New Features

V-Ray
Add support for 3ds Max 2017 including support for Physical Material, support for MultiTile in V-Ray RT, support for ColorMap in V-Ray RT, initial HiDPI scaling support within VFB
Enable GI by default
Add another deep output fragment merge mode, 'None', where fragments are not merged at all
Add 'layers' type to override material exclude list
Add refraction filter bake element
Lower tessellation rate for out-of-view hair and displaced/subdivided geometry to save RAM in heavy scenes
Move the VRayHDRI's Tiled textures options from the material editor's interface to the V-Ray's Settings tab
Print a warning if 'Show GI only' is enabled
VRayDenoiser
Implement a new render element that contains a denoised version of the image:
The Denoiser can take advantage of hardware acceleration
The denoised result can be adjusted after a render is complete
The denoised result is updated periodically during progressive rendering
The render elements required by the denoiser are automatically added
vdenoise.exe
A new command-line tool for denoising still images and animations with frame blending
V-Ray RT GPU
Add support for Orthographic camera
Add support for bump with procedural Noise texmap
Print the memory usage in the VFB statistics
VFB
Add option to enable auto-saving to history if the render completed normally (i.e. is not aborted)
Add option to keep the VFB history folder relative to the current project path
VRayAerialPerspective
Add 'filter color' parameter
VRayIES
Add an option to select luminous intensity in candelas (cd)
VRayInstancer
Add option to override the node properties of the source objects
VRayStochasticFlakesMtl
Add textured flakes support
VRayStereoscopic
Add support for vertical placement of the left/right views in addition to side-by-side
VRayTriplanarTex
Add random modes: 'By particle ID'/'By instance ID' support
VRayVolumeGrid
Implemented ability to pop out and enlarge the render diagrams
Implemented different interpolation types per point in the render diagrams
Implemented motion blur clipping by the Cutter geometry for non-Mesh modes
.vrscene exporter
Show progress bar instead of 'not responding' during export to .vrscene
V-Ray scene converter
Convert rectangle/sphere/disc photometric lights without web profile to the corresponding V-Ray lights
V-Ray Installer
Attempt to uninstall previous installation without registry record
Installation options can be set from the command-line
ply2vrmesh
Store the textures names used by OBJ files into user attributes
vrayspawner.exe
Make it possible to run V-Ray from a remote location
Modified Features
V-Ray
Faster rendering with the light cache
Blend the 'Fixed' and 'Adaptive' sampler UI into a 'Bucket' image sampler
Enable support for processor groups and more than 64 CPU cores by default
Rename 'Color threshold' to 'Noise threshold' in the Adaptive image sampler
Add texmap shortcut buttons next to colors for plugins with automatically generated UI
Add UI mode views switching for the Image Sampler rollout
Make the DR settings window with persistent size
Remove the 'Adaptive subdivision' sampler from the UI
Slow rendering of objects visible behind multiple panes of glass
The log messages window text and background match the 3ds Max color scheme
VRayLight
Streamline the UI rollouts
When assigning a new VRayHDRI or a Bitmap texture through the UI, automatically browse for a file and set the mapping to spherical environment
V-Ray RT
Add information about the current noise threshold to the render statistics
Enable region changes without restarting the render in RT
Enabled by default the rendering of Proxies, X-ref, Particle systems, Displacement and Motion Blur
Make override material independent for production and ActiveShade renderers
Optimize export of scenes with many instanced geometries with many faces
V-Ray RT GPU
Add 'bias' spinners support for VRayDirt
Improvement automatic texture resizing, leading to reduced memory usage and better quality
Optimized rendering of VRayBlendMaterial
Speed up loading of resized textures to the GPU
Warn the user if all the GPUs they have are used for rendering
VFB
Added a button to open the V-Ray messages window
Show warning when images cannot be saved in the history
The MaxScript command 'vfbcontrol #clearimage' should not trigger confirmation dialog
VRayDisplacementMod
Automatically calculate the 'precision' parameter for 2d displacement mode
Enable the 'static geometry' option by default
VRayExposureControl
Bring back for 3ds Max 2016 and newer
VRayFur
Faster hair strands generation
VRayHDRI
Implement drag and drop of texture files from Windows Explorer to the file edit field
VRayMtl
Improved GGX/GTR sampling to reduce fireflies
The 'Anisotropy' spinner has a lower step
VRayProxy
Optimize rendering using cached voxels
VRayStochasticFlakesMtl
Improved importance sampling algorithm, removed the 'texture subdivs' parameter
Treat 'num flakes' as square root of the number of flakes
VRaySun/VRaySky
Add 'blend angle' and 'horizon offset' options to the user interface
VRayVolumeGrid
Add option for changing the mesh preview color
V-Ray scene converter
Convert the 3ds Max Normal Bump map to VRayNormalMap
Bug Fixes
V-Ray
3ds Max freezes when exporting a .vrmesh file with the lock selection toggle enabled
Artifacts in objects outline upon saving to *.hdr file when image filter is set to VRaySincFilter
Crash upon rendering VRayIES lights
Crash when rendering an object with changing topology and VRaySamplerInfo render element with Forward/Backward occlusion type
