Gaffer 1.5.0.0 alpha 3

Features

• ColorChooser :
  • Added sliders for TMI (temperature, magenta, intensity) color space.
  • Added color field, a widget giving control of two channels of "RGB", "HSV" or "TMI" triplets. The third channel is held constant.
  • The color field and RGB, HSV and TMI slider groups can now be toggled on or off.
  • Default visibility of the UI elements can now be set at startup by setting colorChooser:inline: and colorChooser:dialogue: entries for the inline chooser and dialogue chooser respectively, with the following suffixes :
    • visibleComponents : A string where each character is a visible component slider. Optional components are rgbhsvtmi.
    • staticComponent : A single character string for the component to use as the static component for the color field. The other two components in the "RGB", "HSV" and "TMI" triplets will be controllable in the widget.
    • colorFieldVisible : A boolean indicating if the color field should be visible or not.
  • Added a menu item to the color chooser settings to save the UI configuration for the inline color chooser and the dialogue color chooser as a startup script to persist the configuration across Gaffer restarts.
• MeshToLevelSet : Added destination plug, allowing multiple input meshes to be merged into a single level set at an arbitrary location.
• LevelSetToMesh : Added destination plug, allowing multiple input level sets to be merged into a single mesh at an arbitrary location.
• Cycles : Added support for OSL shading with Optix devices.

Improvements

• Cycles :
  • Added is_sphere plug to spot and point lights. Disabling is_sphere is equivalent to enabling "Soft Falloff" in Blender, which reverts the light to the behaviour of Cycles 3.6 and earlier.
  • Changed sampling pattern to blue noise dithered sampling.
  • Spot, disk, quad and point light strength now better match Blender, Arnold and hdCycles. As a result these lights are now pi times brighter at the same intensity when compared with previous versions. If necessary, this adjustment can be disabled by setting the GAFFERCYCLES_USE_LEGACY_LIGHTS environment variable with a value of 1.
  • Simplified presentation of principled_bsdf, principled_hair_bsdf, and principled_volume shaders in the Graph Editor. A subset of parameter nodules are now visible by default, the remainder can be accessed by clicking on or connecting to the node's + icon and choosing the parameter to make visible.
• Arnold : Added support for Int64Data and UInt64Data custom attributes, allowing USD's instanceId to be used as a custom attribute in the Instancer node. Warnings are emitted if values are out of range for Arnold's 32 bit ints.

Fixes

• Viewer : Fixed hangs when focussing a node for the first time (bug introduced in 1.5.0.0a2).
• Cycles : Fixed issue where scaling unnormalized quad and disk lights would not affect their brightness.
• SceneReader : Fixed crash reading facevarying normals skinned with UsdSkel.
• ShaderView : Fixed crash caused by a SceneCreator returning None.

Breaking Changes

• Cycles : Removed custom handling of unnormalized lights. We now rely on Cycles' inbuilt behaviour which results in a brightness difference for unnormalized point, spot and disk lights.
• MeshToLevelSet : Objects which are not meshes are now converted to an empty VDB grid, instead of being left unchanged.
• LevelSetToMesh :
  • Objects which are not level sets are now converted to an empty mesh, instead of being left unchanged.
  • Removed the adjustBounds plug. In the rare case where it is important to recompute slightly tighter bounds, one workaround is to use ShufflePrimitiveVariables to shuffle from "P" to "P" with adjustBounds checked.
  • Removed support for grid types other than FloatGrid. If other types are required, please request them.

Build

• Cortex : Updated to version 10.5.9.5.
• OpenShadingLanguage :
  • Updated to version 1.13.11.0.
  • Enabled Optix support.

Gaffer 1.4.15.0

Improvements

• Arnold : Added support for Int64Data and UInt64Data custom attributes, allowing USD's instanceId to be used as a custom attribute in the Instancer node. Warnings are emitted if values are out of range for Arnold's 32 bit ints.

Fixes

• SceneReader : Fixed crash reading facevarying normals skinned with UsdSkel.
• ShaderView : Fixed crash caused by a SceneCreator returning None.

Build

• Cortex : Updated to version 10.5.9.5.

Gaffer 1.5.0.0 alpha 2

Features

• PatternMatch : Added a new node for matching strings against wildcard patterns.

