HtoA 5.3.0 - Arnold for Houdini

04 Jun 2020

This is a feature release, adding AOV support and fixing point instancing in Solaris, and adding support for sharing shader nodes during material import.

Please visit Arnold GPU and Arnold GPU FAQ
Check the compatibility of your system on Supported GPUs
Review the Supported Features and Known Limitations

Installation

Get the install files on Downloads .
Follow these installation instructions .

Compatibility

This release uses Arnold 6.0.3.1, OpenVDB 4.0.0 and Arnold-USD ( cea93ef9 ).

Binaries available for the following Houdini, Houdini FX, Houdini Indie and Houdini Education production builds:

17.0.506
17.5.460
18.0.460
18.0.499

and for the following platforms:

Linux x86_64 (gcc6.3)
Windows 7 x64 (vc14.1)
Mac OS X 10.11+ (clang7.3)

Please note that Houdini Apprentice does not support third-party renderers and thus cannot run HtoA.

Fixes

#1424 Writing USD file crashes on Linux
#1440 Enabling GPU rendering fails on Solaris on Windows
#1441 Render Delegate crashes in HdArnoldRenderBuffer::WriteBucket()
#1448 Solaris render gets restarted if a secondary AOV is displayed in the viewport
#1458 Fixed Solaris render settings layout
usd#431 Setting ignored render buffers to converged
usd#430 Incorrect light path expressions break renders
usd#439 Fixing crash when rendervars are deleted in Solaris

Features

#1449 Support light path expressions for Solaris
usd#331 Adding support for spot and IES shaping parameters on sphere lights.
usd#319 Reading filter properties for render products.
usd#329 Supporting UsdSkel schemas in the Procedural

Enhancements

#1359 Support shared shader nodes with material import
#1416 Update Arnold ROP Sampling layout
#1442 Remove restrictions for Houdini Indie
usd#302 Remove arnold:global: prefix
usd#408 Supporting nested procedurals in the USD procedural viewport
usd#317 Supporting light path expressions on rendervars
usd#426 Using the arnold: prefix when reading filter parameters
usd#427 Supporting driver:parameters:aov:format aovSetting
usd#435 Improving nested USD procedurals viewport representation
usd#425 Supporting the sourceName aovSetting on rendervars
usd#437 Supporting alternate prefix for filter parameters
usd#318 Supporting primvar AOVs
usd#448 Using the preview surface as a displacement shader
usd#452 Using the dataType aovSetting correctly.

See also the Arnold 6.0.3.1 release notes for the full list of core enhancements and fixes.