What's New in VRED 2022
Learn about new features in this release of VRED. For technical details and bug fixes, see the 2022 release notes and recommended system requirements to ensure Autodesk VRED products are running to their potential.
For Windows users, 2022.3 requires an NVIDIA RTX driver v.471.11 or later, but a 471.68 or later is recommended for GPU raytracing.
For Linux users, 2022.3 requires 470.94 or above for GPU raytracing.
2022.3 Highlights
Video captions: In VRED 2022.3, we have added several improvements for data handling, rendering, and streaming workflows.
For data preparation, we improved the Decore functionality, so you are able to create B-sides within the tool. You can select between two different decore modes and decide how to deal with transparent objects. Like here, where I am setting the wall thickness and the inner rips and additional objects as B sides, as these components are not visible. So, you can make the non-visible parts invisible without losing them already.
Under Show B Sides, you can make them visible, delete them completely, or set them back to A side again. These additional functions give you more flexibility in the visualization and data preparation process.
For VR users, we improved the touch behavior of the VR hands. Now it’s much easier to trigger touch sensors or the VR menu with your VR hands, which makes the VR experience more fluent and natural.
When being in a Collaboration, we added a Pause button to the Collaboration Window. This gives you the option within a Collaboration with VR users attending as well, to render out a Raytraced Antialiased image in Desktop mode.
Now you can also go into a view of a VR user, the so-called spectator view. Pause the collaboration and render out a raytraced antialiased image from out of this view. Pressing the Pause button again, will switch you back to the collaboration session, instantly.
For raytracing, we improved the performance when being in Isolation mode. Now you have a much better framerate in Isolation mode!
We also improved the Stream App. Now you can show only selected Viewpoints and Variant Sets to the Stream App UI. Therefore, we added the “Show in VR Menu and Streaming App UI” option within the Variant Set Editor and within the Camera Editor. So, you are able, for example, to show only a simplified and basic set of functionalities to your stream. Thanks for watching the video!
Click on the cards below for further information.
2022.3 General Improvements
These are some of the improvements found in 2022.3.
Collaboration
- Dialogs Blocking Python Scripts - Removed dialogs that blocked users joining a collaboration session via a Python script from immediately downloading a scene file that was uploaded to the collaboration server, connecting to the session server, or uploading scene containing an older BRDF mode.
Antialiasing During Collaboration Sessions - Added support for Antialiasing during Collaboration sessions.
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Video captions: For data preparation, we improved the Decore functionality, so you are able to create B-sides within the tool. You can select between two different decore modes and decide how to deal with transparent objects. Like here, where I am setting the wall thickness and the inner rips and additional objects as B sides, as these components are not visible. So, you can make the non-visible parts invisible without losing them already. Under Show B Sides, you can make them visible, delete them completely, or set them back to A side again. These additional functions give you more flexibility in the visualization and data preparation process.
Tap the new Pause button to pause synchronization with the collaboration server and allow for an antialiased snapshot to be taken. Audio is not paused. Once restarted, all changes occurring during the pause are applied. If a session is not paused, the movement of any VR participant will interrupt antialiasing, restarting the process again.
Documentation
- AU VRED Sessions - Added a section containing content from Autodesk University VRED sessions, along with links to the Deep Dive Seesions and the 2021 AIF Keynote.
- Homepage - Updated the look and functionality of the homepage to make it faster and easier to find content.
Materials
- AxF 1.8 - Updated the AxF library to version 1.8 and added support for energy preserving SVBRDFs.
Raytracing
Isolation Mode - Improved performance when using the Isolation mode and raytracing a large scene.
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Video captions: For raytracing, we improved the performance when being in Isolation mode. Now you have a much better framerate in Isolation mode!
Previous issues with the scene being hidden/shown which caused the scene to be rebuilt every frame were resolved.
Layered Glass on Glass - GPU raytracing is now supported for Layered glass on glass.
Rendered Layered Materials - GPU raytracing a Layered material now provide results consistent with CPU raytracing.
Rendering
Albedo and Camera Normal - Add Renderpass API parameters for the Albedo and Camera Normal Auxiliary Channels.
