What's New in Beast 2011.1
This topic describes the new features and bug fixes introduced in the Beast 2011.1 release.
eRnsT
- Added real-time exposure control (manual HDR).
- Problem with nodes crashing when rendering textured skylights with distribution.
- Problem with the camera getting stuck inside translation/rotation/scaling interface elements.
- Light color and Gobo texture is combined correctly in eRnsT.
Rendertool
- Performance for large texture baked shapes using splitting. Threshold is 512x512 unless fgDepth>1, then 64x64 tiles are used.
- Performance for large vertex baked jobs.
- Better handling of jobs that run out of memory.
- Performance for texture and vertex jobs with one target entity in the target. Note: Since no final merge-pass is performed, the number of jobs will be smaller.
- Added more timing statistics to the progress dialog.
- Lower memory usage on submitting computer.
- Faster yielding of nodes. New farm users get their nodes quicker.
- Better performance during re-assignment of previously yielded nodes.
- Shutdown times reduced.
LiquidLight
- Better performance when using memory mapped files.
- Better support for AO in Lua.
- Problem with skylights and environment FG rays.
- OpenGL display of Lua bakes with less than 3 channels now displays correctly.
- Fixed a bug in handling extremely flat scenes.
- Fixed bugs in the light linking system.
- Fixed an initialization bug when using many UV sets.
Beast API
- Automatically disable GI for shadow maps, and increase the max sample rate for distance field shadows.
- Fixed bug when having multiple Lua passes with the same script file.
Distribeast
This release of Beast includes Distribeast version 0.2.27.0.
- Settings (such as whether to accept jobs from others) are now persistent.
- Activation schedule feature allows the node to accept jobs from others during certain times of day on certain days of the week.
- The dconfig utility can present a list of currently active consumers on the farm using the -consumers command-line flag.
- The dconfig utility is now able to clear the cache directory (except for resources that are in use) by using the -clearcache command line flag.
- The node will write a crash dump file to the “crashdumps” directory if it crashes. The directory can be changed by using the “logging/crashdumpDir” setting.
- Improved performance.
- Lowered memory usage.
- Remote tools are now immediately terminated if the users chooses not to accept jobs from others.
- The local user will now be assigned the local computer, even if it is currently assigned to a remote consumer that has no other nodes assigned.
- Distribeast will now clear session directories used by tools.
- The old cache directory is now deleted in place instead of being moved aside, to prevent interference by Windows Search that could lock up the entire computer during the move.
- Older log files are now deleted in order to stay below a user defined total log disk usage limit (default 250 MB). Individual log files are now kept below a user defined limit (default 50MB) between 1 MB and 1/5 of the total log disk usage.
- The Distribeast monitor will now update its icon if the user sets whether to accept jobs using dconfig.
- Improved menu item texts in the Distribeast monitor.
- The node now has a user defined limit on how much memory it is allowed to use for resource transfers (default 10% of available memory up to 4GB of RAM and 15% of RAM between 4GB and 8GB, upper limit 1GB total).
- The node is now able to handle memory up to 4GB on 64-bit systems (previously 2GB).
- The Distribeast monitor now displays the installed version.
- Updated from “Illuminate Labs” to “Autodesk” in the Distribeast service.
- Default resource cache size is now 10GB.
- Removed some unnecessary logging.
- Enabled the use of keepalives between nodes and tools.
- Changed default keepalive interval between nodes to 5 minutes.
- Fixed several crash bugs on close.
- Fixed potential crash when a connection closed in the middle of a resource transfer.
- Fixed crash if configuration supplied on the command line could not be read.
- Fixed potential crash when a connection is closed in the middle of a handshake.
- Fixed crash if a tool is terminated prior to establishing a session with the node.
- Fixed incorrect setting of boolean settings.
- Fixed unfair node assignment issue if nodes do not accept jobs from others.
- Fixed incorrect file system rights for the cache directory that could lead to problems with getting results from bakes and with installing updated versions of Distribeast.
- Fixed potential crash when receiving garbage data on a new connection.
- Fixed issue that could cause nodes to wait indefinitely for a connection to the controller that would never complete.
- The node now allows the local user to start jobs on the local machine even when the node does not accept jobs from others.
- No extra very short log file created on startup.
- Changed keepalive handling to prevent live connections from going down if the node is very busy.
- Fixed issue that could cause the Distribeast monitor to display that it is working for someone, even if it does not.
- Now ensures that nodes are released only by the consumer that is assigned the node to prevent late releases from accidentally releasing nodes that have already been reassigned.
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