Rendering software updates roundup August-September ‘21

Enjoy our next roundup of new software updates on GarageFarm.NET render farm. Over the past two months, we've been working on improvements to the plugins for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Blender, After Effects, LightWave and SketchUp. We’ve released three version updates to renderBeamer app and many fixes and improvements for Web Manager. 3ds Max users will be thrilled about the v140 plugin release which makes rendering in Corona much easier and efficient. There will be more significant updates coming to our 3ds Max render farm integration over the coming months. 

• Improved TEMP directory path validation for non-Latin characters
• New update popup window with a download link to the installer for major updates
• Applied fixes to auto-update process
• Updated Korean translations
• Improved scene versioning
• Fixed the plugin UI refresh
• Added logging possibility for plugin UI
• Improved plugins connection
• Added possibility to create auto-submit templates for specific apps

• Auto-submit templates now enable settings for a FPE parameter and selection of specific node groups
• Added possibility to set rendering device (CPU or GPU) in auto-submit template specific to Blender Cycles
• Showing more details in the upload confirmation window
  

• Job details export file is now named after the job name
• Frame buffer preview is a new feature! To use it, just select the job on the list -> click "show progress" -> click "show preview"
• Frame buffer preview works for 3ds Max with V-Ray & Corona and V-Ray standalone renderers (SketchUp / Rhino / .VRScene plugins)

• We have added new features for 3ds Max with Corona renderer

• Corona jobs will now be processed by the farm using “max script”. That means many optimizations, for example, much fewer data to upload and ability to re-submit jobs from the same scene.
• For now, Web Manager offers two additional features available for the users - noise limit and pass limit. Both parameters are taken from the scene->plugin and can be changed directly on Web Manager without the re-upload process.

• Video FFMpeg job is disabled for all single frame jobs
• Node limit <= 5 has now additional info box
  

• Fixed .gfs creation issues for Storm renderer
• Fixed plugin issues with Corona 7 renderer (4k cache/plugin UI/under the hood improvements & fixes)
• With the release of v140 the Corona render workflow has been improved significantly
• Added Corona render pass and noise limits to .gfs configuration file
• Improved strips mode rendering in Corona. Now, only one scene is uploaded & the whole process is managed by max script on the farm side
• Added support for Corona 4k cache (caching on farm side or users cache files)
• Fixed “ Unknown property : "denoising engine" issue on V-Ray 3.6 RT
• Fixed PhoenixFD caches detection. Now it’s based on cache input path instead of output
• Fixed warning prompt for nVidia AI denoiser
• Fixed support for “render only mask” option in Corona renderer
• Camera animation mode has been blocked when rendering single frame range
  

• Fixed plugin startup issues
• Fixed “empty” error
• Fixed Corona render UHD cache relinking procedures. Now pre-cached GI maps are copied for each separate take with a separate render setting.
• Fixed OCIO assets relinking on Redshift 3.0.5
• Fixed plugin startup issues for scenes containing empty fonts objects
• Blocked plugin workflow for V-Ray with GPU mode enabled
• Added “select all takes” option
• Fixed stage tag issues
• Fixed font handling for macOS 10.15 and lower causing .gfs creation issues
• Fixed issues with reading OCIO files

• Added frame range validation check
• Added container & video output format checker
• Added prompt for compositions output cropping
• Fixed issue with incorrect render queue item being read by the plugin
• Fixed issue with project names. Now project name is based on the AE file parent directory.
• Fixed issue with non-Latin characters in compositions and output names. This also includes fixes for displaying non-Latin composition names in plugin UI & fixes for issues with the Korean language.
• Tons of other under the hood fixes & improvements (network drive support for Windows10 / paths checker / macOS version checker / resolution fields / composition resize & resolutions checker)
  

• Fixed issue with relinking/renaming/uploading scene objects
• Fixed upload issues for IES & PFX assets
• Fixed issue with plugin startup
• Fixed issues with collecting image sequences
• Under the hood improvements & fixes

• Fixed issues with symlinks & missing assets
• Fixed “set main render output” prompt issue
• Fixed issues with relinking Substance assets

• Fixed issue with reading non-ASCII characters in user name
• Fixed wrong render scene selection for farm rendering
• Fixed macOS slash issue
• Fixed symlinks issue on macOS
• Added progress bar for plugin operation stages
• Fixed issue with not detecting embedded assets
• Fixed issue with installer not detecting version 2020 and 2021
• Lots of under the hood fixes and improvements
• Fixed wrong shot camera issue
• Fixed issues with exporting wrong page
• Fixed scene env shadows
• Fixed wrong GI engines setting for page animation
• Fixed issue with the scene export being frozen at some point (.vrscene file access issue)
• Redesigned still export workflow
• Added fully responsive progress bar and it updates based on page observer
• Full error handling (the no-throw guarantee, does not mean errors free)
• Added check for utf-8 based paths
• renderBeamer installation checker - for warehouse based plugin installation workflow

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