Color Management - Added the color management options found in the Render Settings > Display Output tab of VRED Professional to VRED Design. In the Color section, you will find Monitor Colorspace with options for Simple Gamma, sRGB IEC 61966-21, A.RGB 98, and Monitor ICC Profile, as well as the new Simple Gamma slider.
Stream App
Show in VR Menu and Streaming App UI - Renamed View in VR menu to Show in VR Menu and Streaming App UI in the Variant Sets module and Camera Editor.
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Video captions: We also improved the Stream app. Now you can show only selected Viewpoints and Variant Sets to the Stream App UI. Therefore, we added the “Show in VR Menu and Streaming App UI” option within the Variant Set Editor and within the Camera Editor. So, you are able, for example, to show only a simplified and basic set of functionalities to your stream.
When enabled, variants and viewpoints are listed in the VR Menu and Streaming App UI. Disable this option hides them in the UI and make it easier for users to switch between relevant variants and viewpoints.
In the Camera Editor, Show in VR Menu and Streaming App UI was removed from the VR section of the Advanced tab to the General section of the Camera Settings tab.
Cameras and Camera Tracks – Cameras and camera tracks are now displayed in the Viewpoints section of the Stream App UI. When there is only one camera, the
camera track name
is displayed; however, if there are more, they are labelled as thecamera name: camera track name
.Note:Camera and camera tracks are not updated in realtime. For the app to detect changes, you must use
Ctrl + R
.
Substance
Preset Behavior - Added the Substance preference, Preset Behavior, for setting the behavior used when dealing with values not contained in a Substance preset. Select an option to determine whether these values are stored in the preset or reset to their default values.
Apply & Reset - Graph input values not contained in the preset are reset to default values.
Apply & Merge - Graph input values not contained in the preset are NOT reset.
VR
Index Finger Interactions - Implemented a new collision model for index finger VR interaction that uses an improved sensor angle and position.
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Video captions: For VR users, we improved the touch behavior of the VR hands. Now it’s much easier to trigger touch sensors or the VR menu with your VR hands, which makes the VR experience more fluent and natural.
Web Interface
- Loading State - A loading animation appears when a new project is loading and a progress dialog appears when the render mode is changed. Variant sets and viewpoints are reloaded when a new scene has been loaded.
2022.2 Highlights
Video captions: In VRED 2022.2, we added several new features which help you in your visualization process to get more efficient. We improved our streaming app and added a scrollbar to the UI. This indicates off screen options and helps to get a better orientation. Additionally, you can now join or create a collaboration session. So, you can use your mobile device, for example, and join a session from there. You will see all avatars of your team within the scene now, and they can see you, as well.
I also can now switch to other participants views. These additions give you so much more freedom in taking part on collaborations.
For a better performance monitoring, you can now enable a counter for the frames per second.
For VR, we added a new camera option which lets you use the camera height as the VR Ground Plane. With this option, you can mimic different persona heights. Just create a viewpoint with the desired height and enable the option here. Just enable the option in the Camera Editor, set your desired height, and create a viewpoint. Now you can access this viewpoint in VR, which brings you instantly into another persona's height, and you can explore the scene from there. For example, when setting the camera height to -200, I will be 200mm shorter in VR then.
The Asset installer brings multiple new great asset materials, such as asphalt, clay, used plastic or concrete, and a ton more. You can access them by downloading and installing the separate VRED Asset installer. Now, you can access them from the Asset Manger and drag them into the scene. See a complete list of the new materials on the documentation.
When creating your own material assets, we have added an option within the preferences, which lets you write textures of the material as an external separate file, instead of inlining them within the OSB file of the material asset. This saves disk space massively, as the inlined textures in the OSB file would normally be stored uncompressed, compared to the external one.
When talking about textures, we also added a new option in the normal map area. You can now flip the normal's texture in U and V direction, separately. Now, you don’t need to go back to an image editing software in order to fix wrong normal textures. Also, for textures and for saving the video cards memory, you can now enable OpenGl texture compression and clear GPU memory. This will be very helpful for users who don’t have much video memory.
