We are extremely proud to release Clarisse iFX 3.6!
Note: Clarisse iFX 3.6 is VFX Reference Platform CY2017 compliant.
For more information on VFX Reference Platform please refer to: http://www.vfxplatform.com/
As usual, you can download this release from your “Download Area”
What's new in 3.6:
New Features and Enhancements
Application
- It is now possible to use literal string values when overriding a preference settings in command line. For example you can now directly type: clarisse -Input_Output.openEXR_compression_method "PXR24 Compression". (#7553)
- The -info command line argument of CNode has been updated to gather file dependencies originating from shading variables. (#7706)
- CNode output information has been improved to display the name of the current layer being rendered. Previously, CNode was only displaying information about the current image that was being rendered. (#6721)
- Added a way to control Clarisse log verbosity level at startup time. Clarisse and CNode now have a -log_level command line argument which allows to control the verbosity of the log. Please check the command line help for more information. (#7604)
- It is now possible to access to the release notes of a build by going to Help > Release Note... (#7821)
- Introducing a new geometry called Alembic bundles which allow you to reference a whole alembic file in a single item. Please refer to the documentation for more information: https://clarissewiki.com/3.6/alembic_bundles.html (#7407)
- Ilise stability and user experience has been greatly improved. The licensing server is now split into 2 binary files ilise and ilise_server. The main entry point to the server is still ilise. However it now takes care of launching and monitoring the ilise_server application which is the actual licensing server. If ilise_server crashes or becomes unresponsive ilise tried to restart the server as soon as possible. The usage is the same as before, so just keep starting ilise with the same parameters like "license_ folder" to specify where the licenses are located.
- Added a new argument -log_level LEVEL_NAME to control the verbosity level of logged messages. Level names are: Fatal, Error, Warning, Info (default), Debug, Debug1, Debug2, Debug3, Debug4. The higher the level the more detailed the messages are.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing -license_file command line argument to work properly.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing -port command line argument to work properly on Unix-based platforms.
- Improved and updated the help output.
Known limitation on Unix platforms: if the ILISE process crashes or is killed by force, ILISE will fail to restart because the port is busy. After a little while ILISE will eventually restart itfself when the port becomes free. (#7602) - Added a new command line argument -log_policy POLICY_NAME to choose how log files are written to disk: append to existing one ("append"), or use a new log file for each new server session ("multiple"). (#7780)
- Clarisse PLE now allows you to save watermark-free images. For more information on the feature and the limitations please refer to: https://clarissewiki.com/3.6/watermark-free-ple.html (#7543)
- The export project archive (export_package.py) script has been updated to take into account file dependencies originating from shading variables. (#6536)
- The texture divide node is now returning a very high value instead of returning the value of Input 1 when dividing by zero. (#7429)
- Added a new Outline subpixel filter that draws edges of objects in the scene which is very useful to create schematics and cel looking renders. For more information please refer to: https://clarissewiki.com/3.6/outline-shader.html (#5658)
- Added Shadow Catcher, a new physical material designed to capture shadows and/or illumination in order to simplify the integration of CG into real life footage. For more information please refer to: https://clarissewiki.com/3.6/shadow-catcher.html (#6500)
- Added 'U', a new light path expression token allowing to capture the illumination on surfaces without occlusion. (#6125)
- It is now possible to use shading variables to drive textures attributes values. For more information, please refer to https://clarissewiki.com/3.6/working_wi ... ables.html (#7408)
Bug Fixes
3D View
- Removed the input limits for Exposure and Gamma number fields in the 3D View, Image View and Texture View. (#7173)
- The Look Through button of the 3D View's toolbar has been moved to the right of the Shading Mode pulldown. (#7160)
- Fixed potential crash when referencing an alembic. (#7833)
- Fixed a random crash when writing an EXR file with an empty preferences file, using CNode/CRender. (#7525)
- Fixed a random crash in CNode that occurred when the frame range set in the image was different from the one set in the layers. (#7663)
- Fixed a random crash in CNode/CRender when writing EXR files that occured when clarisse.cfg was empty. (#7682)
