Maya - Version History

Version 4.2.2 - 26 Feb 2019

New things and improvements:

• Added support for Maya 2019.

• Added support for Maxwell material representation in Viewport 2.0 (Core Profile) for Maya 2017 and newer; in the case of Maya 2016 Legacy Default Viewport has to be used but the features regarding viewport shaders will be the same as in previous versions.

  • Added support for showing in viewport the color or texture of Reflectance 0º and 90º.

  • Added support for showing in viewport the transformations of textures loaded in Reflectance 0º and 90º (Invert, UV Rotation, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Hue from “Maxwell Image Controls” and Repeat UV and Offset from “place2dTexture”)

  • Added support for showing in viewport the textures loaded in Layer Masks and BSDFs Weight Texture with support for Invert and UV Rotation from “Maxwell Image Controls” and Repeat UV and Offset from “place2dTexture”

  • Added support for showing in viewport any texture using “Enable Viewport Override” with support for Invert, UV Rotation, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Hue from “Maxwell Image Controls” and Repeat UV and Offset from “place2dTexture”

  • Added support for showing in viewport an approximation of the transparency set in Transmittance as well as textures with support for Invert and UV Rotation from “Maxwell Image Controls” and Repeat UV and Offset from “place2dTexture”

  • Added support for showing in viewport an approximation of the blending between Reflectance 0º and 90º (colors or textures) affected by roughness value.

  • Added support for showing in viewport an approximation of the blending of multiple BSDFs as well as multiple layers (limited to 32 elements, that is BSDFs or layers) taking into account Normal or Additive blending modes.

  • Added support for showing the main color and texture of the assistant materials in the viewport.

  • Added support for showing any other texture of the assistants through “Enable Viewport Override” with support for Invert, UV Rotation, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Hue from “Maxwell Image Controls” and Repeat UV and Offset from “place2dTexture”.

  • Added support for showing environment viewport preview for Windows and Linux (in Mac it’s not working as it is based on OpenGL 2.0 and in Mac it’s only supported from version 3.2 and up. We’ll try to add support for this in future updates).

• New Maxwell Material Preview area in Attribute Editor; bigger, more useful, collapsible and detachable).

• Added a bigger material preview area that can be set to three different sizes.

• Added engine selection options for the material preview (drop-down and right-click menus).

• Added controls for Sampling Level (SL) and Time limits as well as the number of threads for the Material Preview.

• Added a drop-down menu to be able to select the preview scene from the ones available at the Maxwell installation preview folder.

• Added a text box where to store custom information about the material.

• Added a toggle button to change from On Demand preview update mode to Automatic.

• Added a button to edit the material in Maxwell Material Editor (MXED).

• Added buttons to detach the material preview to a floating window.

• Added update preview button.

• Added new buttons to create embedded, referenced and assistant materials (new).

• In the case of MXS references, we added new object ID options, so you can choose between Container (it will show the one of the MXS reference itself, so it will be one single color), Content (it will show the object ID of the individual objects inside the reference, so it will show several colors) or Recolor (this will generate new random colors for the objects inside the reference which will be persistent between renders).

• Reorganized assistant materials’ options and default values so they match the ones in MXED; also added some missing texture chips and fixed some problems using textures.

• Added Hair assistant material.

• Added an alternative custom saving folder for the Online Gallery downloads in Preferences.

Fixes:

• Launching a region render crashed Maya when the image was returned to the image frame buffer.

• When using “Export selected” from File menu with Pack and Go, all the materials of the scene and related files were exported, instead of only the ones related to the selected objects.

• The plugin was ignoring Maya lights and MXS references when exporting under certain circumstances.

• Maya crashed if the plugin could not find the right version of Maxwell. It now informs of the problem and disables the plugin.

• MXS references were not displaying correctly in the viewport in the case of grouped geometry that had transformations applied to the group (although they rendered fine).

• Some of the fields were showing a light grey background while Maya default color is dark grey.

