1.4.0.0
Note
This release introduces linux-gcc11
builds which are only compatible with Linux distributions using glibc 2.28 or higher.
These specific linux-gcc11
builds are intended for testing purposes while we upgrade our toolchain and dependencies to better align
with VFX Platform 2023, and should be considered “beta” in advance of a stable release in Gaffer 1.5.
Features
Arnold : Added support for Arnold 7.3. Note that a minimum of 7.3.1.0 is required, meaning that 7.3.0.0 is not supported.
Cycles :
Updated to version 4.0.2.
Added support for CUDA and Optix devices (GCC 11 and Windows builds only).
Dispatcher : Dispatchers are now TaskNodes, allowing them to be nested in a task graph. Possibilities include :
Using a LocalDispatcher and a Wedge to launch multiple TractorDispatcher jobs.
Using a nested LocalDispatcher to perform a group of tasks on a single blade within a TractorDispatcher job.
SelectionTool : Added select mode plug. When set to anything except
Standard
using the SelectionTool causes the actual scene location selected to potentially be modified from the originally selected location. Selection modifiers work identically for deselection. Currently, two selectors are implemented :USD Kind : When selecting, the first ancestor location with a
usd:kind
attribute matching the chosen list of USD Kind will ultimately be selected. USD’s Kind Registry includesAssembly
,Component
,Group
,Model
andSubComponent
by default and can be extended via USD startup scripts.Shader Assignment : When selecting, the first ancestor location with a renderable and direct (not inherited) shader attribute will ultimately be selected. This can be used to select either surface or displacement shaders.
GraphEditor : Added X shortcut for removing connections between nodules. Hold X then left click to remove all connections under the cursor. Hold X then left drag to draw a line, all connections that intersect with the line will be removed once the drag is ended (#788).
LightPosition Tool : Added a variation on the shadow placement tool to place highlights. Lights are positioned such that they will create a specular highlight at the target point.
DeepSlice : Added a new node for clipping out part of an image based on depth.
MeshTessellate : Added a new node for increasing the polycount of subdivision meshes.
ImageInspector : Added a new panel for inspecting image format, metadata and channel statistics.
Improvements
Arnold :
OSL shaders with connections from multiple outputs are no longer duplicated on export to Arnold.
Gaffer’s native OpenColorIO config is now automatically translated to Arnold. Use an ArnoldColorManager node to override this behaviour.
ArnoldShader : Added parameter tooltips based on
help
metadata provided by Arnold.CyclesOptions : Improved device selection UI.
3Delight :
Added NSI screen static sampling pattern option (
dl:staticsamplingpattern
).Added support for
layerName
parameter in output definitions.Added support for
filter
parameter in output definitions.Added camera overscan support.
Added support for reading
dl:
anduser:
attributes from shaders.Added
importanceSampleFilter
plug to DelightOptions, providing denoiser-compatible output.Added support for external procedurals.
Matched DelightOptions default values for
oversampling
andshadingSamples
to 3Delight’s own default values.NSI scene description export format is now based on file extension -
.nsi
for binary and.nsia
for ASCII.
EditScope : Added a summary of edits in the NodeEditor, with the ability to select the affected objects and quickly navigate to the processor nodes.
GraphEditor :
The source node for any location can be located by dragging the location into the GraphEditor from the Viewer or HierarchyView.
Removed all renderer-specific Render and InteractiveRender nodes from the node menu. These nodes still exist for backwards compatibility with old scenes, but the generic Render and InteractiveRender nodes should now be used instead.
Improved logic used to connect a newly created node to the selected nodes.
GraphComponent : Node and Plug names may now start with a numeric digit.
LocalDispatcher :
Added a new dockable LocalJobs editor, to replace the floating window previously accessible via the “Execute/Local Jobs” menu item.
Task output is now shown in the UI.
Jobs are no longer removed from the UI as soon as they complete.
Incomplete jobs are now killed automatically when the application is closed, after prompting to confirm that shutdown should go ahead.
LightPositionTool : The tool is now only visible for members of the
__lights
set, instead of all objects.Catalogue : Added
imageNames
output plug, containing the names of all images in the Catalogue. Among other things this can be used to drive a Wedge or ContactSheet node and a CatalogueSelect.ImageReader : Added
fileValid = False
metadata to images from missing frames, whenmissingFrameMode
isBlack
orHold
.Collect : Added the ability to collect StringVectorData inputs.
