This is the 10th alpha release of v3. It introduces a brand new authentication system, a bunch of smaller new features and a major improvement of the geometry compile times on Mac OS X and Linux.
We split the v3 alpha release notes into two posts: This one, which provides the download links and information specific to this particular release and a features post describing and discussing the new features and changes of 3.00. The features post will be continuously updated until we reach the stable version 3.00.
Alpha and beta version disclaimer
In contrast to v2 we want to do the alpha and beta testing publicly, to get more feedback earlier and to have changes tested more thoroughly. The plan is to let all users with a valid v2 license use the v3 alpha and beta versions until we decide that the beta period has ended and we release the first stable v3. After that you will have to upgrade to v3 or will not be able to use any v3 versions (including alpha and beta versions) anymore. We don't know yet, when that will be, but we will give you a warning a few weeks in advance so you can prepare.
Since there is a higher likelihood of severe bugs in alpha and beta versions you shouldn't use them for production work. It would be nice if you could test some production scenes with the alpha and beta versions, but you should definitely not rely on the stability of those versions to finish your projects.
In the Standalone you should be able to load v3 scenes in v2, losing only features provided in v3 and maybe some converted settings (like the new "mid level" in displacement nodes). With the plugins this isn't necessarily the case, which means that you should not create any plugin projects with v3 alpha/beta if you are not 100% sure that you want to upgrade to v3 or that you don't mind losing these projects when the beta period ends.
Offline authentication is disabled in alpha and beta versions.
Manual
We are currently updating the manual for v3 on the server. I will update the release post when it has happened. Until then, please refer to the v3 new features thread and its discussion.
CUDA requirements
Due to a CUDA compiler bug we had switch to CUDA 7.5, which means on Windows and Linux you may need to update your NVIDIA graphics driver to a current version which supports at least CUDA 7.5. On Mac OSX you may have to update the CUDA driver for Mac to a current version supporting at least CUDA 7.5.
Changes since 3.00 alpha 9
- Switched to a totally new authentication system based on your OTOY account and not the old Octane customer account. Due to that there is no explicit ORC login required anymore and no license needs to be entered anymore. For more details please read the new features thread.
- Reduced the geometry compilation times on OSX and Linux. It's still a little bit slower than on Windows, but not as much as in the previous versions. Any further improvements would require some major changes in the geometry compilation code, which we plan to give a try some time after 3.00.
- Increased the maximum number of triangles to 76 million (see viewtopic.php?p=270444#p270444). This equates to ~8.5GB of memory. Higher numbers will result in a range overflow. We have a few ideas how we can solve this problem, but this will require some more work, which we plan for the time after 3.00.
- Added support for adaptive subdivision surfaces.
- Added support for importing individual vector components to form velocity vectors for volume motion blur (see viewtopic.php?p=270612#p270612).
- Added option to render devices to toggle tone-mapping for specific devices (enabled by default). This option can be used to prohibit tone-mapping on external GPUs, which might help with performance and crash issues reported for external devices. Please let us know, if that improves things.
- Added option to the imager node which allows you to disable partial alpha, i.e. it's always fully transparent or opaque. This helps with compositing issues (see viewtopic.php?p=269484#p269484).
- Added confirmation dialog to "Save as default" menu item.
- Introduced lower limit of 0.0001 for the UV size pin of the baking camera.
- Added start time to the animation preferences dialog of images/volumes.
- The stereo eye distance can now be set to a negative value, which allows you to render cross-eye stereo images (see http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 35#p235235).
- Added additional release logging flag
imageSaving
that writes additional information to the log while render results are written to files. Hopefully this will allow us to investigate crashes while saving of results to network drives, which have been reported (see point 2) of viewtopic.php?p=270510#p270510). - Fixed facets in texture baking of smoothed surfaces.
- Fixed render block when changes are applied to the scene while region rendering is active.
- Fixed broken normal maps (see viewtopic.php?f=33&t=53565).
- Fixed incorrect rendering of portals.
- Fixed rendering of 3rd UV set.
- Fixed kernel crash in material preview rendering.
- Fixed noise in material preview renders (see viewtopic.php?p=270090#p270090).
- When the post-processing pass is enabled post-processing will be disabled in the main pass (similar to v2) to allow compositing of the post-effects afterwards.
- Fixed wron resolution preset (see viewtopic.php?p=271563#p271563).
- Fixed loading of VDBs with special characters in the file path.
OctaneRender Standalone downloads
Windows
- 64-bit commercial version (installer)
- 64-bit commercial version (ZIP archive)
Mac OS X (updated on 28/4/2016)
- 64-bit commercial version (DMG image)
Linux
- 64-bit commercial version (ZIP archive)
Photoshop workflow plugin download
You can download and install the updated plugin either via the Adobe Exchange platform (version 1.0.1) or you can download it from the link below and manually install it.
Windows and Mac OS X
- Photoshop extension (ZXP archive)
Happy rendering,
Your OTOY NZ Team