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)

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

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

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