- Clarisse log file has been improved so that Clarisse doesn't output all meaningless messages that are displayed in the application status bar. (#7802)
- Fixed an display glitch that could occur when resizing a column in a spreadsheet. (#7402)
- The shortcut for looking through selected item in the 3D View is now 'L' key instead of 'Space' key. (#6669)
- It is now possible to open the Log Widget and the Progress View by double clicking on the Status Bar when a project is loading or when assets are imported. (#7365)
- Fixed a crash that occured when modifying geometries attributes which displacements were driven by a shading layer. (#7790)
- Fixed an issue that was slowing down the loading of some projects. (#7773)
- The opacity of the PLE watermark has been reduced. (#7670)
- Licman license manager now displays the proper version of the application when clicking on the Information button. (#7709)
- Fixed an issue with the command line argument -log_file. (#7697)
- Fixed an issue that appeared during the creation of a new link: when combined with another action in the material editor like panning or zooming, the link could remain displayed even if the mouse button was released in an empty area of the screen. (#7784)
- Fixed a crash (regression introduced in 3.5 SP4) that could happen when loading projects. (#7660)
- The tab creation menu has been improved so that it remembers the most recent type of created item. This is very useful when creating successive items of the same type as you just have to press Tab + Enter. (#7401)
- Fixed an opacity computation bug in light path expressions. (#7653)
- Fixed an issue with the physical reflection material that was darkening primitive edges on grazing incidence angles. (#7719)
- Fixed an issue with overscan when using incremental save that in some cases was leading buckets of the last row to have an incorrect height. (#7831)
- Fixed a crash that occurred when outputting a deep EXR file and Deep Output Channels was set to Alpha. (#7844)
- Fixed a freeze that occurred when saving an EXR file that had a crop region. (#7825)
- Fixed a crash that could lead Clarisse to crash after a File > New Scene if a Shading Layer Editor was displayed. (#7313)
- Gizmo handles are now properly drawn when translate/rotate/scale attribute editable status changes (lock/disable/mute/lock value...) or when the object user lock status is modified. (#4744)
- Fixed a crash that could occur when using the "Scatterer Paint" found in the "Scattering" shelf category. (#7206)
SDK Changes
Attribute Editor
- We can now right click on an attribute in Clarisse Preferences panel (ctrl + k) to display a popup menu. This menu allows to log or copy the script relevant to modify the attribute. This is a helpful helper to find out quickly how to modify a specific preference item in a script. (#7554)
- Added a new macro to log information in Clarisse: IX_LOG(log_level, message). The log_level goes from 0 to 9 and will be included in the log depending on the application log. It is best to use the proper enum value instead of directly a number. Enum is defined in core_log.h. Default value is LOG_LEVEL_INFO which will also display all the log levels bellow that. If you need to add debug logs, please use IX_LOG(LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG, "My debug log"), and IX_LOG(LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG+1, "My debug log"), and so on. (#7604)
- Introducing a new Preferences item in Application > Project : Save Preferences. This new option allows to load the preferences file but not save it back when exiting Clarisse or CNode. This is quite helpful for CNode especially when you want to override preferences - you often don't want to write back your overrides in the config file when CNode exits. (#7685)
- Parser library is now exposed in Python.
New types:
* ix.api.ParserFile
* ix.api.ParserGroup
* ix.api.ParserEntry
* ix.api.ParserValue
* ix.api.ParserWord (#6162) - Using PySide with pyqt_clarisse helper module is now possible, at the expanse of the following requirement:
One and only one of PySide or PyQt4 module must be loaded before importing pyqt_clarisse. (#6471)
- Added the possibility to use plain text enum values in script. This allows to do "units.set_preset_value("angle", "degree")" instead of "units.set_long_value("angle", 0) #degree". (#4435)
- Added ISOTROPIX_VERSION_NUMBER macro which is the current SDK version, and IX_BUILD_VERSION_NUMBER(...) which is a macro used to generate a version number testable against ISOTROPIX_VERSION_NUMBER
Both are available in the isotropix_head_version.h header along with documentation on how to use IX_BUILD_VERSION_NUMBER(...). (#6483)
- Added a public virtual method void ModuleTool::reset_attribute(OfAttr* attr).
Default implementation resets the given attribute, or all attributes if none is specified.
The specified OfAttr may belong to an embedded object.
When a whole reset is asked, if the tool has any embedded object, its attributes are also reset but the tool attribute holding it remains unchanged. (#6600)