Last but not least, we added the new AI driven supersampling (DLSS) from NVIDIA. This method uses an AI-based render technology which improves the graphic performance. It uses the AI to increase frame rates or image quality. Please visit NVIDIA's website for more information. In VRED, simply go to Realtime Antialiasing > Deep Learning Supersampling. Here you can set 5 different presets in order to optimize the scene to your needs. As you see here, I am reaching a much higher frame rate now when enabling the DLSS in the Raytracing mode. And this works perfectly in OpenGL, as well. This speeds up my visualization workflow massively and gives me more creative freedom. Thanks for watching the video!
Click on the cards below for further information.
2022.2 General Improvements
These are some of the improvements found in 2022.2.
Clusters
- Improved load balancing and copy functions for GPU Raytracing clustering.
Documentation
- What's New and Release Notes Improvements - Content listed in the What's New General Improvements and Release Notes Fixed Issues sections are now grouped for better discoverability.
- Gifs - We've started adding gifs to quickly explain features and workflows.
- Sharing - See Sharing Help Articles.
General
- What's New and Release Notes Improvements - Content listed in the What's New General Improvements and Release Notes Fixed Issues sections are now grouped for better discoverability.
- Partial Speos 2.1/2.2 Support for Ray Files - Added partial support for Speos 2.1 and Speos 2.2 format to help with reading problematic Ray files. Unsupported data, such as polarizaton, will be ignored.
GPU Raytracing
- Clear GPU Memory - Added the Clear GPU Memory preference to clear all geometries and textures when activating GPU Raytracing and provide more available GPU memory for raytracing. Find it in the Render Options > Visualization Advanced tab > Advanced Rendering section.
MR and VR
Flashlight - Replaced the previous VR flashlight with a new polygon model.
Varjo VR-3 - Enabled Ultraleap hand tracking for Varjo VR-3.
Raytracing and Rendering
- Transparent Textures with Cutouts - Disabled mipmapping on transparency texture when cutout transparency is used in OpenGL.
- Full Image Sampling - Now, full image sampling is used for stillframe antialiasing, making it more scalable with larger clusters.
Scripting
- VRED_SHARED_SCRIPT_PLUGINS - Added the VRED_SHARED_SCRIPT_PLUGINS environment variable for shared script plugins. A new folder is created for general plugins, which can be used for all VRED installations.
2022.1 Highlights
Video captions: With the new VRED 2022.1 version, we added several new features and enhancements. Here they are:
- Cryptomatte is now supported with GPU Raytracing, which improves and speeds up the image creation and compositing workflows massively.
- When being in VR and using the Place mode, you can now teleport at the same time, which gives you all freedom to place objects which are normally out of your physical moving area.
- We also support now the new HP Reverb 2 and the new HTC Vive Pro 2. For more information about these new amazing headsets, please visit the website of HP and Vive.
- We also did some UV Editor improvements. When generating a Triplanar-based projection method, sometimes you get many tiny islands. Therefore, we implemented a new calculation option, called Fewer Islands. It reduces the number of islands for a UV layout, which improves the texturing quality. This option is automatically enabled when in the Bake Light and Shadows dialog when creating a Triplanar-based UV set.
- In OpenGL, a light source can now also illuminate the shadow material. Just enable the Diffuse Only option in the Shadow material and also enable Illuminate Shadow Material in the Light Editor. This gives you instantly a more realistic look, like you are used to in Raytracing.
- For a better quality and more flexibility for realtime scenes, we also added a new option to bake a separate illumination texture channel. You can use this to bake ambient light in car interiors separate from the environment. Now, you can switch the environment independent of the baking like in this scene here. You just have to enable Separate Illumination in the baking tool and also define which light should be calculated separately and which illumination material should be added as well to the separate calculation. Now, I can create a separate illumination channel, which I can observe in the precomputed illumination visualization and I also can control which channel is visible using the new Bake Render Options. But that’s not all, we also added an intensity control for the separate illumination, so you can control the intensity of the baked separate light and also change the color to your needs. You also can control this option using a Python script, and also fading the light is possible, which gives you a very smooth transition when turning on the separate illumination channel. Find also an example which comes with the installation.
Thanks for watching the video!
Click on the cards below for further information.
2022.1 General Improvements
These are some of the improvements found in 2022.1.
MR
- Teleport - Teleport is now available when using the Place tool in VR.
