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February 14, 2024

v0.11.0​

  • Major baking workflow revamp on 3ds Max:
    • Baking is now performed in relation to the original meshes with minimal changes.
    • As a result, several texture/baking issues related to transforms have been solved.
  • Refactored/revamped RapidPBR internal Material system.
  • Initial support for several new types of materials:
    • VRaySkinMtl, VRayALSurfaceMtl
    • VRayHairMtl: no support for VRayHairMtl as a submaterial of any kind (e.g., of MultiMaterials, Blend/VRayBlendMtl, etc).
    • VRayStochasticFlakesMtl, VRayFlakesMtl, VRayFlakesMtl2: currently only supported as Coat materials of a VRayBlendMtl, no support for Clearcoat glTF extension yet.
    • VRayCarPaintMtl, VRayCarPaintMtl2: no support for Clearcoat glTF extension yet.
    • Shell Materials, replaced by their Rendering material.
    • VRaySwitchMtl, replaced by the Material set by their index parameter.
  • The treatment of the standard 3ds Max Blend Material has been updated:
    • Fixes issues with Refraction textures.
  • Direct support of MultiMaterials has been added (WIP):
    • MultiMaterials with only simple materials are now exported directly.
    • MultiMaterials with any simple or complex materials are baked down to a single atlas.
    • The new treatment is tied to the changes in the baking workflow, as the previous Detachment procedure is no longer supported.
    • This procedure will still undergo further changes and we expect it to improve overtime.
  • Geometry instances are now preserved in the output glTF file:
    • In addition, only one instance of each node is taken into account when unwrapping/baking.
    • This change results in severely improved quality and execution time when baking a high number of geometry instances in a single atlas.
  • Automatic Backdrop Detection/Removal (WIP):
    • A new procedure to detect backdrops automatically by their bounding boxes has been added.
    • Note that the Backdrop Removal feature:
      • Only supports scenes with one backdrop;
      • Ignores nodes with complex materials;
      • Is still in development, may still undergo further changes.
  • The VRayDisplacementModifier baking has been revamped:
    • Baking the modifier into Bump should now produce more accurate results.
    • When Baking the modifier into geometry, the result is now processed with RapidCompact for removal of excessive polygons.
    • Displacement baking now processes one geometry at a time, resulting in a faster, more stable and memory efficient process.
    • The edge length is now fixed at 4.0 (pixels or world units).
  • The treatment of Falloff nodes has been updated:
    • When the Front (1st slot) Color/Texmap is black, the Side (2nd slot) Color/Texmap is ignored.
    • Otherwise, defaults to the previously used 80%/20% mix.
  • Revamped Material Translation related to Metalness & IOR treatment.
  • The progress of the current rendering is now logged:
    • The progress reported includes an estimate of time needed to complete the current rendering, if the information is available (omitted otherwise).
    • Example: 50% [Rendering done in: 0:00:12 (est.)]
    • NOTE: The time remaining is an estimate based on the progress reported by the renderer, and is only for reference. Actual times may vary.
  • Adjusts thickness factor calculation for the glTF Volumetric Extension.
  • Improves support of VRayBitmap texmap nodes for simple materials.
  • Support for 3ds Max version 2022 has been deprecated.
    • Minimum supported 3ds Max version is now 2023.
  • Support for Python versions 3.7 and 3.8 has been deprecated.
    • Minimum supported Python version is now 3.9.
  • The recommended RapidCompact version is now v6.6.0 and up.
  • The installation procedure has been updated:
    • The installation will not proceed with unsupported Python or 3ds Max versions.
    • The 'ensurepip' step of the installation procedure no longer produces Python bytecode.
  • The 3ds Max system settings for RapidPBR are now isolated from the rest of the system.
  • Fixes issues related to Material IDs not being kept during the complex materials baking procedure.
  • Fixes issues related to UV preservation when using OpenSubDiv modifiers.
  • Fixes issues related to Particle objects removal.
  • Fixes issue related to Compact Material Editor cleanup.
  • Improved Baking Elements validation step.
  • TextPlus objects with no material are now ignored during scene preprocessing.
  • Fixes issues related to system Keyboard Interrupts and zombie subprocesses.
  • Known Issues:
    • Submaterials of complex MultiMaterials with non-bakeable parameters, such as Fog Color (usually translated into glTF's Attenuation Color), might have visual issues. A fix is under investigation.
    • Use of References and Instances together, in the same nodes, is currently not supported and might result in issues, depending on the Modifier configuration of the references.

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