwidgets issue
[Crashsender/mac] missing most of the message in case of server downtime, now explain where to find the unsent report & send to support (like when the user cancelled sending by himself).
[Macro] fixed a potential infinite loop in case of error during a macro
[File/save as] fix "save as..." Menu entry offering to save a scene using a picture type.
When an internal error occurs, display the internal code in a field allowing copy-paste.
Fixed a potential crash in the reading of the scene by the RenderCow.
[UI] fixed about dialog layout (RenderCow and HyperVue).
Fixed a potential crash of RenderCow in interactive rendering (ie. Render to screen + "use network").
Deactivate hybrid motion blur when rendering with distributed rendering (incompatible, and produced black tiles).
Fixed HyperVue and distributed rendering when aspect ratio is "from main view".
[NEW] Path tracer now supports the "map ground plane" environment mapping option.
[NEW] Added albedo channel to path tracer multipass outputs.
[NEW] Multipass albedo is now recursive through both specular reflection and refraction..
[NEW] Multipass now supports material id channel.
[NEW] Path tracer now supports semi-transparent and semi-reflective materials, as well as transparency & reflectivity distribution maps.
[NEW] Path tracer material color parameter now supports both color shift and color blend settings.
[NEW] Path tracer PBR materials now support ambient occlusion, roughness & metallic image map modulation factors.
Further optimized rendering of billboards with the path tracer (patched for full CPU implementation).
Fixed issues when changing denoiser settings during interactive render. Changes are now applied on the fly, without the need to restart the render from scratch.
Make sure interactive path tracer specific functions are never called during an offline render.
Avoid numerical precision issues with converted object transformation for the path tracer.
Fixed wrong plant billboards shading.
Removed MetaClouds from main depth buffer, as it lacked proper outlining & anti-aliasing.
Path tracer materials now properly modulate luminous amount with diffuse component amount for mixed materials.
Fixed a potential (rare) crash when rendering to main view (depends on the main view size and aspect ratio).
Avoid saving empty alpha/depth files (use multipass to generate and save those channels within the path tracer).
Improved progress bar for offline rendering, for objects which are long to convert (complex Boolean operations, typically).
Optimized case when displaced objects are instantiated (memory foot-print and preparation time).
Fixed a potential crash when rendering a scene containing duplicated splines.
Fixed a bug when activating the interactive PathTracer: render was relaunch from scratch shortly after being started.
Support xml entries for fine-grained device (de-)activation (the only choices in the UI are "CPU-only" and "GPU-only"), needed for example to work around driver issues e.g. with Intel graphics hd 630 on hp-zbook's). Can also be useful to disable a GFX that has not enough memory to render a complex scene, and only allow the more powerful GFX to tackle it. Changing values in the xml can be done after the path-tracer has been activated at least once in the software, by looking up the group of entries named "OpenCL GPU device activation", changing true/false values, and restarting the software (there is also the less useful group of entries "OpenCL CPU device activation" for CPU devices).
[NEW] Improved mesh smoothing algorithm performance (up to 4x faster), which also benefits to displacement mapping.
[NEW] Optimized displacement mapping preparation when there is no subdivision (4.5 x faster).
Disabled an old way of saving meshes (used for backward compatibility with VUE 2015) in scenes saved as "consolidated archive" (it was taking more disk space and more time to read and write).
Meshes now have their intersection data generated just after the loading of the scene, to avoid a potential freeze when moving the camera for the first time. This operation also benefits to the scene preview and the first actual render.
[Terrain editor] prevent memory usage peak when opening on a large heightmap terrain (more than 1GB saved on a 4k terrain, 4GB on a 8k terrain!) - And fix the max terrain limit, which was 8096 instead of 8192, i.e. "true" 8k terrains could not be created:/.
[NEW] Added the compatibility with the v-ray render node for Maya (the incorporation of the VUE scene inside the Maya scene must be disabled in the options of the VUE plugin, and the VUE scene must be saved on a network location accessible by all render nodes).
[NEW] Cinema4d R21 integration plugin.
[NEW] Maya 2020 integration plugin.
[NEW] Added support of Cinema4D S22.
[NEW] Added support of 3ds Max 2021.
Fixed a random crash in Cinema4D when creating EcoSystems on/with native objects (it could start occurring with the second object used).
Fixed the display of the diffuse color of VUE objects: it was always gray if the color channel used the constant or procedural mode, combined with a mapped picture in the alpha channel.
Fixed the display of materials on references (=copy) of objects like primitives or terrains (but not meshes that had no problem).
