Version: 5.3
Build Date: 2016.0301
Release Date: 1 March 2016
Requirements:
Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10
Mac OS X 10.7 or later
Linux Fedora 13 and above
Connection Requirements:
Cinema 4D - Versions 14,15,16,17 - Plug-in build 2015.1102
LightWave 3D - Versions 11, 2015 - Plug-in build 2016.0106
Maya - Versions 2014, 2015, 2016 - Plug-in build 2016.0225
MODO - Versions 701, 801, 901, 902 - Plug-in build 2016.0225
3ds Max - Versions 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 - Plug-in build 2016.0104
Houdini - Versions 12,13,14,15 - Plug-in build 2016.0219
DeltaGen - Versions 12.1, 12.2, 13.0, 13.1 - Plug-in build 2016.0218
Rhino - Version 5 - Plug-in build 2015.1123
VRED - Version 2014, 2015, 2016 (Windows only) - No additional plug-in installation required.
Maxwell Studio - Version 3.2 and above (Windows and OSX) - No additional plug-in installation required.
SOLIDWORKS Visualize - Version 2016 (Windows) - No additional plug-in installation required.
New Features:
Area Lights
Lights in HDR Light Studio with 3D mapping can now be promoted to become Area Lights in 3D space. The first Connection to support this new feature is the Maya Connection. The updated Maya Connection supports live HDRI map and Area Light creation with renderers: Mental Ray, Arnold, V-Ray, Maxwell, Redshift, Octane, Renderman (RIS) and iRay for Maya. (Renderman (RIS) is currently supported on Windows and Linux only.)
Convert to Uber Light
There is a new menu command that can be used to convert any selected light into an Uber Light. For example, the user may place a Picture Light from the tool bar, and decide they want to add an alpha to the image. This is only possible when using the Uber Light, therefore using ‘Edit > Convert to UberLight’ allows the light to preserve all of the light’s settings, and gain the flexibility of being an Uber Light with more properties available to change.
Render View – Continuous Updates
Users can drag lights using LightPaint on the Render View, and experience continuous updates to the Canvas and Render View.
New Area Lights can also be moved, scaled and rotated with continuous updates in the Render View.
Aspect Ratio on Images
New button in image content, to adjust the height of the light to match the image's aspect ratio.
License Management Panel
Users can now easily see what licenses they have installed and when they will expire. The new License Management panel displays both main app and connection licenses, their type, expiry date (days left), plus the last build date that the licenses will run.
New Compatibility:
Maya / iRay for Maya
Modo 902
SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2016
Improvements:
Canvas: Canvas view has been flipped horizontally, so the user is now looking at the HDRI map from world origin. Therefore when area lights are added, the Canvas is an accurate view of the lighting scene from the world origin viewpoint.
User Interface: Keyboard shortcuts are now displayed in menu commands where possible. Example: Edit > Undo Ctrl + Z
Render View: Support for specifying the fresnel as an IOR.
Render View: Display LUT is active during camera moves.
Render Settings: 3d scene file slot, and the background image file slot both support dragging and dropping files from the OS.
Render View: Performance has been improved when moving the camera.
Render View: New Fit Scene to View button for Freecam mode.
Render View / Render Settings: The time in the Render View is now specified as a frame number, which is more useful for a 3D artist than the seconds that are embedded in an Alembic file. Therefore we have now added a FPS setting in the Render View, so the user can input the frame rate for the shot.
Render View: Added Tilt Camera Tool for Freecam mode.
Render Settings: New roughness setting for the reflection roughness/glossiness value
Render Settings: Added checkbox for toggling floor plane on and off.
HDR Light Studio license type is displayed in the top bar of the application.
User Interface: Small change to color scheme tone, input boxes are now darker in color and stand out more on the interface.
Host Presets: Cinema 4D/Corona has been added for production render orientation settings
Production Render: New optional settings for the additional output of Thumbnail PNGs for lights, Render View PNG, and a Saved HDR Light Studio Project File.
All HDR Light Studio application settings can now be removed via a command line option.
Light Controls / Exposure Control: New keyboard controls to change the sensitivity when dragging.
Light Controls: New Smart Dolly button, click and drag and Smart Dolly selected area light.
Fixed Bugs:
Bug 1154 - Dragging Lat / Long Sliders when used with Connections causes slow performance in host.
Bug 825 - Crash bug: Fixed crashing issue with spherical mapping and gradient content.
Bug 1265 - Bulb offsets from v4 projects inverted on loading to match v4 output.
Bug 1232 - All connections: When starting HDR Light Studio with an embedded project, the initial lighting didn't match until a change was made.
Bug 1262 - Version 5 was not honoring on/off light state when loading V4 projects.
Bug 1128 - Alembic importer now handles polygon mesh nodes that do not contain any geometry
Bug 1212 - Over Blend mode bug affecting brightness of other lights on the canvas
Bug 1214 - Fixed issues with the License Activation dialog appearing behind the main window when Always on Top is turned on.
Bug 929 - Fixed Undo bug where Light Preview and Light List thumbnails were not updating after Undo.
Bug 974: Drag and drop disabled on Render View whilst a load is in progress, to prevent crash.
Bug 1005 - Fixed crash on HDRLS exit when referencing Alembic file
Known Issues:
Area Lights are not visible through the HDR Light Studio shadow catcher floor plane. Workaround: Turn off 'Show Floor Plane' option in the Render Settings.
Area Lights alpha channel is not supported in the HDR Light Studio Render View, which uses a pre-multiplied RGB version of the content.
Moving Area Lights with Cam Visibility 'On' slows down the Render View performance due to invalidating the cached image based lighting.
