5.3.1.0 - Arnold User Guide

May 22nd, 2019

Enhancements

Faster GPU cache pre-population : The optional GPU cache pre-population step is now faster. On a 56-logical core machine it is now 3x faster. (#8229, #8235, #8241)
Faster GPU IPR with high sample counts : Rendering with a high adaptive sampling max AA, or high AA will no longer incur an interactivity hit when in GPU IPR. (#8214)
License State Metadata : Rendered files now include a string metadata field arnold/license_state set to valid if a license was available, and to invalid otherwise. This can be used to detect watermarked renders due to transient license server failures when options.abort_on_license_fail is false. (#6140)
Improved uv_projection shader : The matrix parameter is now linkable (#8339), when Pref is not available the shader falls back to world coordinates (#8330), added clamp and default_color parameters. (#8338)
Improved ramp_rgb and ramp_float shaders : Added a wrap_uvs parameter. (#8322, #8325)

GPU cache pre-population time estimate : AiGPUCachePopulateRemainingSeconds() can be used to get an estimate of how many more seconds the GPU cache pre-population will take. (#8225)

NVIDIA driver requirements : GPU rendering now requires NVIDIA driver 418.56 or higher on Linux and 419.67 or higher on Windows. (#8257)
Shaderless volumes : Volumes with no shader assigned now render constant white instead of constant 50% grey. (#8268)

#7819 IPR API not properly blocking
#8260 GPU cache written to the wrong location if user name has unicode chars
#8274 Slowdown with many operators
#6979 Incorrect shader assignment with make_instance enabled on Alembic procedural
#7981 Wrong output from aov_write shader when connected to layer_shader
#8157 Black pixels artifacts at various resolutions on GPU
#8196 Improve ignore_textures support on GPU
#8265 Volume artifacts with light_groups and deep_exr driver
#8296 Append mode broken for deep images
#8299 Emissive volumes render incorrectly on GPU
#8300 Crash, hang, or other errors when using more than AA=127 samples
#8305 Clarify in documentation that AiOcclusion spread is in radians
#8318 Noice crashes when no metadata is found
#8321 Error loading some photometric IES files
#8328 Noice: crash with different data windows per frame
#8340 Crash when disabling a procedural linked to an include_graph
#8352 Call post cook on included and child operators
#8362 Remove warning complaining about mismatched OptiX 6.1 version
#8389 OptiX version 0.0.0 error instead of out-of-date driver error
#8403 Alembic geometry loses shader on frame change
#7851 GPU volumetrics: bug when step_size is non-zero on a shape without a volume shader
#8065 GPU volumetrics: self-hit logic bug
#8249 GPU image node: support linking and env-var substitution for filename parameter
#8329 Raycount and cputime AOVs broken on GPU