Fixed problems with scenes containing VUE groups in Maya. They were constantly reselected for no reason after some actions, disturbing the manipulation/edition of other objects.
The loading of objects from the VUE scene into EcoSystems now works in the integration plugins (several problems fixed).
The default Maya scene isn't considered animated anymore, which avoids displaying annoying VUE messages and potential problems when editing the VUE scene.
Added a message box warning the user if the VUE scene is too large to be incorporated in the Maya scene instead of failing silently (the size is limited to 2.1 GB by the Maya SDK).
Fixed slowness in code extracting/incorporating the VUE scene inside/from the Maya scene (for a 2GB VUE file the respective times are: 2s/8s instead of 63s/105s).
Fixed a crash in Maya when adding a ventilator, or in scenes containing one (regression introduced in R4).
Fixed a freeze in Maya when launching a render from the v-ray frame buffer.
Editing sub-materials of meshes is now correctly applied in the real-times previews (c4d, Maya, 3ds Max).
[Material editor] fixed zoomed material preview remaining black when opened in a plug-in.
Fixed the writing of synchronization data in all plug-ins, and added plug-in for 3ds Max 2021, Cinema4D R21 and S22.
[NEW] E-on python API now embeds documentation as docstrings (ie. Standard python documentation
[NEW] Improved python documentation: search engine, updated main page, etc...
[NEW] Added global functions: getinternalunit(), VUEtometers(), meterstoVUE(), convertlength(val, sourceunit, destunit), lengthunitname(unit), getshortunitstring(unit) and stringtolengthwithunit(str, destunit
[NEW] Python node editor has been improved and translated.
[NEW] Added function to bake selection to polygons: bakeselectiontopolygons(int quality
[NEW] Removed python 2.7 (VUE & TPF) or python 3.7 (LRT) in favor of python 3.8 to run python code inside our soft.
Fixed a freeze when rendering a scene containing python materials/callbacks through the 'render' function used in the synchronous way.
Better reporting of python interpreter initialization errors.
Fix screen capture of a window on MacOS (for internal tests, but also available to users through python).
[NEW] MetaCloud render optimizations.
[NEW] Implemented shadow terminator softening for both ray tracer & path tracer.
Fixed invisible EcoSystems when doing a render with the OpenGL quality (population items were only visible as single points or flat billboards. It now works with all other qualities: shaded billboard, box, smooth shaded...).
Fix some halo appearing around plants with alpha with VDB clouds behind.
Fixed high correlation in secondary PBR samples (seen through one or more reflections).
Fixed sun corona/disc intensity mismatch when raising sun size.
Fixed shadow terminator softening to take backlight into account.
Fixed potential crash in resume render, and infinite saving time, when resume render data is larger than 2GB
[Animation] display a given warning only once during the whole duration of the animation (multiple scattering, typically).
More consistent behavior when displacement is applied to high resolution terrains.
Avoid changing the displacement amplitude too much when halving/doubling a terrain resolution.
Improved normal mapping computation, when used in addition with displacement mapping.
Fixed a mac-only bug: the texture maps loaded for NPR effects had their color component inversed (BGR instead of RGB).
NPR now takes the changes in the relighting settings into account.
Fixed a regression in the material editor: if the current material used a substance node, then selecting another object without substance node caused a crash.
Fix crashes when reading some old scenes (e.g. tutorials/05_ecospheres.VUE from e-on content).
[OpenGL] no longer suggest using an older OpenGL engine ('fixed pipeline' or 'software') even if VUE crashes while in compatibility mode, because 'shadeR4' is the most stable now
[Camera options] fix preview prone to crashing in the advanced camera options.
[Terrain editor] fix crash when trying to open terrain editor on heightfield terrains larger than 8k: heightfields larger than that can still be imported (from a dem file for example) but can no longer be edited in the terrain editor, for performance reasons.
[TPF-plants] try to work around crashes when zooming onto TPF plants on MacOS, pending actual resolution of the issue.
Fixed potential crash while navigating in a scene with PlantFactory vegetations.
[Plugins/Maya] fixed a potential crash when populating an EcoSystem several times in Maya.
[Stereoscopic rendering] fixed a potential crash in stereoscopic rendering, when GPU anti-aliasing is activated.
Fixed potential render issues or even crashes when reloading a same scene using rain or snow with collision enabled.
Fixed a potential crash when a procedural terrain using displacement receives shadows from a mesh object.
Fixed cases when some EcoSystem specimens could be lost while saving a scene or material.