• Instances with negative scales exported from Maya were not opened in the right place in Studio (although they rendered correctly).

• Maya was crashing when trying to open another file after saving one.

• When Maxwell was set as default renderer, Render Settings panel showed empty.

Version support changes:

• Dropped support from Maya 2012 to 2015 (included) as some of the new features were not able to work on the old versions.

Version 4.2.1 - 21 Feb 2018

Changes:

• Update to Maxwell 4.2.0.3.

Version 4.2.0 - 09 Feb 2018

General:

• Built with Maxwell SDK 4.2.0.2.
• Added channel "Triangle ID".

Version 4.1.3 - 11 Sep 2017

General:

• Added support for Maya 2018

Known issues:

• In Maya 2018 the Legacy Viewport Renderer, upon Maxwell relied on to display textures in the viewport, was deprecated. Thus, until we create a new shader for Viewport 2.0, the textures can only be previewed using Fire.

Version 4.1.2 - 27 Jul 2017

General:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.1.1
• Some default options have been changed.

Installer:

• Added Windows installer options.
• OSX installer has been modified.

Fixed:

• Maxwell's Batch Render didn't work properly.
• Batch render saved only the last denoised image.
• Syntax errors have been fixed.

Version 4.1.1 - 19 Jun 2017

General:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.0.4

Version 4.1.0 - 08 Jun 2017

Changes:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.0.3
• Plugin now uses central Maxwell installation.

• Added Denoiser options to Maxwell render settings

• Added Xrite AXF Material extensions

• Added Table BRDF Material extension

• Added Maxwell Light Panel

• Added FIRE engine menu to Maxwell render settings

• CPU Threads can have negative values.

Fixed:

• Maya 2016.5 and 2017 doesn't show Maxwell extensions in viewport 2.0

Version 4.0.6 - 21 Dec 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.12 render engine.

• Added support for Maya 2016.5

Version 4.0.5 - 02 Dec 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.11 render engine.

Version 4.0.4 - 04 Nov 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.8 render engine.

Version 3.2.12 - April 5, 2016

• Increased the range of the Parallax Distance camera parameter.
• Set the default value for the stereo separation camera parameter to 6.5.
• When creating a stereo camera rig, the center camera also shows the Maxwell Render roll-up in the attribute editor.
• Updated the plug-in API to allow other plug-ins to export Maxwell's hair.
• Fixed: wrong output image name when using the <Scene> macro and running an interactive batch render.
• Fixed: the RF BIN mesh loader object did not update in the viewport when changing the current time.
• Fixed: the output image format was reset to PNG when saving a scene that was using EXR.
• Fixed: slow voxelization in FIRE.
• Fixed: adding a new customa alpha channel and selecting "no" when prompted to add the selection to it assigned all the objects in the scene to that channel.
• Fixed: environment preview did not work in Viewport 2.0.
• Fixed: objects with semitransparent Maxwell materials did not appear correctly or at all in Viewport 2.0.
• Fixed: area lights did not appear in the "Block Emitter" dialog.

Version 3.1.12 - June 10, 2015

• fixed: FIRE was still running in the background after closing its window
• fixed: the render resolution for FIRE was capped at 720 pixels horizontally the first time it was started during a Maya session due to misbehaving licensing code