- OpenVR SDK - Added support for Oculus via the OpenVR SDK and retired the native Oculus SDK. This means that the signals,
thumbRestTouched
,thumbRestUntouched
, andthumbRestIsTouched
, along with the functionisThumbRestTouched
from thevrOculusTouchController
Python class are no longer supported.
Preferences
- Adapt Motion Factor - Added the Adapt Motion Factor option to the Navigation preferences for automatic motion factor adaption. This option is disabled by default.
Rendering
- Added OpenGL support for light sources illuminating the Shadow material. Lights can now illuminate the Shadow material in OpenGL. To achieve this, in the Light Editor's Properties section, enable Illuminate Shadow Material for the lights. In the Material Editor's Reflection section, with the Shadow material selected, set Reflection Mode to Diffuse Only or Diffuse & Glossy.
Scripting
- 'PySide2' has no attribute 'QTCharts' error - The
'PySide2' has no attribute 'QTCharts'
error message no longer appears, as the issue when usingfrom PySide2 import *
has been corrected. - Python API v2 Update - Added information on function calls and keyword arguments to VRED Python API v2 documentation, such as
vrSessionService.join
. - sendToWebEngine - Improved
sendToWebEngine
documentation to include an explanation of how to access data parameters and what is happening. We also added an example file. See Custom Javascript events in Webengines.
2022 Highlights
Click on the cards below for further information.
2022 General Improvements
Community Link - Added a Community option with links to the VRED forumand Idea Station to the Help menu. Use it to share your knowledge, ask questions, collaborate on ideas, and explore popular VRED topics. Use the Design Studio Blog as a hub for hearing from our product teams, learning about product updates, new features, and release, as well as discussing technology trends and sharing tutorials and best practices.
To disable access to these and online stores, use the environment variable,
VRED_DISABLE_WEB_ACCESS
, that disables access to web content.Note:Web engines aren't affected by this.
Substance Engine 8 - Updated to the Substance Engine 8 to support the new Cross Section and Threshold filters, as well as the improved Tile Generator, Distance, and Curve nodes introduced with Substance Designer 2020.2 (10.2.0).
Intel® Open Image CPU Denoiser - VRED uses the Optix GPU Denoiser, when a user has a capable graphics card. We implemented the Intel® Open Image CPU Denoiser when they don't, but the denoiser option is activated. VRED will automatically use the Intel® Open Image CPU Denoiser as a fallback.
Evaluate Subframes - Improved our real-time rendering to now evaluate curves from the current time, independent of the animation framerate. A 24 or 25fps animation can now be played back smoothly at 60fps or more. We've also added Evaluate Subframes to the animation preferences, which is activated by default.
Tip:To quickly enable Evaluate Subframes, click the Open Animation Settings icon (
) pin the timeline.
Parallel import of PLMXML reference files - Parallelized the import of reference files in a PLMXML structure, when the PLMXML file is initiated by calling the load fuction in the scripting API.
PLMXML support in VRED Design - Added support for loading PLMXML structure files into VRED Design.
Mixed EXRs - Added support for writing more multilayer mixed format EXR files. This enables color channels and more to be written as 16bit float, while other passes like cryptomatte, depth, or position can be written as 32bit float.
Timestamp - Added a timestamp in front of Terminal log file for better tracking.
Split Sum IBL - Implemented a new Split Sum IBL (Image-Based Lighting) approach. Use this to precompute the single scattering BRDF essential for image-based lighting.
Glass Shader - Fixed the glass shader, so there is no difference when rendered with GPU or CPU raytracing.
Precomputed and Precomputed + Reflections - Added Precomputed and Precomputed + Reflections to the Interactive and Still Frame Illumination Mode options in the Render Settings > Raytracing Quality tab. This adds pre-calculated ambient occlusion shadows to the rendering, comparable to the standard OpenGL rendering mode.
Cluster Image Compression - Provided better cluster image compression for float images, when using Glow, Glare, or Denoising.
Web Interface Calls - All existing web interface calls can now be done by a POST method with arguments encoded in the request body. The following encodings are supported:
- application/x-www-form-urlencoded
- multipart/form-data
ATF Import for Linux - Added support for ATF import on Linux. Keep in mind, NX files are not supported, as ATF doesn't currently support them; however, Parasolid files with the extension x_t and x_b are.