[Ray tracer] fixed a potential crash when enabling subsurface scattering on an imported object.
[Renderstack] fix possible crash in render stack.
[PathTracer] fix possible crash when initializing a path-traced render.
[Real-world Terrain] fix rare crashes when downloading tiles.
[First-launch/MacOS] fix OpenGL configurator failures when VUE is installed in a path with spaces
[Relighting] fix crash when enabling relighting in render settings but the corresponding option is unchecked in the render stack options.
[EcoSystems] do not crash when reading an EcoSystem layer or EcoSystem brush is missing specimen files.
Fixed possible crash with software OpenGL visualization engine. Prevent crashes when trying to save a 16bits picture as jpeg (through the image widget's "export map" menu
[Images] crashes when reloading linked ("synchronized") images modified in a third-party apps while being used in VUE/PF.
[Material editor] fixed a potential crash when switching from a substance material layer to a non-substance one.
Fixed substance node 2 and 3-dimensional parameter input sliders in material editor when a scene has been reloaded.
Fixed crash when changing substance node SBSAR graph and choosing auto reconnect in function editor.
Fixed no refresh when loading/removing file in .SBSAR image parameter.
Fixed incorrect handling of non-multiple of 4 pixel width images in .SBSAR image parameter.
Fixed incorrect handling of normal mode loaded images in .SBSAR image parameter.
[NEW] Allow loading geo-located terrains inside the "terrain picture" button in the terrain editor, to mix the heightmap with the existing terrain graph.
[NEW] Offer two color interpretation choices when loading an RGB picture for use as a heightmap in the terrain editor (choices are: luminance vs. Red-green encoded).
[NEW] Improved quality of HD heightfields in the scene preview, when they are using displacement/normal mapping.
Fixed wrong default value for proportion slider of import terrain data dialog inside terrain editor.
Fixed bug with invert button of import terrain data dialog inside terrain editor which wasn't working.
Fix "none - 1x1" display in graph for real-world terrain's heightmaps.
[Splineeffect] fix spikes in the terrain editor when there is a spline terrain effect: the terrain editor was never intended to preview the spline effect interactively (it would often be too slow), there is a "bake spline effect" button instead.
[NEW] Better scaling factor for non-orthographic billboards.
[NEW] EcoSystems can now be hidden by settings the max number of displayed instances to 0 in the VUE options (this can be helpful in large scenes to get a more acceptable framerate).
[NEW] Small improvement of the OpenGL frame rate in large scenes when the texture maps are disabled in the VUE options (+20%).
[NEW] Disabled the selection of variations for PlantFactory items loaded from the VUE scene into EcoSystems (it's still possible to modify the original plant in the scene then re-add it as a new item to the EcoSystem).
[NEW] Made the edition/rendering of NPR lines a little faster by re-using the previous underlying shader render when its settings stay the same
[NEW] It is now possible to disable shadows with the "shader 4" OpenGL engine from the options dialog. This was already possible using a pop-up menu above the views, but this option had to be more visible to users, since it helps increase the frame rate with complex scenes.
[NEW] Improved world browser display.
[NEW] Improved layered material editor layout.
[NEW] [Material editor] hide the color map widget when it has no effect (i.e.. In case of complex color output), in EcoSystem variable color and volume shaded materials (as done for simple materials).
[NEW] Display progression feedback in a popup dialog when loading a scene from the startup panel (or when the status bar is hidden).
[NEW] [Mesh editor] improved the display of polygons and vertices count (coma separator...).
[NEW] [EcoSystem/TPF specimens] moved the 'variations' options to 'EcoSystem item options' sub-dialog (more consistent, and avoid double processing time when changing both variations and quality).
[NEW] [Bake to polygons/convert to MetaCloud] added option to bake displacement or not (previously, it was always baked, except for procedural terrains).
[NEW] [Render stack] added render preparation time to render tooltips
[NEW] Added a way to control the baking quality of procedural objects, for algorithms such as displacement/normal mapping or EcoSystem 360 deg. Population (from object menu: "mesh baking options...").
Fixed preview not updated when editing wind.
Fixed "bake to polygons" of PlantFactory plant using two-sided materials.
Fixed a regression preventing to maximize OpenGL views by double clicking on their title (it was instantly restored).
Fixed the "edit all materials" functionality with the interactive path-tracing (it was causing a crash, and changes were not applied to the scene).
Fixed the unwanted symmetrical resizing of non-horizontal planes when using the resize handles.
