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April 8, 2025​

New Features​

  • Initial Support to MaterialX (WIP):
    • Generates MaterialX Standard Surface shaders for each DCC Material.
    • Additionally generates a USD file with MaterialX assignments.
    • Based on Baked Textures resulting from Translation process.
    • Enabled by default, can be disabled by providing the flag --mtlx disabled or -m disabled.
    • MaterialX nodes are always encapsulated into a NodeGraph, per usdMtlx validation requirements.
    • MaterialX nodes always have explicit geometry streams, per usdMtlx validation requirements.
  • The DCC Importer is now distributed as an .msi installer:
    • The installer script has been adjusted accordingly.
  • Baking of AO textures through the 3D Processor is now supported by providing the flag --bakeAO:
    • The AO baking will be performed in the first free UV channel:
      • If no UV channel exists for a given material, the first UV will be used;
      • If the first UV channel is already in use, the second UV channel will be used.
    • The resolution follows the --resolution CLI arg. If no argument is provided, the default AO baking resolution is 2048x2048.
  • Add Real-World Scale to Tiling conversion.
  • Add Better Tiling Support.
    • When baking Tiled materials, the resolution override is now taken into account:
      • If the material has no bitmaps or no resolution can be obtained, the override is used as-is.
      • Otherwise, a proportional resolution in relation to the reference bitmap will be used, with the biggest dimension taking the override value.
  • Initial Ward to GGX Approximation:
    • Approximates Ward Roughness to GGX Roughness.
  • Add support for searching for the RPDX executable in the 3D Processor 7.X default folders, when the executable is not in the path variable:
    • In order, we search for the executable in the PATH variable, if any, then the 3D Processor default folder, then the RapidCompact (legacy) default folder.
  • Add (optional) scene file downsaving to lower compatible Max Version with the flag --maxFileVersion.
  • Add (optional) scene name and material name length limits with the flags --maxSceneNameLength and --maxMaterialNameLength.
  • Add customizable percentage threshold to convert flat textures into color values with the flag --dropTextures.
  • Add support to VRay 7.
  • Add better fallbacks for missing materials or submaterials:
    • Nodes without a material will use Wirecolor, per 3dsMax default behavior
    • MultiMaterial behavior is now replicated when submaterials are missing.

Adjustments​

  • UV Channel Copying & Mesh Instance Treatment, previously performed within 3dsMax, are now done through the USD API:
    • This results in considerable performance-gains for large scale scenes, compared to the previous version.
    • Note that, currently, instances of MultiMaterials are not supported and will be made unique during preprocessing.
  • Several adjustments have been made in the UV Unwrapping procedure:
    • Inverted UV faces are now flipped.
    • Issues when selecting multimaterial faces during the packing procedure have been fixed.
  • The treatment of the flag --mergeByMaterial is now performed outside of 3dsMax, through the RapidPipeline 3D Processor.
    • Note that, when nodes are merged with this flag, we are unnable to maintain mesh node names, by definition.
  • The output folder structure has been adjusted:
    • .glTF files now have no folder nesting by default, and are located in the gltf subfolder of the output scene folder;
    • .max files and its related textures are now located in the max subfolder of the output scene folder;
    • USD-MtlX files are now located in the mtlx subfolder of the output scene folder.
    • A new flag --keepGLTFFolderStructure has been added, to keep the previous behavior of having a nested fodler structure for the textures used by the glTF file.
      • NOTE: using this flag is not recommended, as certain webviewers, such as the modelviewer editor, do not support nested folder structures for glTF files.
  • Invalid bitmaps are now removed during scene preprocessing.
  • Adjust Displacement baking into Geometry and/or Bump Normal procedures.
  • Adjusted usage of reflection color when translating VRayCarPaint, VRayFastSSS2 and VRayBlend materials.
  • Adjusted log messages when processing files with the 3D Processor.
  • Adjusted error check when no input or output folders are provided.
  • Adjusted log messages shown when providing additional output formats.
  • Adjusted error checking for bitmap coordinates when baking tiles.
  • Take Bump/Normal and Displacement multipliers into account when baking textures.
  • Optimize Installation Workflow for faster dependency install.
  • Optimize Memory Usage.
  • Optimize Image saving and translation operations.
  • Transforms and scale of nodes are no longer reset as part of the export process.
  • Adjustments to the glTF Reimporter:
    • Thin-walled and double-sided parameters are now properly reflected in the resulting V-Ray shaders.
  • The .max output file now contains a hidden copy of the original scene.
    • The resulting nodes, with the reimported Materials, are under a root node named "{scene name}_Processed".
  • Reduce disk usage for intermediate EXR baked texture by using lossless compression.
  • Geometry node names are now kept intact during conversion.
  • Avoid using glTF Extensions whose values are too close to default.
  • The error messages displayed when no V-Ray or USD for 3ds Max are installed are now clearer to the user.