Improvements

• Arnold :
  • Added location names to warning messages.
  • A missing "P" primitive variable no longer aborts the render, but outputs a warning message instead.
• Instancer :
  • Improved Arnold raytracing performance for encapsulated instancers with many prototypes. All instances are now output in a single top-level procedural rather than a top-level procedural per prototype, resulting in more optimal BVH traversals in Arnold.
  • Reduced scene generation time for encapsulated instancers by around 20%.
• NodeEditor : Added Alt + middle-click action for showing context variable substitutions in strings.
• LightEditor, RenderPassEditor : History windows now use a context determined relative to the current focus node.
• NumericWidget : Added the ability to use Ctrl + scroll wheel to adjust values in the same manner as Up and Down (#6009).
• NodeEditor : Improved performance when showing a node with many colour plugs. Showing the Arnold standard_surface shader is now almost 2x faster.
• GraphEditor : Added colour coding to the strike-throughs drawn for disabled nodes. Black indicates that the node is always disabled, and yellow indicates that its enabled plug has an input connection, and therefore might be context-sensitive.
• ListContainer : Adding a child widget with non-default alignment no longer causes the container to take up all available space.
• PythonCommand : Added a framesMode plug which determines if the command is called once for each frame, once for each batch of frames, or once for each complete sequence.

Fixes

• Viewer, ImageGadget :
  • Fixed partial image updates when an unrelated InteractiveRender was running (#6043).
  • Fixed "colour tearing", where updates to some image channels became visible before updates to others.
  • Fixed unnecessary texture updates when specific image tiles don't change.
• Viewer :
  • Fixed drawing of custom mesh light texture visualisers (#6002).
  • Fixed BackgroundTask warning when deleting the node being viewed.
• GraphEditor :
  • Fixed lingering error badges (#3820).
  • Fixed D shortcut to respect read-only metadata on enabled plugs. Previously only metadata on the node itself was respected.
  • Fixed D shortcut to handle multiple selection with some nodes enabled and some disabled. This will now consistently disabled all nodes if at least one is enabled, rather than toggling each individually.
• RenderPassEditor :
  • Fixed history window to update on context changes, for example, when the current frame is changed.
  • Fixed invalid scene:path context variables created by the history window.

Breaking Changes

• IECoreArnold : Added messageContext argument to NodeAlgo::Converter and NodeAlgo::MotionConverter.
• Instancer : Renamed encapsulateInstanceGroups plug to encapsulate. Encapsulation now produces a single capsule at the .../instances location, instead of capsules at each .../instances/<prototypeName> location.
• GraphGadget : Moved D shortcut handling to GraphEditor.
• PythonCommand : Removed sequence plug. Settings from old files are remapped automatically to the new framesMode plug on loading.

Gaffer 1.4.14.0

Improvements

• NumericWidget : Added the ability to use Ctrl + scroll wheel to adjust values in the same manner as Up and Down (#6009).
• NodeEditor : Improved performance when showing a node with many colour plugs. Showing the Arnold standard_surface shader is now almost 2x faster.

Fixes

• Viewer, ImageGadget :
  • Fixed partial image updates when an unrelated InteractiveRender was running (#6043).
  • Fixed "colour tearing", where updates to some image channels became visible before updates to others.
  • Fixed unnecessary texture updates when specific image tiles don't change.
• Viewer : Fixed drawing of custom mesh light texture visualisers (#6002).
• ArrayPlug :
  • Fixed error when resize() removed plugs with input connections.
  • Fixed error when resize() was used on an output plug.
• CreateViews : Fixed loading of files saved from Gaffer 1.5+.
• PythonCommand : Fixed loading of files saved from Gaffer 1.5+.

Gaffer 1.3.16.9

Fixes

• Viewer, ImageGadget :
  • Fixed partial image updates when an unrelated InteractiveRender was running (#6043).
  • Fixed "colour tearing", where updates to some image channels became visible before updates to others.
  • Fixed unnecessary texture updates when specific image tiles don't change.
• Viewer : Fixed drawing of custom mesh light texture visualisers (#6002).
• ArrayPlug :
  • Fixed error when resize() removed plugs with input connections.
  • Fixed error when resize() was used on an output plug.
• CreateViews : Fixed loading of files saved from Gaffer 1.5+.
• PythonCommand : Fixed loading of files saved from Gaffer 1.5+.

Gaffer 1.5.0.0 alpha 1

Note : Gaffer 1.5 marks the end of provision of GCC 9 builds on Linux. Use Gaffer 1.4 if you require GCC 9 builds.

Features

• MergeMeshes, MergePoints, MergeCurves : Added nodes for merging various primitive types.

