New Features

• RenderMan for Maya is now RenderMan for Maya "Pro", and vice versa. For RenderMan Studio users, the change is primarily in the name - because there is no separate "Pro" product, labels and .ini files have been simplified under the RenderMan for Maya nomenclature. RenderMan for Maya users now have the flexibility and power heretofore the sole province of RenderMan Studio users, including RIB in and out, fully-integrated re-rendering, shader authoring via Slim, and a fancy, industrial strength display tool in "it".
• PRMan 17 - The internal renderer is now concurrent with the latest release of RenderMan Pro Server.
• Advanced Shading Techniques - RenderMan for Maya provides new and improved support for the creation of sophisticated shaders as well as an improved workflow that allows for "just in time" shader binding.
  • Plausible Shading - RfM now ships with shading nodes based on the Physically Plausible Shading techniques introduced in PRMan 16. These nodes are made available within Maya's shading workflow but take full advantage of the RenderMan Shading Language and integrate seamlessly with a RenderMan-centric pipeline.
  • RSL Code Generator - RenderMan Studio 4 includes a new RSL code generator designed to support a more natural expression of the shader pipeline dependencies in root nodes of a shader graph.
  • Dynamic Binding - Dynamic Binding is a new way to assign shaders to geometry in RMS that simplifies binding for complex assets and provides a powerful but easy-to-use, programmable method for the assignment of shaders and modification of shading parameters in a pipeline-friendly, "just-in-time" way.
• Re-rendering - RenderMan Studio now supports both the REYES and raytrace re-renderers. Users can access the raytrace re-renderer directly in RMS, without needing RenderMan Pro Server.
• Enhanced Archiving - Leveraging the RIB-in-.zip support introduced in PRMan 17, RMS 4 includes a new, simplified archiving workflow via the new RenderManArchive node.
• RfM now supports "plausibly-shaded" Maya Paint Effects. A new version of the brush shader, RMSGPBrush, is now automatically used to render physically plausible paint effects. In order to support a more physical lighting work flow, reliance on the ramp shader has been removed; the shader only supports standard Lambert shading and the Ashikhmin-Shirley specular BRDF.
• LocalQueue - RfM now includes a utility for running a local queue of render jobs, in lieu of Tractor or Alfred.

Enhancements

• RIB generation is faster.
• RSL code generation has been improved.
• In addition to the new nodes in this release, support for Plausible Shading has been extended and improved, including enhanced support for light blockers.
• Mari UDIM and Mudbox atlas (map index) support has been added for textures. Users can select a map index mode via the Texture Controls, which can be added to a Maya file node.
• Texture conversion has been accelerated.
• Co-shader support has been improved, particularly in their ability to be tightly bound.
• RMS now supports multi-segment subframe motion blur for deforming objects.
• Support for Maya 2013.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Stats files (enabled via the Advanced tab) are now generated and written to disk alongside the corresponding RIB files.
• RenderMan Studio preferences are now located in the /RenderManStudio/4.0 subdirectory. Previously, the subdirectory was named RenderMan_Studio.
• Users can now create a Trace Set (for selected items) directly from the RenderMan menu.
• Render job submissions to Tractor now support directory mapping for job commands.
• Users can now access the "volume" "refinementstrategies" attribute via the Manage Attributes interface.
• Default cache sizes have been increased.
• There have been numerous user interface improvements.
• RIB for the swatch displayed for RenderMan shaders in Maya is now editable in the RfMExpression.tcl file.
• The default external render style is now Local Render, rather than netrender.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that could cause noise in Roulette-reduced samples.
• Fixed a bug that could cause local mayabatch-style renders to lose attached Slim shaders.
• Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when reloading a .slo file in a RenderManShader node.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the re-renderer to hang when motion blur is enabled.
• Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect license server settings.
• Fixed a bug that could cause shaders to be inadvertently deleted when a corresponding render pass is deleted.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent SSDiffuse passes from rendering properly when the frequency was set to Once Per Job.
• Fixed a bug that prevented textures from being converted for every frame in a rendered sequence.
• Fixed a Windows-only bug that could lead to a crash when browsing to a file.
• The re-renderer now respects render layers and re-renders the current layer.
• A bug that prevented mirrored Subdiv Proxies from rendering correctly has been fixed.

New Features

• Slim now ships with new templates designed to take advantage of PRMan's new Physically Plausible Shading techniques.

  Note: The older AllPurpose "template suite" can be re-enabled in Slim 10 via the RMS.ini with the TemplateSuite preference, like so:

  SetPref TemplateSuite {allPurpose}
  

  [As always, we strongly discourage editing the factory .ini files; please set this pref via a site-specific custom RMS.ini file referenced via an RMS_SCRIPT_PATHS variable.]