Version 3.1.11 - June 8, 2015

• added support for Maya 2016
• fixed: MEL error about setParent when loading the plug-in
• added the *.prt extension mask to the Maxwell Particles file dialogs
• converted materials use the name of the original material, but with an added "Conv" suffix
• fixed: layered materials converted automatically from legacy materials did not show up in Hypershade
• fixed: the plug-in was not able to obtain a license on Linux if Shave&Haircut; was also installed (or any other plug-in which uses RLM)
• added the *.exr file mask in the browser dialog for RFRK mesher displacement files
• the volumetric object no longer adds a frame number in the exported particle file path if one isn't present in the file selected by the user. Also improved the detection of the frame padding in case a frame number has to be inserted.
• fixed: "no layer selected" error when clicking the Blocked Emitters button in the AE for a mesh
• fixed: wrong viewport preview for the sea object when Maya was in z-up mode
• fixed: wrong positions for exported particles when Maya was set in z-up mode
• fixed: native lights were not included in the list of blockable emitters
• fixed: no VDB file mask in the volumetric object file open dialog
• fixed the translation from legacy materials to layered was broken
• added support for mapping magnitudes to UV channels in the RFRK mesher
• fixed: instances produced by the MASH plug-in (and other 3rd party instancers) were not rendered
• added support for UDIM textures
• added settings for extra sampling in the render options dialog
• fixed: volumetric objects did not work
• fixed: crash when changing the state of the color management setting (Maya 2015 Extension 1)
• added support for a new hair primitive: curves
• added support for per-material alpha channels
• added back support for custom light geometry (MXS references)
• fixed: volumetric objects could not be exported on Windows 8
• fixed: wrong rotation for spot lights in FIRE
• fixed: floating shadows and reflections were not visible when rendering in Draft mode
• fixed: when launching Maxwell on Linux, an intermediary process was created, instead of parenting Maxwell directly under the main Maya process

Version 3.0.15 - October 14, 2014

• fixed: minor licensing issue

• non-absolute MXS and MXI paths are considered relative to the project path
• fixed: wrong viewport preview for boolean objects when Maya is in Z up mode
• fixed: region rendering only worked when using the camera set as renderable in the scene settings

• removed obsolete parameters from the UI of the scatter node
• fixed: possible crash when displaying a scatter node in the viewport
• fixed: MXS references were not inheriting render flags and were ignoring custom alpha assignments
• fixed: exporting a MXS during pack'n'go ignored render settings

Version 3.0.12 - April 29th 2014

Changes

• added support for Maya 2015
• creating a new custom alpha channel adds the currently selected objects to the channel
• added a shelf button which allows custom alpha channel mappings to be edited on several objects at once
• added missing Maxwell scatter parameters
• when a custom alpha channel is renamed, its name is updated in all the scene nodes which were using it
• pack'n'go now copies texture files used by referenced MXM materials, files used by RFRK nodes and file sequences used by animated textures and MXS references

Fixes

• Maxwell scatter density, scale and rotation maps weren't exported
• wrong defaults and ranges for scatter variation and rotation parameters
• correlated color emitters were exported as XYZ and vice-versa
• the time input of the sea node was replaced with the default value when loading a scene
• wrong unit for the time of the sea node (frames were passed as seconds)
• incorrect scale and density range exported for Maya fluids
• incorrect displacement presets for RealFlow and Modo
• the plug-in was incorrectly adding the frame number to ABC files used by the RFRK particle node
• realflow BIN meshes were displayed incorrectly in the viewport
• bogus values in the displacement-related dropdowns in the material attribute editor
• incorrect camera target (and therefore DOF) if the linear unit was set to something other than centimeters when the camera was created
• incorrect lighting and normal mapping for objects with Maxwell materials in Viewport 2.0
• MXM import ignored emitter projection textures

Version 2.7.18 - June 3rd, 2013

Changes

• added a setting to control if FIRE takes isolation mode into account
• upgraded Shave SDK to version 7
• the plug-in displays an error when exporting a material or rendering if a layered material has displacement, but no layers
• the plug-in detects when multiple projected textures with identical parameters are assigned to the same material and creates a single UV set
• increased maximum number of projection channels per material to 16

Fixes

• changes to the isolation list didn't always reflect in FIRE
• crash when trying to read preview images for materials with very long names
• particle instancers didn't render
• FIRE could not be started if an object was parented to the active camera