Toolbars : Changed hotkey behavior to toggle any tool on and off. Exclusive tools such as the Translate and Crop Window tools activate the first tool (currently Selection Tool) when they are toggled off.
CropWindowTool : Added
Alt
+C
for toggling both the crop window tool and the relevant crop windowenabled
plug.TaskList, FrameMask : Reimplemented in C++ for improved performance.
Cache : Increased default computation cache size to 8Gb. Call
Gaffer.ValuePlug.setCacheMemoryLimit()
from a startup file to override this.Dispatcher : Reduced internal overhead of
dispatch()
call, with one benchmark showing around a 3x speedup.ScriptWindow : Added “Save” option to dialogue shown when closing a window containing unsaved changes.
Resize :
Added support for deep images.
Added “Nearest” filter.
Shuffle :
Reimplemented to match ShuffleAttributes and ShufflePrimitiveVariables.
Any number of shuffles can be added using the UI.
Wildcards can be used to match multiple source channels, and expressions can be used to map them to destination channels.
Source channels can optionally be deleted after shuffling.
Overwriting of destination channels can optionally be avoided.
Added
missingSourceMode
plug to determine behaviour when a source channel doesn’t exist.
NodeEditor : Improved image channel selectors :
Added “Custom” option, to allow strings to be entered manually.
Added right-click context menu.
Switch : Added
connectedInputs
output plug.Backdrop : Improved drawing order for nested backdrops :
Larger backdrops are automatically drawn behind smaller ones, so that nested backdrops will always appear on top.
Added a
depth
plug to assign a manual drawing depth for the rare cases where the automatic depth is unwanted.
ImageStats : Added
areaSource
plug, allowing area to be driven by the input display window or data window.ScenePlug, ImagePlug : Child plugs are now serialisable. Among other things, this enables them to be driven by expressions (#3986).
Premultiply : Added
useDeepVisibility
plug, which weights samples according to their visibility based on the opacity of samples in front.ImageReader : Improved multithreading of EXR reads. This can result in a performance improvement of around 4X for large images.
Added OIIO config that disables OIIO threading by default. This simplifies our threading model, and has no impact on performance for our main use cases. If read performance of Gaffer compositing using non-EXR formats, such as Tiff, is important to you, you may want to add your own config to turn OIIO threading back on.
Wireframe :
Improved performance ~3x.
Improved cancellation responsiveness.
Fixes
Arnold :
Fixed rendering of shaders imported from HtoA via USD.
Fixed USD export of shaders to use
outputs:out
instead ofoutputs:DEFAULT_OUTPUT
.Fixed rendering of
osl
shaders using thecode
parameter.
Cycles :
Fixed hangs and crashes when using non-default session modes such as SVM shading.
Fixed failure to render background light in batch renders (#5234).
Fixed failure to update when reverting a background shader to previous values.
3Delight :
Fixed failure to change sampling pattern per frame.
Fixed Resolution Multiplier support.
Fixed UI visibility of
angle
parameter for distant lights, which was previously hidden.Fixed export of
Varying
primitive variables on meshes (#5781).Fixed loading of surface shaders such as
dlStandard
so that they can be connected to the inputs of shaders such asdlLayeredMaterial
.
Widget :
Fixed bug that prevented Gadgets from receiving drops from another application.
Fixed errors when dragging from another application onto widgets that didn’t expect it.
Gadget : Fixed access to
DragDropEvent.sourceWidget
andDragDropEvent.destinationWidget
from Python slots connected to a Gadget’s DragDropSignals.GraphGadget : Fixed unwanted highlighting of nodes when custom drag & drop handlers were active.
Viewer : Fixed selection overlay glitches with an Arnold
skydome_light
and an empty selection.GafferTest, GafferImageTest : Fixed import of these modules if the
Gaffer
module had not been imported previously.ViewportGadget : Fixed selection issues with Intel GPUs (#901, #2788).
TransformTool : Fixed alignment of green “value changed” icon for
orientation
plugs.PlugAlgo :
Updated
canSetValueFromData()
,setValueFromData()
andgetValueAsData()
with support for missing types.Fixed promotion of CompoundDataPlugs with non-dynamic children, such as the
Camera.renderSettingOverrides
plug.