Improvements

• CameraTweaks : Added ignoreMissing plug to align behaviour with the other Tweaks nodes.
• AttributeTweaks : The {source} substitution for linkedLights now expands to defaultLights if the attribute doesn't exist yet. This makes tweaks such as ({source}) - unwantedLights reliable even if no light links have been authored yet.
• ImageReader : Non-standard "r", "g", "b" and "a" channel names are now automatically renamed to "R", "G", "B" and "A" on loading. As with other heuristics, this can be disabled by setting channelInterpretation to "EXR Specification".
• Metadata : Metadata registered to a node or plug targeting a descendant plug will now override metadata registered locally to the target.
• OptionTweaks, ContextVariableTweaks : Added Remove mode.
• Premultiply, Unpremultiply :
  • Added ignoreMissingAlpha plug.
  • Optimised the pass-through of the alpha channel.
• GraphGadget :
  • Improved highlighting of active nodes, with more accurate tracking of Loop node iterations.
  • Annotation {plug} substitutions are now evaluated in a context determined relative to the focus node.
  • The strike-through for disabled nodes is now evaluated in a context determined relative to the focus node.
  • Custom dot labels are now evaluated in a context determined relative to the focus node.
• LightEditor :
  • Improved formatting of column headers containing whitespace.
  • The "Double-click to toggle" tooltip is no longer displayed while hovering over non-editable cells, and a "Double-click to edit" tooltip is now displayed while hovering over other non-toggleable but editable cells.
• Spreadsheet : Added yellow underlining to the currently active row.
• PlugLayout : Summaries and activators are now evaluated in a context determined relative to the focus node.
• Editor : The node graph is now evaluated in a context determined relative to the focus node.
• LightEditor, RenderPassEditor : The "Disable Edit" right-click menu item and D shortcut now act as a toggle, where edits disabled in the current session via these actions can be reenabled with D or by selecting "Reenable Edit" from the right-click menu.
• EditScope : Setting a Viewer or Editor's target edit scope to "None" will now prevent edits from being made within any upstream edit scope. To make edits in an edit scope, it must be set as the target.
• FreezeTransform :
  • Improved performance for large meshes by using multithreading.
  • Improved UI responsiveness by supporting cancellation of long computes.

Fixes

• Editor : Fixed Internal C++ object already deleted errors when some editors were destroyed.
• UVInspector : Fixed Unable to find ScriptNode for UVView warnings.
• Scene Editors : Fixed update when ScenePlugs are added to or removed from the node being viewed.
• PrimitiveInspector : Fixed failure to update when the location being viewed ceases to exist, or is recreated.
• Shuffle, ShuffleAttributes, ShufflePrimitiveVariables : Fixed some special cases where shuffling a source to itself would fail to have the expected effect.
• GraphEditor :
  • Fixed dimming of labels for BoxIn and BoxOut nodes.
  • Fixed update of custom context-sensitive labels on Dot nodes.
• GafferCortexUI : Removed usage of legacy PlugValueWidget API.
• Dispatcher : Fixed crashes caused by a dispatcher's SetupPlugsFn attempting to access the TaskNode it was being called for. Dispatchers may now introspect the TaskNode and add different plugs based on type (#915).
• ArrayPlug :
  • Fixed error when resize() removed plugs with input connections.
  • Fixed error when resize() was used on an output plug.
• CreateViews : Fixed redundant serialisation of internal connections.
• LightEditor, RenderPassEditor : Removed ambiguous The selected cells cannot be edited in the current Edit Scope message when attempting to edit non-editable columns, such as the Name column.
• SetEditor : Fixed right-click to ensure the item under the cursor is selected before the menu is shown.
• PrimitiveInspector :
  • Fixed bug which prevented cancellation of long-running computes, making the UI unresponsive until they completed.
  • Fixed thread-safety bug.
• HierarchyView, SetEditor : Fixed thread-safety bugs.
• FreezeTransform : Constant primitive variables with point/vector interpretations are now also transformed.
• usdview : Added Windows support (#5599).
• ContextTracker : Removed unnecessary reference increment/decrement from isTracked(), context() and isEnabled().
• Menu : Fixed bug causing a menu item's tooltip to not hide when moving the cursor to another menu item without a tooltip.
• Python : Fixed startup failures caused by conflicting Python modules in the user site-packages directory.