Version 2.7.15 - April 25th, 2013

Changes

• added support for Maya 2014
• added a Match Render Resolution command in the Viewport menu of the FIRE window
• merged the start and stop FIRE menu commands into a single toggle item
• materials for PaintFX can be specified at the brush level. If a material is also specified on the stroke, the stroke material takes precedence.
• added a menu command in the FIRE window to send the image to the render view
• added focus to and start/stop buttons in the FIRE window
• added exposure controls at the top of the FIRE window
• the object ID color is taken from the deepest level of the hierarchy where it is set, so that shapes can override the colors set in the transforms
• added an image preview window
• when importing MXS files, objects and triangles without materials use the default Maya material
• added sl, width, height, shutter, iso and fstop keywords to the render view overlay text
• hair vertex colors are converted to linear space
• improved export times in scenes with deeply nested hierarchies

Fixes

• numeric render options were not working in the render view overlay text
• objects with a single material which was assigned to each face, instead of at object level, were imported without a material from MXS
• the material ID color wasn't imported from MXM files
• the IES point cloud was not oriented correctly when Maya was set in Z up mode
• incorrect UV coordinates when a material with projected textures is assigned per face
• adding a new layer to a material re-enabled all the disabled layers
• full reexport in FIRE when a single object is changed
• Maya instances were exported multiple times
• the color correction attributes were not imported from MXM files in Maya 2012 and up

Version 2.7.12 - March 11th, 2013

• improved export times when there are many hidden objects
• added the option to disable camera movement export for motion blur
• FIRE supports isolation mode
• added settings for drawing MXS references and Maxwell instances as meshes instead of point clouds
• added a "solo" setting for material layers
• added a Maxwell category in the create new material dialog
• the HUD (resolution gate, film gate etc.) can be turned off in the FIRE window
• fixed: pack'n'go didn't work when used from the File/Export menu
• fixed: crash in Maya 2013.5 when emitters were used
• fixed: when multiple Maxwell objects were selected, only the first one was highlighted in the viewport
• fixed: wrong framing in FIRE when the aspect ratio of the FIRE window didn't match the render aspect ratio
• fixed: wrong framing in some cases when vertical film offset was used
• fixed: Python API: SetAttribute() for material components didn't work if the attribute was a color

Version 2.7.11 - December 17th, 2012

• added support for Maya 2013.5
• added the -l flag for command line rendering which selects the active render layer
• pack'n'go can export the scene to MXS
• added the ability to control the viewport display color for all the Maxwell objects (MXS reference, instancer, RFRK objects etc.)
• fixed: the viewport did not update after removing a sequence from a RFRK mesher
• fixed: pack'n'go no longer overwrites the current scene if "Save Maya Scene" is enabled
• fixed: the OSX installer did not contain the MXI image format plug-in
• fixed: the OSX installer copied all files, for all Maya versions, regardless of which versions are actually installed
• fixed: the Maya 2013 build did not work on some Linux distributions

Version 2.7.8 - October 16th, 2012

• the Maxwell-specific attributes are always present in Maya 2012 and above, so they can be manipulated directly with setAttr and they show up in the spreadsheet editor
• the UI controls for the Maxwell-specific attributes behave just like the controls for the built-in attributes in Maya 2013 and above, so there's no need to use the Extra Attributes rollup anymore
• render flags can be set on transform nodes, overriding the settings for all the children of the transform
• FBX import and export supports Maxwell materials
• geometry and materials can be imported from MXS files
• fixed: the hide to secondary rays, GI and z-clip flags were not working on MXS references
• fixed: a Maxwell viewport was created every time the settings window was closed

Version 2.7.6 - July 4th, 2012

• no new features in this version.
• fixed: the extensions (grass, hair etc.) were broken in the previous plug-in build (2.7.5)

Version 2.7.5 - June 28th, 2012

• added support for image sequences in the image-based environment
• the Maxwell root directory can be specified through the MAXWELL2_ROOT environment variable and maxwell2Root option var on all platforms
• fixed: the library and gallery browsers didn't work
• fixed: revoxelization in FIRE after any kind of scene change
• fixed: wrong maximum value for grass bend angle
• fixed: wrong face-shader mappings for subdivided meshes under certain circumstances
• fixed: the "focus to" shelf button didn't work if the object was part of a group
• fixed: FIRE didn't refresh when a camera parameter was changed through an expression