Fixed the selection of rotated/scaled planes in the orthogonal views. It's now as precise as with other primitives. It fixes situations where it was impossible to select other objects close to a plane.
Fixed problems with alpha planes seen from the side in the orthogonal views: they were invisible and not selectable.
Fixed the tooltip of some output nodes in the function editor, for mixed/volumetric/EcoSystem materials (incorrect information was shown after the name, inside parentheses).
Preserved the overall name of layered material when adding a new layer at the top.
The popup menu listing the materials of selected objects now uses the overall name of layered materials.
Fixed a regression that broke the option "use color map" in the basic material editor.
Fixed another regression regarding the OpenGL display of EcoSystems: the shaded billboard representing the top view of population items was missing.
Fixed the OpenGL display of EcoSystems instances using the box quality: they were randomly overexposed (almost white).
Fixed another detail with shaded billboards in EcoSystems: top and sides views now appear separately depending the camera position.
Fixed a regression in message boxes with multiple choice (long explanation texts were truncated).
Fixed a regression (since VUE R3) in the render stack: when the path tracer was enabled in the current scene, selecting an old NPR render showed the color picture.
Fixed a regression preventing to edit the NPR settings in the editor of a camera for which NPR was already enabled (since VUE R2).
Fixed a bug when trying to change displayed channel with renders displayed in main view.
Fix non reappearing checkbox on property dialog.
[Renderstack] fix rendered picture following the mouse as soon as one of its scrollbars is hovered (when zoomed in).
[3D views] fix object deselecting themselves for no reason when trying to move them.
[Terrain fractal] adjust slider range for noise type blending.
[Image widget/export map] don't lose alpha when present on exported file
[Spline editor] fix "reset" menu on filters not resetting to editor defaults
[Alphaplane editor] fix drag-and-drop of images and movies into the color and alpha channels.
[Particle systems] fixed plus/minus character (velocity tolerance).
[Particle systems] improved progress bar and fixed confusing text in status bar (regarding dynamic population
[Plant editor] improved message and browser handling when editing a SolidGrowth plant whose model file is missing.
[Plant editor/ SolidGrowth] correctly disable leaf/branch widgets when needed.
[Plant editor/ SolidGrowth] fixed inconsistent behavior (including potential crashes) when changing the plant model file from the plant editor.
Fix mac render area not correctly displaying last render in HiDPI.
Fix small visual glitch on material editor mixed.
Fix a crash in browser.
Fix wrong placed caret when clicking on edit control.
Fix some visual glitches on material editor.
More natural order for left and right rotate icons in material editors.
Fixed section spline edition.
Display the urchin profile as a revolution surface.
Correct section editor event handling (mouse motion not going to right place when rotating the 3d view of the segment section).
Fix insertion of section in section editor (inserted section was not the selected one), refresh after section suppression.
Allow interface scaling using eon_interface_scaling system environment variable (default value is 1, you can use decimal values and the recommended range is 0.5 to 2).
Fix strange dpi issue on main window
[Shader4] fix "use paper" feature.
Improved interface for natural film response filters.
Fixed jpeg options window being closed as soon as we click the quality edit field.
Fixed the display of image sequence paths (material or function editor) when the sequence was incorporated in file.
When resetting options to default, also reset the default viewport configuration and restore disabled messages.
Fixed confusing progression title when exporting only materials or 2d heightmap.
[Menu/online help] added menu entries for online help (technical support, sales support, faq) - VUE and PlantFactory.
Use orthographic billboards in VUE for EcoSystem billboard display.
When using different x and y size in "export billboard" dialog, let the top view stay square so that the sizes of the 3 exported billboards are matching (front width equal to top width, right width equal to top height).
[Material editor] fixed inconsistent angles displayed for slope range (environment influence tab).
PlantFactory
[NEW] PlantFactory Integration plugins now support Arnold & Vray next in Maya and 3ds Max
[NEW] Added Animation point export
[NEW] Automatic load of point cache in Maya plugin.
[NEW] Automatically convert materials to Arnold native materials.
[NEW] Maya 2019 TPF importer plugin for Mac
[NEW] Maya 2020 TPF importer plugin for Windows
[NEW] PlantFactory Integration plugins now support Arnold & Vray next in Maya and 3ds Max
[NEW] Correct display of PBR leaves: take into account the intensity slider when there is a map, take into account the AO map.
[NEW] Enabled preview of PBR materials with a new background that looks more like the one of the VUE render.
[NEW] Added a "show checker" option for the preview ground (mainly to better see mirror like materials).