Catalogue :
Fixed undo for image reordering via drag & drop.
Fixed bugs caused by reordering images using
GraphComponent::reorderChildren()
.
Expression :
setExpression()
now respects configs that provide backwards compatibility for old plug names.FlatImageProcessor : Fixed bug that could cause an input to be evaluated with an invalid
image:viewName
.Collect : Fixed display of results collected from TypedObjectPlug inputs.
BackgroundTask : Fixed potential deadlock caused by destroying a BackgroundTask from Python while it was still running.
Dispatcher : The job directory is no longer created when dispatch is cancelled by a slot connected to
preDispatchSignal()
.LocalDispatcher :
Fixed delays and zombie processes caused by shutting down Gaffer while background jobs were running. Background jobs are now killed before Gaffer exits instead.
Stopped failed jobs jumping to the end of the Local Jobs UI.
Fixed message log update.
Fixed
Job.statistics()
errors on Windows, ensuring that apid
is always returned when available.
ImageStats :
Fixed output of infinite values, which were previously being clamped.
Results for min/max now correctly reflect zero values outside the data window.
NodeMenu, NodeEditor :
userDefault
metadata is now evaluated in the script context, so it can depend on script variables.DeepState : Fixed handling of
NaN
values and samples whereZBack
is less thanZ
.Premultiply : Fixed handling of non-existent alpha channel.
ColorToVector : Fixed parameter types.
Windows : Removed “Error(s) running Gaffer” shutdown message. It was misleading when errors originated in the renderer rather than Gaffer itself.
API
SelectionTool : Added static
registerSelectMode()
method for registering a Python or C++ function that will modify a selected scene path location. Users can choose which mode is active when selecting.EditScopeUI : Added an API for customising the EditScope’s NodeEditor with summaries for each processor :
ProcessorWidget provides a base class for custom widgets, and a factory mechanism for registering them against processors.
SimpleProcessorWidget provides a base class for widgets with a simple summary label and optional action links.
TractorDispatcher : The
preSpoolSignal()
now provides an additionaltaskData
argument to slots, which maps from Tractor tasks to information about the Gaffer tasks they will execute.LabelPlugValueWidget : Added optional
labelPlugValueWidget:showValueChangedIndicator
metadata entry. If a plug has this entry set toFalse
, the icon next to the label that indicates the value has changed will not be shown. Defaults toTrue
if the value is not set.TypedObjectPlug : Added Python bindings for the default values of the
defaultValue
constructor argument.Box2fVectorDataPlug : Added new plug type for storing arrays of Box2f.
Catalogue : Deprecated
image:index
metadata.ImageGadget : Removed
textureLoader()
method.Pointer : Added
fileName()
method.ExtensionAlgo : Added
exportNode()
andexportNodeUI()
functions.Widget : Added a 0.5 pixel offset to
ButtonEvent.line
objects passed to mouse event signals such asbuttonPressSignal()
anddragMoveSignal()
PathColumn :
Added
CellData::sortValue
member, to provide additional control over sorting in the PathListingWidget.Added missing Python binding for
headerData()
method.
StandardPathColumn :
Added constructor which allows the full header CellData to be specified.
Added missing Python binding for
property()
method.
IconPathColumn :
Added constructor which allows the full header CellData to be specified.
Added
prefix()
andproperty()
accessors.
Window : Added
preCloseSignal()
, which allows connected slots to prevent a window from being closed.LocalDispatcher :
Added
Job.status()
andJob.statusChangedSignal()
methods.Added
Job.messages()
andJob.messagesChangedSignal()
methods.Added
Job.frameRange()
,Job.environmentCommand()
andJob.startTime()
methods.Added
Job.cpuUsage()
andJob.memoryUsage()
methods.Added
JobPool.addJob()
andJobPool.removeJob()
methods.
GafferTractor : Added
tractorAPI()
method used for accessing thetractor.api.author
module.GafferTractorTest : Added
tractorAPI()
method which returns a mock API if Tractor is not available. This allows the GafferTractor module to be tested without Tractor being installed.ParallelAlgo : Added
canCallOnUIThread()
function.Label : Added
textSelectable
constructor argument.ShufflesPlug :
Added
ignoreMissingSource
argument toshuffle()
.Added
shuffleWithExtraSources()
method.