Fixes​

  • Fixed issues with incorrect material classification as simple textured.
  • Fixed issues in MultiMaterial cleanup when face IDs are invalid.
  • Fixed issues with hidden instanced geometry nodes being present in the output file.
  • Fixed issues with UV projection when baking VRayDisplacementMod.
  • Fixed missing baking of coat parameters for VRayCarPaint materials.
  • Remove incorrect baking of coat parameters for VRayFastSSS2 materials.
  • Fix issue with 3ds Max always logging in Trace mode.
  • Fixed issue when cleaning-up MultiMaterials with a disabled submaterial.
  • Fixed issues in the glTF Reimport when the Iridescence or Dispersion extensions were present in the input file but ignored during translation.
  • Fixed incorrect Dispersion/Volume extension assignment when no Volume/Transmission are assigned to a glTF file.
  • Fixes issues with Alpha mode in glTF.

Dependency Changes​

  • The imagecodecs and MaterialX Python dependencies have been added.
  • The USD and OpenImageIO Python dependencies have been updated.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

January 20, 2025​

⚡ Fixed crash bug when running V-Ray versions under 6.X, related to Thin Film parameters.
⚡ Fixed crash bug when running 3ds Max host version 2023, related to Material Switcher treatment.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

January 8, 2025​

🔨 Minor improvements to memory consumption and cleanup of internal Numpy image array operations.

⚡ Fixed crash bug with log parsing.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

December 17, 2024​

✨ Added a new Log Level 'TRACE':

  • 'TRACE' is a more verbose log level than 'DEBUG', and can be viewed by using the CLI arg: --logLevel 5.
  • 'TRACE' is the only level that exposes RPDX subprocesses log messages as well as internal file operations.

🔨 Minor improvements to memory consumption of internal Numpy image array operations.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

December 12, 2024​

✨ Camera names are now preserved in the output 3dsMax file.
✨ Improved memory consumption of internal Numpy image array operations.

🔨 Minor changes to scene cleanup.
🔨 Adjusted error checks for invalid subprocess calls.

⚡ Fixed issue with VRay version constraint checks, during the 3dsMax system validation step.
⚡ Fixed issue with 3D Processor subprocess Compact operation, for RPDX versions 6.X and lower.
⚡ Fixed issue with 3D Processor subprocess operations, for RPDX versions 6.X and lower, when a space is present in any input or output path.
⚡ Fixed rendering errors for Tiled materials when the geometry doesn't have a UV channel in use by the Material.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

November 26, 2024​

✨ Added support for Bump Multipliers to simple textured materials.
✨ Support has been added to several new 3ds Max standard materials as input: glTFMaterial, MaxUSDPreviewSurface, PBRMetalRough, PBRSpecGloss, TopBottom, Composite.
✨ The pillow 3ds Max Python dependency has been added.
✨ New scene statistics are now computed when running a batch of scenes.

🔨 Scene Pre-Processing has been revamped to be less invasive, keeping Groups and assemblies whenever possible.
🔨 UV Unwrapping is now processed within 3ds Max exclusively, keeping newly generated UVs in the original geometry nodes.
🔨 Baking process has been revamped to avoid artifacts previously caused by Cage and Ray Trace projection methods.
🔨 USD file format is now used for geometry exchange between 3ds Max and the DCC Importer main process, keeping the scene structure.
🔨 Normal maps are now only baked when strictly necessary.
🔨 Multi-Material clean up and simplification has been revamped.
🔨 The materials Advanced_Lighting_Override and MaterialSwitcher will now be replaced by their child materials.
🔨 Recommended versions of several dependencies have been updated; check the README for details.
🔨 The folder for the virtual environments of the application have been renamed to '.venv'.
🔨 Revamped environment configuration file generation.
🔨 Adjustments have been made to several log messages.

⚡ Fixed missing IOR value when converting Physical Materials and its derivates to VRayMtl.
⚡ Fixed issues during material simplification, e.g. the effect of curve-based color mapping is now taken into account for certain input maps such as Falloff.
⚡ Fixed issues with non-contiguous image arrays in OpenImageIO.
⚡ Fixed issues with 2-channel images in OpenImageIO.

⛔ The OLEFile Python dependency has been removed.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

November 11, 2024​

✨ The CLI will now display build date and commit short hash for easier debugging.

🔨 When applicable, the CLI code package expiration date will be displayed upon starting an execution.
🔨 When the code package expiration date is within under 14 days, a warning recommending the user to contact support will be displayed.
🔨 Adjustments have been made to the error displayed when the CLI code package has expired.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

October 31, 2024​

🔨 Adjusted the Python dependencies build process to avoid requiring install time Visual Studio compiler dependencies.

⛔ As a result, the VS C++ Tools are no longer listed as an installation dependency.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

September 12, 2024​

✨ A new internal generic version string comparison functionality has been introduced.
✨ Add support for RPDX v7.x settings.

🔨 Adjustments have been made to the baking process.
🔨 Fixes issue with texture quality on file format conversion for alternate outputs.

For more information, see the reference documentation for RapidPipeline DCC Importer.