[NEW] Added a Skybox options to select skybox type in preview.
[NEW] Corrected highlight map preview to work with the PBR display and take into account highlight filters.
[NEW] Minimum directional light can be set to zero using the mouse wheel on the light gizmo, as we have a secondary lighting with IBL.
[NEW] Preview window has a simple sky model and checker ground with settable colors (allows better view of reflective materials)
[NEW] Allow changing the subdivision strategy (no subdivision / uniform / dynamic).
[NEW] Avoid losing displacement whenever one adds a material layer: new option "add to underlying displacement" added to displacement Tab.
[Multi-layer material] Fixed altitude influence in per-object mode when the full range of altitude should be covered (due to displacement, the top and bottom were cut).
Avoid clamping the displacement function. Therefore removed the displacement extension options.
[NEW] Added UV parameters in Urchin Node.
[NEW] Added Displacement parameters in Urchin Node.
[NEW] Added possibility to deform crossed planes leaves, same as simple leaves.
Fixed manual meshing parameter for secondary cap.
Optimization in Segment node.
Fixed potential crash using Grow on object.
Improved wind support on urchin.
Fixed potential glitch with "Grow on object".
Corrected subdivision number for small segment radius in manual quad mode, with "by unit length" subdivision parameter.
Fixed UV mapping on blades with "UV extension" ON and "parametric" OFF.
Allow use of vegetation nodes inside any plant graph MetaNodes .
Fixed potential crash when creating MetaNode in plant graph.
Fixed minimum subdivisions use on lower LODs and possible variable minimum (with filter on segments in manual triangle mode).
Fixed transparency that could potentially be used in place of displacement.
Remove a node from the current selection is now possible.
Improved color node handles in graph.
Fixed issued with editing published parameter of MetaNode.
Improved automatic naming of MetaNode inputs and outputs.
[NEW] Allow sharing the same PlantCatalog folder for both VUE and PlantFactory.
Improved the error messages, by providing more relevant information whenever possible.
[Uninstall] avoid cleaning the renderstack without informing the user.
[NEW] The export as billboard texture maps are named following the content of the "File tag" dialog in the options
[NEW] Added names to ABC export face sets and stopped splitting the mesh by materials.
[NEW] Added PBR channel when exporting billboards.
[NEW] [Images] Support more picture formats: JPEG2000, Terragen Terrain file support is back, ESRI EHdr (BIL), all TIFF options (e.g. Deflate, unusual color coding like CMYK, 16- and 32bits per component Gray and RGB(A) pixels), extra-large TIFF (> 2GB of uncompressed data), some additional options for other formats (e.g. CMYK coding in JPEG files).
[NEW] [OBJ/MTL] support 'newmap' and 'usemap' keywords when parsing OBJ & MTL files where texture maps are specified using this apparently older-style method (e.g. some xFrogs plants).
Corrected useless points that were exported when using segment placed on top of each other, when geometry blending was enabled.
Fixed normals not computed on import for FBX file format.
Fixed imported quad mesh being triangulated when importing an FBX file.
Corrected export of seasonal materials to LRT, when the color and alpha are using the same picture file.
Fixed possible crash on export dialog (by pressing the export button multiple times).
Fixed mesh name when export as VUE mesh.
Added support of billboard leaves when export as VUE Mesh.
[LWO] Fix invalid (and useless) transparency channel + work around invalid normal map "auto-detection" on some legacy formats that don't support them (OBJ, LWO, DAE, COB, 3DS).
Corrected standardization of view directions (export front / right / top view with reference to standard VUE frame, previously exported back view).
The export dialog does not reset anymore the "alpha treatment" option each time it is opened. It keeps what was set by the user, like the other options.
Avoid truncating long export names when not needed (ie all exports but 3DS).
Fixed unused vertices when exporting plant with top transition.
[NEW] Added seasonal PBR materials for billboards, the seasonal channels depend on the base material type (start from a PBR material to have the PBR seasonal channels).
[NEW] Enhanced automatic loading of material channels from a single filename for seasonal materials
[NEW] Added a configuration dialog for automatic loading of seasonal channels. Open it at the bottom of the editor.
[NEW] Automatic loading of material channels from a single filename by looking for files with the same name but with configurable tags.
[NEW] Reworked the export naming of texture maps to use the file tags: the first tag of each channel is used to name the corresponding texture map. Additionally the export as billboard now names the exported maps as X[_front/_side/_top][_alpha/_normal/...].png where X is the tpf file name.
