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5.1.3 - Arnold for Maya

25 May 2022

MtoA 5.1.3 introduces Arnold 7.1.2.0 and is a minor feature release bringing several USD improvements, as well as other bug fixes.

Installation

System Requirements

  • Maya  2020, 2022 or 2023

  • Windows 10 or later, with the Visual Studio 2019 redistributable.

  • Linux with at least glibc 2.17 and libstdc++ 4.8.5 (gcc 4.8.5). This is equivalent to RHEL/CentOS 7.

  • macOS 10.13 or later .

  • CPUs need to support the SSE4.1 instruction set. Apple Mac models with M series chips are supported under Rosetta 2 mode.

  • GPU rendering works on Windows and Linux only and requires an NVIDIA GPU of the Ampere, Turing, Volta, Pascal, or Maxwell architecture.

  • Optix™ denoiser requires an NVidia GPU with CUDA™ Compute Capability 5.0 and above.

  • We recommend using the 511.09 (Quadro), 511.09 (GeForce) , or higher on Windows and 495.46 or higher drivers on Linux . See Arnold GPU for more information.

  • The driver type must be set to DCH.

I n the driver page select "Windows Driver Type:" DCH

The cache will also need to be re-populated after installing a new Arnold version, updating to a new NVIDIA driver , or changing the hardware configuration of GPUs on the system. More information can be found here .

Maya Plugins Compatibility

MtoA 5.1.2 works with the following Maya plugins

Enhancements

  • Render Swatches are now enabled by default (MTOA-1077)

USD Enhancements

  • Mesh Lights : Geometry lights are now supported in the render delegate ( usd#1080 )
  • Color Management : When a usd file is loaded, the color manager node is set based on render settings parameters ( usd#946 usd#1042 )
  • Motion Blur from Render Settings : A usd scene with Render Settings primitive can be rendered with motion blur ( usd#1089 )
  • Varying topologies and motion blur : Support velocity motion blur on geometries with varying topologies (mesh, curves, points) on both the procedural and the render delegate ( usd#1090 )
  • Support arnold primvars in instances : When an instancer has a primvar for an arnold builtin attribute (e.g. matte), we now propagate it to its instances ( usd#1100 )
  • Support UsdPreviewSurface displacement output : scenes where UsdPreviewSurface is used as a displacement shader, through its attribute displacement are now supported. This is needed to render the Alab scenes ( usd#1130 )
  • Support light linking on instances : We can now support setting a point instancer, or an instanceable prim, in light linking ( usd#1128 )
  • Optimize nested instances in the render delegate : The memory consumption for nested instances (point instancer having another point instancer as a prototype) has reduced dramatically in Hydra ( usd#1124 )
  • Render NurbsCurves as UsdGeomCurves: Usd Nurbs Curves were previously ignored by Arnold. They are now rendered as basic UsdGeomCurves ( usd#1120 )
  • Support instanceable prims with variant overrides: It is now possible to render an instanceable prim referencing another primitive, and override its variants ( usd#1127 )
  • Support per-instance velocity blur : The Arnold render delegate now supports point instancers with varying amount of instances, where it's the velocity blur that drives motion blur  ( usd#1092 )
  • Usd Writer reuses eventual existing material primitives : This is needed for MayaUsd exports, so that the original mayaUsd material is kept, and Arnold shaders are assigned in the "arnold" context ( usd#1139 )
  • Support shader connections to lights in Hydra : Using an ArnoldNodeGraph primitive, the Arnold render delegate now supports connecting arbitrary shading trees to light's colors ( usd#1141 )
  • Support lights filters in Hydra : Similarly to shader connections, arnold light filters (gobo, etc...) can now be assigned to lights, through an ArnoldNodeGraph primitive ( usd#1141 )
  • Improve shader dependency graph in the render delegate : The tracking of shader connections (for materials, lights, light filters, etc...) is now more robust, and fixes crashes when disconnecting or reconnecting shaders  ( usd#1158 )

Incompatible Changes

  • Connection priority in MaterialX document: Setting both a value and a connection as input of a node is undefined behavior in MaterialX. Arnold will now prioritize the connection over the value when both are defined. (ARNOLD-11198).

Bug Fixes

  • MTOA-617 - Tweaking "Enable Swatch Render" in the Render Settings is now refreshing all swatches automatically

  • ARNOLD-12299 - Crash when writing .ass file expanding procs without a render session

  • ARNOLD-12232 - Memory leak when rendering deep EXR layers

  • ARNOLD-11809 - Random crash when rendering multiple scenes in parallel

  • ARNOLD-12211 - [GPU] Optix denoiser memory leak when creating and destroying render sessions successively

  • ARNOLD-12177 - [GPU] Crash with ramp shader after aborting due to an error

  • ARNOLD-12166 - [GPU] Texture memory leak when creating and destroying render sessions successively

  • ARNOLD-12165 - [GPU] Incorrect volume bounds

  • ARNOLD-357     - [Licensing] Licensing error "[clm.v1] product key not found

  • ARNOLD-12144 - [maketx] Unwanted log messages

  • ARNOLD-12171 - [MaterialX] Crash when exporting a volume shader to MaterialX

  • ARNOLD-11198 - [MaterialX] Connection is ignored when a node input also has a defined value

  • usd#1073 Resolve node attributes from referenced files

  • usd#1093 Fix instanceable references in the same USD file

  • usd#1104 Compute visibility until the eventual root prim

  • usd#1129 Support UsdUvTexture relative paths with udims

  • usd#1133 Set outputs layer names only if required

  • usd#1136 Fix uninitialized UV coords with leftHanded meshes

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