Pixar's latest RenderMan 26.3 update introduces a range of bug fixes and compatibility enhancements for Maya, Katana, and Houdini's latest production releases.
New Updates in RenderMan 26.3
RIS and XPU:
Ray Tracing:
- Resolved intermittent memory access issues that could result in crashes (RMAN-22792).
XPU:
General:
- Enhanced adaptive sampling on GPUs, particularly for challenging cases with mostly black pixel samples (PRMAN-3004).
- Addressed memory access issues during ray-tracing accelerator build that could cause intermittent crashes.
Geometry:
- Corrected deformation motion blur issues when geometry motion block times did not align with shutter times (RMAN-21809, RMAN-21772, RMAN-21120).
- Fixed CPU-specific multisegment deformation motion blur on points (RMAN-22573).
- Aligned transform blur behavior in XPU with RIS, especially regarding rotation blur (RMAN-22581).
- Resolved deformation blur issues for curves and GPU-specific inaccuracies (RMAN-22585).
- Improved displacement execution on deforming motion blurred geometry to match RIS behavior (RMAN-22607).
- XPU now accurately bounds motion blur for geometry following a curved path due to transformation and deformation blur combinations (RMAN-22572).
- Fixed issues with degenerate vertices on non-quadtri deformation blurred polymeshes requiring PTex (PRMAN-2969).
- - Resolved crashes during interactive geometry editing when switching from motion blurred to static (RMAN-22613).
Image from Pixar
Shading:
- PxrMarschnerHair now defaults to 1e-5 albedo instead of 0.18 when black.
Lighting:
- Fixed undersampled portal lights (RMAN-22606).
RIS:
Volumes:
- Resolved an issue where invisible camera non-aggregate volumes would clip visible aggregate volumes (RMAN-22811).
- Fixed a stack overrun leading to crashes when executing C++ pattern code in volume context (CUSP-8362).
- Resolved crashes from specifying the same volume aggregate multiple times in a comma-separated string for Attribute "volume" "aggregate" (RMAN-22909).
Shading:
- RenderMan no longer sets point clouds as "transient" by default (PRMAN-3026).
Lighting:
- Fixed the low-resolution appearance of textured mesh lights (RMAN-22816).
Denoiser:
- Renamed the --include-aovs flag to --debug.
- Introduced a new --debug-output flag for specifying debug AOV filenames, defaulting to denoised variance files.
- Added a --tiles option for denoise_batch and denoise UI, allowing tile-based denoising to reduce memory usage with large images.
- Enhanced denoiser UI with the ability to view undenoised and denoised image versions.
- Improved denoiser usability without the RMANTREE environment variable.
- Fixed denoiser crashes related to image opening.
- Enabled tiling prompts for certain denoiser errors.
- Allowed JSON config file overrides for frame-include, frame-exclude, progress, and tiles options.
- Addressed a bug with the --frame-include option.
Image from Pixar
Read more about the Bridge Tools in the full RenderMan 26.3 article:
Source: Pixar
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