• Slim's Area Light now supports blockers.

• Slim now supports new custom Custom Overviews for representing a user-defined interface for a shading network. This includes an option to completely control the external parameter names of shaders. Users can set this via a new preference on the Interface tab, or with the SlimSLNamesFromCustomOverview preference in the slim.ini.

• There is a new Slim scripting option for the GetNameSL method - -customoverview - which takes an appearance argument so that script writers can discover the name of the RIB parameter when Custom Overviews are in effect. The preferred way to call this method is with:

  set ribParamName [$param GetNameSL -customoverview $appr]
  

• There is a new preference, set via the Interface tab, that lets users choose whether external parameter names have any hierarchy (from the collections they appear in) or not. This preference can also be set via a SlimSLUseCustomOverviewHierarchy preference in the slim.ini.

• Mari UDIM and Mudbox atlas (map index) support has been added for textures, via a new Texture Atlas template.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Slim now supports a new command line option - -nobuild - which can be used to prevent the generation of new .sl or .slo files.
• Select Attached from Slim now will select co-shader attachments as well as primary appearances.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that could produce unwanted noise in roulette-reduced samples.
• Fixed a bug that could produce peculiar purple artifacts in subsurface scattering.
• Fixed a bug that could causes users to lose edits to Library Palettes.
• Slim's behavior during a re-rendering session has been improved.
• Fixed a bug wherein changing the shader's parameters by editing the name was not "dirty"-ing the master.
• Fixed an OSX Lion (and Mountain Lion) bug wherein any UI button that opens a text editor would fail.

New Features

• "it" has a new command menu for running operations on images or general purpose scripts. Commands can optionally bring up a dialog to prompt the user for parameters and options before running the target script. Users may modify factory shipped commands or add their own including creating new custom dialogs. Factory shipped commands include: Scale, Rotate, Apply view mapping, Diff and Burn-in notes.
• Users can now burn view mapping into an image (or images) on a per image or per catalog basis.

Important Changes

• "it" now uses OpenGL to display its view mapping, improving overall performance and, particularly, the performance of "it" when used as the display for RenderMan Studio's relighting/re-rendering interface. View mapping (i.e. sRGB, Gamma correction, etc.) is now done via hardware-assisted OpenGL shaders.

Bug Fixes

• Gamma settings in the "it" Preferences are now correctly applied.
• Images with output channels set to rgbaz rather than rgba now display properly.
• Fixed a (64-bit OS X-only) bug that prevented flipbooks from functioning properly.
• Several issues related to auto-launching "it", including one that prevented "it" from working properly with the re-renderer on OS X and Linux, have been resolved.
• Error-reporting when re-rendering to "it" has been improved.
• Addressed a latency that could occur before the delivery of initial buckets to "it".

Important Licensing Change

This release introduces important changes to the licensing behavior of the software that users need to be aware of, though, in most cases, users will not need to do anything - the change is handled by the installers.

For more information, see the Licensing and Installation documentation for your particular platform.

Miscellaneous Changes and Enhancements

• Re-rendering startup is now faster.
• There are three new utility templates included with the RMS shading nodes:
  • AOV - uses the writeaov() shadeop to allow the user to specify a custom AOV name and a connected value for both a color and a float.
  • SideMask - masks between two colors, based on the side of the geometry.
  • Occlusion - uses the occlusion() shadeop to compute ambient occlusion.
• There have been updates, adjustments, and additons to the parameters and attributes of RMS shaders, including changes to the UI and changes to default values that will affect the speed and quality of renders.
• The RMSGlass shader has been improved.
• The bias for RMSEnvLight shadows is now computed automatically.
• "it" now uses a separate redraw rate limit when in "direct" mode for re-rendering, controlled via a new itDirectDisplayPeriod preference in it.ini. Users who have changed their itDisplayPeriod preference to accommodate faster direct display might need to adjust accordingly.

Bug Fixes

• Several issues with texture atlases have been resolved.
• Fixed a bug that could lead to type mismatch errors in the RMSGlass and Slim Glass shaders.
• Fixed a bug that could cause inconsistencies in fur placement when rendering on different platforms.
• A bug that prevented user control of adaptive sampling when rendering with the raytrace hider has been fixed.
• Addressed an issue that prevented RenderManArchives from working properly with render layers.
• Point-based subsurface scattering now works properly with RenderManArchives.
• Fixed a bug that prevented animated textures from working properly when motion blur is enabled.
• The behavior of the Tint parameter to the RMSEnvLight has been improved.
• Several issues with nested archives have been addressed.
• Fixed a bug that inadvertently caused the SetConnection msghandler to not be called when a parameter connection was deleted.