API

• Editor :
  • Added settings() method, which returns a node hosting plugs specifying settings for the editor.
  • Added _updateFromSettings() method, which is called when a subclass should update to reflect changes to the settings.
• SceneEditor : Added new base class to simplify the creation of scene-specific editors.
• PlugValueWidget :
  • A DeprecationWarning is now emitted for any subclasses still implementing the legacy _updateFromPlug() or _updateFromPlugs() methods. Implement _updateFromValues(), _updateFromMetadata() and _updateFromEditable() instead.
  • A DeprecationWarning is now emitted by _plugConnections(). Use _blockedUpdateFromValues() instead.
  • Added scriptNode() convenience method.
• NodeGadget, ConnectionGadget : Added updateFromContextTracker() virtual methods.
• Path : Added inspectionContext() virtual method.
• PathColumn :
  • Added contextMenuSignal(), allowing the creation of custom context menus.
  • Added instanceCreatedSignal(), providing an opportunity to connect to the signals on any column, no matter how it is created.
  • Added keyPressSignal() and keyReleaseSignal(), allowing a PathColumn to handle key events.
• ArrayPlug :
  • It is now legal to construct an ArrayPlug with a minimum size of 0. Previously the minimum size was 1.
  • Added elementPrototype() method.
• View : Added scriptNode() method.
• VisibleSet : Added Python constructor with keyword arguments for expansions, inclusions and exclusions.
• ScriptNodeAlgo : Added new namespace with functions for managing shared UI state for GafferSceneUI.
• ContextAlgo : Deprecated. Use ScriptNodeAlgo instead.
• ContextTracker : Added support for plugs in Views and Editor.Settings nodes, which should use the tracked context for the node being viewed.

Breaking Changes

• CameraTweaks : Replace mode now errors if the input parameter does not exist. Use Create mode or the new ignoreMissing plug instead.
• TweakPlug : Remove deprecated MissingMode::IgnoreOrReplace.
• AttributeTweaks : Replace mode no longer errors if the linkedLights attribute doesn't exist.
• ImageReader : Changed handling of lower-cased "r", "g", "b" and "a" channels.
• Metadata : Path based registrations to a Node or Plug now override equivalent registrations on its descendants.
• TweakPlugValueWidget : Removed support for tweakPlugValueWidget:allowCreate and tweakPlugValueWidget:allowRemove metadata.
• Editor : Removed arguments from Settings constructor.
• Unpremultiply : Removed image:channelName from the context used to evaluate the alphaChannel plug.
• Shuffle, ShuffleAttributes, ShufflePrimitiveVariables : Changed behaviour when shuffling a source to itself.
• Editor, NodeToolbar, PlugLayout, PlugValueWidget :
  • Removed setContext() methods.
  • Deprecated getContext() methods. Use context() instead.
• Loop : Removed nextIterationContext() method.
• NodeGadget, ConnectionGadget : Removed activeForFocusNode() virtual methods. Override updateFromContextTracker() instead.
• ArrayPlug :
  • Renamed element constructor argument to elementPrototype.
  • Deprecated the passing of element = nullptr to the constructor.
• View :
  • Changed constructor arguments for View and all subclasses. A ScriptNode must now be passed.
  • Changed ViewCreator signature.
  • Removed contextChanged() and contextChangedConnection() methods.
  • Removed setContext() and getContext() methods. Use context() instead of getContext().
  • The contextChangedSignal() is now emitted for all changes to the context, whereas previously it was only emitted by setContext(). This simplifies context handling in Tools, which no longer need to connect to Context::changedSignal() as well.
• LightTool : Removed selection() and selectionChangedSignal().
• ArnoldRender, CyclesRender, DelightRender, OpenGLRender : Removed. Use the generic Render node instead.
• Render : Removed protected constructor for creating renderer-specific derived classes.
• Signal : The connect() and connectFront() methods now default to scoped = False. If a scoped connection is required, pass scoped = True.
• FreezeTransform : Constant primitive variables with point/vector interpretations are now also transformed (this is more correct, but it is a change in behaviour).
• ImageGadget : Remove non-const variant of getContext().
• LazyMethod : deferUntilPlaybackStops now requires that the Widget has a scriptNode() method rather than a context() method.
• Python : Gaffer now disables the user site-packages directory by setting PYTHONNOUSERSITE=1. To revert to the previous behaviour, set PYTHONNOUSERSITE=0 before launching Gaffer.

Build

• Cycles :
  • Updated to version 4.2.0.
  • Disabled CUDA binary generati...

