LuxCoreRender Release Notes v2.4
LuxCore
New Features
- New OpenCL code to evaluate textures and materials. It doesn't require kernel re-compilation anymore.
- LuxCoreUI "Fill kernel cache" menu option now pre-compile all possible GPU kernels.
- LuxCore API KernelCacheFill() is now available for Python
- New 2-levels Env. Light Visibility Cache (ELVC)
- Added the support for a new ".sharpness" (default value 0.1, range [0.0, 1.0]) Intel OIDN parameter to blend original and denoised output
- Removed LuxRays support for virtual devices and hybrid rendering (old LuxRender GPU doing ray intersections and CPU everything else)
Fixed Bugs
Blender Addon (BlendLuxCore)
New features
- optimize viewport update checks in scenes with many particles/duplis
- Replaced the Eevee lookdev (which required Cycles materials) with an albedo render mode that is intended as a fast texture preview for both Lux and Cycles node trees
- Node editor quality of life (support for muting nodes and some node wrangler functions)
- when using PhotonGI debug modes, disable light tracing and use an exposure compensated tonemapper
- support for custom split normals, weighted normals etc.
- reworked statistics, added some sub-stats about export time (mesh conversion time, hair conversion time) as well as information about which caches are enabled/disabled
- Use Cycles nodes on linked materials without Lux nodes (so materials on Cycles assets automatically try to use Cycles nodes, unless you create a Lux material on the assets)
- limit max. subdiv in material previews to 1
- add support for principled emission, alpha and transmission sockets to Cycles node reader
- add support for indirect only collection visibility mode
- Support for manta flow smoke export in blender 2.82
- new triplanar normalmap node
- add triplanar projection mode to imagemap node, general rework/polishing of the imagemap node
- Add support for transparency in the denoised result (both viewport and final render)
- Emulate Cycles material UI in Lux material node editor (material and slot dropdown instead of node tree dropdown)
- Thin film coating support for glass and disney materials
- Cycles node reader:
- add support for nested Cycles node groups
- add support for geometry node outputs: position and normal
- add support for object info node outputs: object index, material index, random
- add support for refraction shader
- add support for blackbody texture
- new hybrid glass material preset
- LuxCore Online Library is now integrated in Blender (3D view > N-Panel > LuxCoreOnlineLibrary tab)
- new addon preferences:
- GPU backend (OpenCL/CUDA)
- option to enable/disable image node thumbnails on new nodes by default
- LuxCore Online Library preferences
- support for new sampling patterns and out-of-core rendering
- amount of light tracing samples is now shown in statistics (image editor > N-Panel > LuxCore tab)
- support for COLOR_LUT imagepipeline plugin, allowing to load .cube LUT files
Fixed Bugs
- fix world volume ui panel drawing
- fix material presets panel not showing without a material
- fix remesh panel in mesh data properties not showing up
- fix bugs in 3D mapping node UI (the controls were disappearing when the selected object was of type "CURVE", "SURFACE" or "FONT")
- fix export of metaballs with shared data
- fix shapes being added to cached meshes over and over in viewport render
- fix check for UV maps on curve, surface and font objects being broken
- fix shapes not working on hair
- fix possible key collision in image exporter after undo (fixes #431)
- fix color tint not working for sky and HDRIs
- put Blender post processing panel in the right place (output props instead of render props)
- fix wrong view layer visibility check
- fix possible config export error if film opencl device was not set
Known problems
- Inserted keyframes in material node graph don't show up in graph editor or anywhere else
- LuxCore node parameters can not be animated in Blender 2.82. This bug is fixed in Blender 2.83 and later
- Rendering with caches (e.g. PhotonGI, DLSC, Env. light cache) can lead to problems if border rendering is enabled. A workaround is to disable automatic radius estimation and setting the radius manually instead when using border rendering