Version 2.7.4 - June 18th, 2012

• Maya 2013 is supported
• added Maxwell grass
• updated the command line render flags for pre- and post- MEL scripts to match the built-in renderer
• projecting UVs works when no placement object is present
• added support for cubic and spherical texture projections
• increased maximum f/stop value to match Studio
• added anamorphic bokeh settings in the Maxwell camera attributes panel
• added render flags for the MXS reference objects
• bump maps are exported as disabled when bump mapping is off, instead of being completely ignored
• PaintFX hair can generate root UVs
• added a new entry in the list of displacement types: "3D RealFlow"
• particle mass, age, color and UV are exported to the MaxwellParticles extension when present
• PXY files can be used with the MaxwellParticles extension
• added back the region rendering controls on the camera attribute editor; the Maya region settings take precedence when using region rendering
• the rendered region is applied on top of the existing Render View image
• smoothed meshes with per-face material assignments are supported
• fixed: FIRE was not refreshed when moving a MXS reference object

Version 2.6.27 - April 2nd, 2012

• added "off" to the display mode list of the BIN mesh loader, which prevents the BIN files from being accessed for viewport preview
• setting the LOD to 0 in the particle objects and MXS reference prevents the plug-in from reading anything from disk
• added shelf buttons for creating and assigning Maxwell materials
• added help and about buttons on the shelf
• added an API which can be used to customize the export process
• the transparency of the native materials is used as layer weight instead of transmittance color in the Maxwell approximation
• the IOR parameter of Blinn and Phong shaders is taken into account by the translator
• fixed: crash when trying to run Maya with non-accelerated OpenGL drivers (e.g. under Remote Desktop in Windows, or with Mesa on Linux
• fixed: errors on Mac OS and Linux when the RealFlow plug-in was also loaded
• fixed: some AE controls did not work correctly on Mac when a material had multiple layersadded Maxwell render flags for hair nodes, particle systems and instancers

Version 2.6.23 - January 30th, 2012

• added a motion blur factor control for particle systems
• added Maxwell render flags for hair nodes, particle systems and instancers
• the format and depth of the extra render channels are forced to the same values as the color channel when embedding is on
• added an attenuation unit control for the BSDF
• added support for multi-step camera motion blur
• the referenced material supports viewport 2.0
• added support for silent installs on Windows (pass /S on the installer command line)
• the FIRE scene state can be frozen using the Viewport menu in the popup panel
• added the -restartFire and -freezeFireState flags to the maxwell command which apply to all running FIRE instances
• Maxwell is started with -node when running a batch render, so that it uses a node license, not a GUI license
• the search paths configured in the plug-in preferences are saved in the exported MXS files
• integrated region rendering with Maya's render view and removed the Maxwell-specific region attributes from the camera
• removed the "Default to High Quality" plug-in preference
• added a render option which disables the export of built-in Maya lights
• fixed: slow export for particle instancers
• fixed: native light intensities were not read back correctly from ML if the intensity multiplier was left at its default value
• fixed: possible crash when loading the plug-in
• fixed: the Maxwell material didn't respect the viewport backface culling setting (culling was always on)
• fixed: render layer overrides could not be applied on material checkboxes
• fixed: wrong state for the save image, start and stop menu items in the FIRE panel
• fixed: global displacement scale shouldn't be applied to relative displacement heights
• fixed: the global displacement scale wasn't applied to 3D displacement height
• fixed: the "merge materials" window didn't have a title
• fixed: a "0" was displayed in the override temp directory control when the value was not set
• fixed: bad text alignment in the preferences window
• fixed: if a Maya or Shave hair object fails to produce lines, the export is no longer canceled
• fixed: texture UV channel indexes were not imported from MXM files
• fixed: exporting with "Will use sequence rendering" enabled resulted in an error about invalid file extension
• fixed: the meaning of the "embed in MXS" flag on the referenced material was reversed