Also remove alpha when removing RGBA color file from seasonal material editor.
Warn that we cannot invert alpha of RGBA picture in seasonal material editor.
When an internal error occurs, display the internal code in a field allowing copy-paste.
[NEW] Added Intel Open-Source Image Denoiser 1.2.0 and NVIDIA OptiX Denoisers to denoise Interactive and offline Path Tracer renders. NVIDIA Optix (if available) or Intel denoiser are enabled when reading old (pre-R5) scene or creating new one.
Fixed slow 3D preview after deactivating PathTracer.
Fixed a bug when activating the Interactive PathTracer: render was relaunch from scratch shortly after being started.
Support XML entries for fine-grained device (de-)activation (the only choices in the UI are "CPU-only" and "GPU-only"), needed for example to work around driver issues e.g. with Intel graphics HD 630 on HP-Zbook's). Can also be useful to disable a GFX that has not enough memory to render a complex scene, and only allow the more powerful GFX to tackle it. Changing values in the XML can be done after the path-tracer has been activated at least once in the software, by looking up the group of entries named "OpenCL GPU device activation", changing true/false values, and RESTARTING the software (there is also the less useful group of entries "OpenCL CPU device activation" for CPU devices).
Removed DDS compression for performances.
Removed resolution options in veg editor.
Fixed the estimation of the polygon count when exporting plants (was always 0).
Fixed a crash when loading some plants (could happen with Melia azedarach LD).
Disabled the instant feedback when typing in numerical fields (gives an impression of slowness and updates the geometry with unwanted values when typing the digits of numbers).
The plant is now instantly updated when changing its seed (the editor had to be closed to see the change).
[NEW] Removed Python 2.7 (VUE & TPF) or Python 3.7 (LRT) in favor of Python 3.8 to run Python code inside our soft.
[NEW] New automation GUI API. Better reporting of python interpreter initialization errors.
Fixed screen capture of a window on macOS (for internal tests, but also available to users through python).
Fixed painting crash involving Urchins. Fixed a potential crash when loading Koelreuteria bipinnata.
Prevent crashes when trying to save a 16bits picture as jpeg (through the image widget's "Export map" menu).
[Images] Crashes when reloading linked ("synchronized") images modified in a third-party apps while being used in VUE/TPF.
[Material Editor] Fixed a potential crash when switching from a Substance material layer to a non-Substance one.
[NEW] Added widget buttons next to preview map to rotate/flip output textures.
Fixed crash when loading picture over procedural substance data.
Fixed Substance node 2 and 3 dimensional parameter input sliders in material editor when a scene has been reloaded.
Fixed crash when changing Substance node sbsar graph and choosing auto reconnect in function editor.
Fixed no refresh when loading/removing file in .sbsar image parameter.
Fixed incorrect handling of non-multiple of 4 pixel width images in .sbsar image parameter. Fixed incorrect handling of Normal mode loaded images in .sbsar image parameter.
Corrected backlight intensity to respect the 0, removed extra ambient.
Fixed disabled shift click to multi select nodes in the graph.
Update the seasonal window when enabling seasonal parameters.
Fixed "Add new material" option in Material Summary.
Fixed "Export map" in basic material editor.
More natural order for left and right rotate icons in material editors. Fixed section spline edition.
Display the urchin profile as a revolution surface.
Correct section editor event handling (mouse motion not going to right place when rotating the 3D view of the segment section).
Fixed insertion of section in section editor (inserted section was not the selected one), refresh after section suppression.
Allow interface scaling using EON_INTERFACE_SCALING system environment variable (default value is 1, you can use decimal values and the recommended range is 0.5 to 2).
Fixed strange dpi issue on main window.
Improved interface for Natural Film Response filters.
Fixed JPEG options window being closed as soon as we click the quality edit field.
Fixed the display of image sequence paths (Material or Function Editor) when the sequence was incorporated in file.
When resetting options to default, also reset the default viewport configuration and restore disabled messages.
Fixed confusing progression title when exporting only materials or 2D heightmap.
[Menu/Online Help] Added menu entries for online help (technical support, sales support, FAQ) - VUE and PlantFactory.
Use orthographic billboards in VUE for EcoSystem billboard display.
When using different x and y size in "export billboard" dialog, let the top view stay square so that the sizes of the 3 exported billboards are matching (front width equal to top width, right width equal to top height).
[Material Editor] Fixed inconsistent angles displayed for slope range (environment influence tab).
Keep us updated with any technical issues you may be experiencing via our technical support form and we'll get back to you ASAP.