Noisier results with 'Clamp output' and 'Sub-pixel mapping' enabled
Double stamp is printed when saving through 3ds Max output
Fixed artifacts with NormalMap
Freeze after rendering with displacement
Misspelled additional parameters in some materials and textures
NaN pixels when rendering matte geometry with Hair and Fur
RAW image output file extension is not memorized between sessions
Scenes with more than 64 render elements crash
The %numpasses and %numsubdivs keywords are written as 0 in multichannel OpenEXR files
The items from the viewport quad menus are not restored from the 'V-Ray menu registration' button
V-Ray RT
Crash when adjusting a NoiseMap attached to V-Ray OSL shader
Crash when switching between CUDA or OpenCL and VRAY_OPENCL_PLATFORMS_x64 is not set
Crash with VRayDistanceTex and FFD modifier
Displacement map is not working when the host material is used as base in VRayBumpMtl
Machine with disabled 'Use local host' option DR takes render node license
Matte rendering is not working with Forest Pro objects
Moving a light during ActiveShade causes two light re-exports
Override material is not working on Forest Pro and Rail Clone geometry
Render to texture saves black image when set as production renderer
VRayFur's 'Placement' options are not working
When rendering Active Shade with Render Mask selected - changes to selection are not updated
V-Ray RT CPU
Crash when trying to select objects in the 3ds Max ActiveShade frame buffer
Crash when rendering with motion blur, Particle Flow and Multi/Sub-Object material
Crash with rendering out-of-process and render region
Textures in VRayMtl's Self-Illumination slot are clamped (0-1)
VRayNormalMap plugged into the texmap slot of VRayDisplacementMod is not considered
V-Ray RT GPU
Crash with multiple UV sets on dynamic geometry
Different VRaySky horizon compared to V-Ray RT CPU
Fixed memory leak and crashes with displacement, subdivision and VRayProxy
Fixed loading Light Cache from file depending on the current frame
Fixed wrong bump mapping with VRayColor2Bump
Fixed high memory usage with proxies, hair, particles, displacement and subdivision in animation
Size and offset of 'Use real-world scale' are not working when the mapping is 'Planar from World XYZ'
Motion-blurred hair with light cache is rendered very slow
MultiTexture and VRayMultiSubTex can work as input to other textures
VRayMultiSubTex is not modified when processed through another texmap
Wrong shading for the Light Cache with displacement, subdivision and VRayProxy
V-Ray Standalone
Projector textures in direct lights do not render properly
VFB
Crash with auto-save to the history after Render To Texture
Saving an image to the history from V-Ray RT does not save the scene file name
Saving image results in broken filename when not ASCII
Window position is saved when cloning the renderer
VRayBlendMtl
SSS/Skin sub-materials cause difference in final result between active/inactive Render Elements
VRayBumpMtl
Limited actions (drag/cut/copy/paste) on base material slot
VRayClipper
Black surface of the section of the clipped geometry with 'Affect lights' disabled
VRayEdgesTex
The 'show subtriangles' option is not working
VRayFastSSS2
Garbage data produced for normals with the VRaySamplerInfo render element
Old scenes should be left in 'Prepass-based illumination map' mode
The 'Save/Load flythrough map' prepass modes are missing from the user interface
VRayFur
3ds Max crashes when the value for per area or per face is set too high on very large geometry
Tiling occurs with Curl options
VRayHDRI
Artifacts (splotches) when hdri image is set in the 3ds max environment slot
Viewport preview is very slow with large bitmaps
VRayInstancer
Incorrect velocity information is generated
VRayLight
Open EXR file renders black when used for IBL
'Store With Irradiance Map' does not work well with Use Local Subdivs off
VRayLightMtl
Crash when rendering with Scanline or Raytrace texmap
VRayLightMeter
Indirect illumination is wrongly evaluated
VRayMtl
Animated diffuse color is not updated in the viewport
Crash when changing to Scanline renderer if opacity map is set and material editor is open
Difference in bump map rendering with older versions
Diffuse texture is not working with Particle Flow operator 'Position Object/ Density by Material /grayscale'
MultiMatteElement
Settings rollout name is wrong
VRayOSLMtl / VRayOSLTex
Tweak dropdown controls forget their position when switching between different textures
VRayProxy
MaxScript objects return 'Object' class name instead of 'VRayProxy'
Wrong Alembic particle/hair width
VRayScatterVolumeMtl / VRayHairMtl
Texmap slots are not updated on map change with Slate Material Editor
VRayStereoscopic
Crash with high resolution renderings when autosave is enabled
VRayStochasticFlakesMtl
Not appearing in the VRayMtlSelect render element
VRayVolumeGrid
Fixed black dot artifacts when rendering using 'Volumetric Heat Haze' mode
Frame blending does not work properly with adaptive grid
Imported VDB files have wrong orientation in V-Ray RT
The viewport GPU preview disappears when changing frames with a single cache
Mesh preview crashes on 3ds max 2016 and newer with Nitrous DX9
Multi Matte Element is not filled in 'Volumetric Geometry' mode
VDB levelset caches render with inverted normals and winding
.vrscene exporter
VRayProxy with displacement modifier is exported as static mesh
V-Ray Light Lister
Handling invalid nodes
V-Ray Quick settings
Rollouts disappear when loading custom preset
ply2vrmesh
Is swapping the MtlIDs