ANN: 3Delight 7.0 (Django)
aghi...@gmail.com
3Delight 7.0 and 3Delight For Maya 3.0 are out. Here is a list
of the most important features and improvements:
3Delight For Maya
* The plug-in is better integrated into Maya. It now registers
itself
as a standard Maya renderer and is thus accessible through
the Render
Settings. Batch rendering and command line rendering
(through the
standard Maya `Render' command) is now possible.
* Improved HyperShade Translation:
- 3Delight For Maya tracks HyperShade network
modifications and
only translates and compiles shaders which have
changed.
- The following hypershade nodes are now supported:
ocean,
remapValue, lightInfo, layeredTexture and volumeLight.
The Image
Sequence options of the File texture node are now
supported.
- HyperShade networks for light sources are correctly
translated
into their RenderMan SL equivalent.
- The RenderMan Code shader can now declare output
variables and
those can be output using secondary displays
(advanced).
* Support for RIB archives creation and reading using a user
friendly,
yet flexible, interface.
* Out-of-the-box support for Shave & a Haircut and much
improved Maya
Fur support.
* Object Instancers are fully supported.
* Shadow Maps can be rendered using arbitrary cameras. This
allows for
better shadow map view framing and thus better quality.
* More output variables added to secondary displays.
* Maya 2008 support.
Rendering Features
* New Image Based Lighting Algorithm. A more flexible and
powerful
approach to image based lighting is introduced.
* Point Based Occlusion and Color Bleeding.
* Brick Maps (3D Textures) for efficient and anti-aliased 3D
data
lookup.
* Display subsets. A unique feature that enables rendering of
many
layers, each with its own alpha channel and output
variables, in one
render pass.
3Delight Performance
* Multi-threading efficiency has been improved for scenes with
high
depth complexity.
* Point cloud files are not read in memory all at once any
more: proper
caching enables memory-efficient access to point cloud data.
* Subsurface scattering has been optimized and the pre-
processing step
is now run in multi-threaded mode.
* Deep Shadow Map creation is now multi-threaded.
* `occlusion()' and `indirectdiffuse()' have been accelerated
through
the use of adaptive sampling.
Texture Converter (`tdlmake')
A new `-preview' option makes `.tdl' textures appear as TIFFs of
lower
resolution to software such as Maya; this enables you to use a
single
texture for both Maya previews and final renders. Additionally,
`tdlmake'
now supports the TARGA file formats.
New Tools
* `ptc2brick' is a tool to convert point cloud files to brick
maps.
* `ptcview' is a tool to view point cloud files.
* `ptcmerge' is a tool to merge point cloud files.
Pipeline
* A new API to access point cloud files is available.
* A more advanced C++ API for DSO plug-ins is available.
Thank you,
The 3Delight Team
(www.3delight.com)