Gaffer 1.4.13.0

Improvements

• NodeEditor, NameWidget : Invalid characters are automatically converted to _ when renaming a node or plug, and : is no longer treated as invalid.

Fixes

• SceneReader :
  • Fixed loading of facevarying normals skinned with UsdSkel.
  • Stopped loading USD lightLinks and shadowLinks collections as sets.
  • USD asset paths on Windows now use / as the path separator, instead of \. Set IECOREUSD_FORCE_ASSET_PATH_FORWARD_SLASH=0 to keep the previous behaviour.
• SceneWriter : Fixed crash when writing to a USD file that is already open elsewhere.
• Constraint : The target browser now shows locations from the targetScene if it has an input connection. Before it always showed locations from the main input.
• ImageInspector : Fixed broken UI caused by double-clicking in the Image tab.

API

• ScenePathPlugValueWidget : The scenePathPlugValueWidget:scene metadata now accepts a space-separated list of plugs, taking the first plug which has an input connection.
• VisibleSet : Added Python constructor with keyword arguments for expansions, inclusions and exclusions.
• ScriptNodeAlgo : Added new namespace with functions for managing shared UI state for GafferSceneUI.
• ContextAlgo : Deprecated. Use ScriptNodeAlgo instead.

Build

• Cortex : Updated to version 10.5.9.4.

Gaffer 1.4.12.0

Features

• Viewer : Added support for Cycles GPU rendering via a new Device option in the Cycles viewer settings.

Improvements

• UI Editor :
  • Added the ability to edit the scale of node icons.
  • Improved layout of Box node plug creator visibility toggles.
• ArnoldShader : Moved the toon shader's *_tonemap_hue_saturation parameters to appropriate sections in the UI.
• File Browser : The "Type" column can now be sorted. This sorts directories separately from files, which are sorted by their extension.

Fixes

• SceneWriter : Fixed handling of ':' characters in set names when writing to USD. These were previously converted to '_' but are now preserved.
• SceneReader : Fixed loading of animated ModelAPI extents from USD.
• ResamplePrimitiveVariables : Fixed handling of periodic curves.
• VectorDataWidget : Fixed bug causing paths to display as "..." after the last visible "/" when the widget wasn't wide enough to show the entire path.

API

• MetadataWidget : Added NumericMetadataWidget class.
• RenderPassWedge : Render adaptors may now be used to delete and/or disable render passes, by passing client = "RenderPassWedge" to SceneAlgo.registerRenderAdaptor().

Gaffer 1.3.16.8

Fixes

• VectorDataWidget : Fixed bug causing paths to display as "..." after the last visible "/" when the widget wasn't wide enough to show the entire path.

Gaffer 1.4.11.0

Improvements

• SetExpressions : Set Expressions containing only whitespace characters are now treated as empty rather than producing an error.
• ArnoldShader :
  • Added a UI layout for the new openpbr_surface shader.
  • Moved Arnold 7.3.3.0's new standard_volume.scatter_diffusion parameters to a "Scatter Diffusion" section of the UI.
• Viewer : Added diagnostic shading mode for visualising the values of the usd:purpose attribute as colours :
  • White : Default
  • Green : Render
  • Blue : Proxy
  • Red : Guide
• Catalogue : Added a handle for controlling the relative sizes of the listing and image property widgets.
• RenderPassEditor, LightEditor : Improved update performance for certain graph configurations, by optimising SceneAlgo::history() (#5199).

Fixes

• Arnold : Fixed bug preventing UI metadata for Imagers from being loaded for Arnold 7.3.
• WidgetAlgo : Fixed issue preventing grab() from capturing popup menus on Windows.
• ShowURL : Fixed opening of "file://" URLs on Windows (#5861).
• Shader : Fixed "Revert to Defaults" menu item in NodeEditor (#1862).
• Catalogue :
  • Fixed bug which allowed locked Catalogues to be edited.
  • Fixed NodeEditor update when the first image is added or the last image is removed.
• NameWidget : Fixed bug which allowed plugs on locked nodes to be renamed.
• ValuePlug : Fixed the plug passed to Monitor::forceMonitoring(). Previously Process::destinationPlug() was being passed instead of Process::plug().

API

• PathListingWidget : Added columnContextMenuSignal(), allowing multiple clients to collaborate on the creation of a column-specific context menu.
• HierarchyView : Added sceneListing() method, to allow the context menu to be customised.

Documentation

• Windows : Documentation is now included in Windows release packages.