VRED 2022.0

Learn about new features and improvements in this release of VRED. For technical details and bug fixes, see the 2022.0 release notes and recommended system requirements to ensure Autodesk VRED products are running to their potential.

What's New in 2022

Click on the cards below for further information.

GGX BRDF Shader Model

VRED now uses a GGX BRDF model for all materials. This is THE standard for many render engines, as it improves light reflections for rough surfaces, making them look more realistic, by using GGX as this new default BRDF behavior. It allows high fidelity simulation of material reflection at both peek and shallow viewing angles, resulting in a subtle softer highlight that falls off gradually. This option has improved importance sampling and is better at energy preservation.

Stream App Improvements

The Stream App improvements you'll find in 2022 are the addition of annotations, interactive HTML annotations, a displayed frame counter, and a way to set custom quality and resolution in the URL.

XR Enhancements and Improvements

VRED 2022 added Varjo MR marker placement and preferences, hand gestures, a hand depth estimation, along with out-of-the-box object placement in XR and VR via the VR Menu. We also added functions for a Python interface for implementing a custom version of marker tracking. They can be found in the vrImmersiveInteractionService documentation.

Frosted Glass

This feature improves the look of frosted glass for BxDF models by using GGX.

Texture-based Lightmaps

VRED 2022 introduced texture-based lightmaps for ambient occlusion, shadows, and light & shadows, including direct and indirect light, as well as IES and ray light profiles. Improvements to the Bake Light and Shadows module include CPU and GPU raytracing support, cluster support, the possibility to bake Ray files and caustics, uniform and cosine weighting for ambient occlusion, and new presets. We added photon tracing for computing lighting effects for lightmaps to Render Settings.

BRDF Environment Sampling

To better match the OpenGL/Precomputed and Full Global Illumination results, we introduced a new prefiltering method. Instead of using spherical harmonics for the prefiltering, we now sample the environment HDR against the new BRDF model.

GPU Raytracing Improvements

The GPU raytracing improvements found in 2022 are photon mapping and Ray file support. The GPU raytracer now supports photon mapping with real-time feedback for caustics and indirect lighting. In addition, it is now possible to use ray lights GPU raytracing.

Ray File Improvements

Added an option for reducing noise by controlling the size of an emitter cone used to vary the direction of emitted photons from ray lights. This increases the number of photons that can be generated during tracing. You get smoother images, while only sacrificing a bit of accuracy.

Alias Reference Assembly Support

We added the importing of native CAD file assembled in the Alias Reference Manager into VRED 2022. A new Reference Manager group will be created in the Scenegraph to mimic the Alias Reference Manager and layers.

Shotgun Review with VRED

Review content from any Shotgun Version, using VRED Presenter. Review multiple designs at a time with Shotgun's playlists with VRED Presenter. This enables you to keep track of all review notes and decisions automatically within Shotgun.

UV Editor Improvements

The UV Editor improvements you'll find are Automatic Seam Selection, Material and Lightmap UV Sets, import and export for a second UV channel via FBX, File > Reset Settings in Preferences, and a visibility toggle for UV island wireframes.

Light Spectrum Improvements

Improved clamping for light color spectra outside the color gamut, when rendering in RGB, since converting a spectrum to VREDs RGB-based colorspace can result in creating negative values. Now, RGB and spectral rendering results are much closer.

VRED Core Improvements

The VRED Core improvements you'll find in 2022 are ATF and FBX support on Linux, as well as Substance Engine 8 on Linux.

SSE4.2 Update

VRED now uses SSE4.2, which makes some calculations a bit faster. This is the VRED minimum requirement. Raytracer variants for SSE2 have been removed.

2022 Additional Enhancements

Terminal log timestamp example

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Parent page: What's New in VRED 2022