What's new in Thea Render 1.5.04 Build 1413
Nov 27, 2015
- Fresnel Ramp Procedural:
- The Fresnel Ramp procedural gives a great flexibility controlling a varying reflectance with respect to the viewing angle. It is intended to replace our Fresnel curve parametrization for coating and glossy materials, as a more powerful means to achieving a natural look for a broad range of materials (and especially for cloth, such as satin and velvet).
- Improved Shadow Catcher:
- In the new edition, the shadow catcher has been substantially improved. The shadows coming from image-based lighting look much more natural now, following image highlights. The sun shadows can also be integrated along with the environment reflections that make the new shadow catcher infinitely more realistic.
- Substance Material Converter:
- Our brand new Substance to Thea converter takes advantage of the Allegorithmic high quality applications and huge material database, to convert out-of-the-box to Thea Render materials. All Substance applications are supported (Painter, Designer, Bitmap2Material) along with all metallic/roughness physically-based materials.
- Colored Coating Absorption:
- The ultra realism is at the fine details. And colored coating absorption is such a detail that can be seen in real-life materials, like metallic car paints and tinted wood varnish, where a color shift can be seen at shalow angle. This absorption can now be described easily by providing the resulting absorption color at a nominal penetration distance.
- Section Cuts:
- Section cuts are defined as planes that cut out part of the scene. The idea is that, without breaking your current model, clipping planes can be defined giving the possibility to take a "look inside". The geometry is not actually removed but it is still there, contributing to reflections and secondary bounces; this way the lighting is not altered.
- Online Material Repository:
- With all the material advances of the new edition, there is nothing better than having an open material repository where all users can interact, upload and download materials. We are proud to present our online repository where all official materials can now be found, along with user own creations.
- Floating Licensing:
- Our floating licensing scheme allows unlimited installations of our software, where users can become dynamically licensed through the license server (typically a machine residing in the local network). Floating licenses substantially cut down cost for an organization where multiple users can work (non-simultaneously) with the same license.