Reference Nodes

We added Reference Node to the Scenegraph filter list.

Use it to quickly select all reference nodes in the Scenegraph.

Sheen

We added support for the X-Rite and Substance Sheen parameter by adding Sheen layer support for Plastic materials. When a plastic material is selected, in the Attributes, a Sheen section is found with the following options:

• Use Sheen - Added a multi-scattered sheen layer atop any other layers when enabled.
• Weight - Sets the amount of sheen applied. The higher the value the more the sheen.
• Roughness - Sets the randomness of the sheen's fiber orientation. The higher the value the more random the fibers are oriented.
• Color - Sets the color of the sheen.
• Use Texture - Determines whether a texture is used or not for the sheen. When enabled, more options appear for modifying the texture placement and size.

Velvet and Woven Cloth

We added a conversion option for the deprecated velvet and woven cloth materials. When loading a scene containing either of these materials, a dialog appears with the option for converting them into a plastic material with a sheen, recreating a similar, but not exact, material. Choosing Yes converts these materials. If No is chosen, nothing is converted; however, in Vulkan, these materials will appear pink when rendered but will be fine in other renderers.

Layered Shaders

When importing .wire files containing 'native' layered shaders from Alias, VRED converts these to multipass materials.

Show Constraint Visualizations

We added Show Constraint Visualizations to set the default constraint displayed behavior. When this preference is enabled, representations of the constraints are displayed in the viewport. When disabled, only the geometry is visible. Find this option in the Preferences > Rendering > Render Window > Visualization tab > Viewport section.

Abort Selected

Now, after clicking Import, a new button, Abort Selected, appears in Import File(s) Dialog. Use it to abort the import of a specific file.

In the file list, click a file to highlight and select it, then click Abort Selected. Aborted will appear next to the selected file. Use this to save time, by not loading one or more files.

Depth Buffer

We added a depth buffer for proper reprojection in VR when raytracing for those HMDs that needed this.

7z

We switched from using .zip to .7z for better compression of the VRED installer.

Python Sandbox

If you have struggled with Python Sandbox error messages, we have introduced an environment variable, VRED_INSECURE_PYTHON, to overwrite the behavior of the Python Sandbox. Any value will disable the Python Sandbox. If VRED_SECURE_PYTHON is set, it will be ignored. VRED_INSECURE_PYTHON will override command line option and preference settings.