ShufflePlugValueWidget : Widgets for the
source
anddestination
plugs can now be customised using standardplugValueWidget:type
metadata.ImageTestCase : in
assertImageEqual
function, maxDifference may now be a tuple, to specify an asymmetric range.Editor : Added
Settings
class, which should be used to store settings for subclasses. See LightEditor and ImageInspector for examples.DeepPixelAccessor : Added utility class for accessing deep samples while abstracting away the underlying tile storage.
Color3fPlug : Added
setValue( V3f() )
overload.
Documentation
Updated with generic Render and InteractiveRender nodes in place of deprecated renderer-specific nodes.
Breaking Changes
Arnold : Removed support for Arnold 7.1.
Cycles : Updated to version 4.0.2.
3Delight :
Changed default layer names for outputs.
Changed NSI scene description export with
.nsi
file extension from ASCII to binary (.nsia
is used for ASCII now).
InteractiveRenderTest : Subclasses must now return the shader output plug from creation methods such as
_createConstantShader()
.StandardLightVisualiser : Added
attributeName
argument tosurfaceTexture()
virtual method.CyclesAttributes : Removed the
cycles:dupliGenerated
andcycles:dupliUV
attributes.CyclesOptions :
Changed
hairShape
default value to “ribbon”, to match Cycles’ and Blender’s own defaults.Removed
useFrameAsSeed
plug. The frame is now automatically used as the seed ifseed
is not set.Removed all texture cache options. These had never been exposed in the UI because this never became an official Cycles feature.
Removed
cryptomatteAccurate
. This feature is no longer present in Cycles.Removed
cycles:integrator:sampling_pattern
option. This is intended only for debugging, but is still available via a CustomOptions node.
Pointer :
Removed
Pointer( const ImagePrimitive * )
constructor.Removed
image()
method.
Render : Changed
render:includedPurposes
default to"default", "render"
.Backdrop : Changed default drawing order. Use the new
depth
plug to override the order if necessary.ValuePlug : Removed deprecated
getObjectValue()
overload.Preferences : Removed
cache
plug.TaskNode :
The
Task
constructor no longer takes a copy of the context, so the context must not be modified after being passed.Removed
Task( taskNode, context )
constructor. UseTask( taskNode["task"], context )
instead.
Dispatcher :
Removed
createMatching()
method.Removed non-const TaskBatch accessors
frames()
andpreTasks()
.Made
TaskBatch
constructors private.The job directory is no longer available in slots connected to
preDispatchSignal()
.Removed
nodes
arguments from dispatch signals. Use thedispatcher["tasks"]
plug instead.Removed
script
andcontext
arguments fromframeRange()
method. The current frame and full frame range are now queried from the current context.
DispatcherUI :
Removed
appendMenuDefinitions()
,appendNodeContextMenuDefinitions()
,executeSelected()
andrepeatPrevious()
functions.Removed
DispatcherWindow
class.
LocalDispatcher :
Removed
JobPool.jobFailedSignal()
.Removed
JobPool.failedJobs()
method. Failed jobs now remain in place in the mainjobs()
container.Removed
Job.failed()
andJob.killed()
methods. UseJob.status()
instead.Removed
Job.execute()
method. This should not have been public.Removed
Job.messageHandler()
method. UseJob.messages()
instead.Removed
Job.description()
method.Removed
Job.statistics()
method. UseJob.memoryUsage()
andJob.cpuUsage()
instead.JobPool no longer derives from RunTimeTyped.
LocalDispatcherUI : Removed
appendMenuDefinitions()
function.Process : Removed non-const variant of the
handleException()
method.StringPlug : Removed deprecated
precomputedHash
argument fromgetValue()
method.OpenColorIOContext : Removed
configEnabledPlug()
,configValuePlug()
,workingSpaceEnabledPlug()
andworkingSpaceValuePlug()
methods. Use the OptionalValuePlug child accessors instead.Windows launch script : Removed the hardcoded
/debugexe
switch used whenGAFFER_DEBUG
is enabled, making it possible to use debuggers other than Visual Studio. Debug switches can be added to theGAFFER_DEBUGGER
environment variable instead.Enums : Replaced
IECore.Enum
types with standard Python types from theenum
module.Shuffle :
Removed ChannelPlug type. Use
Gaffer.ShufflePlug
instead.Renamed
channels
plug toshuffles
plug, matching nodes such as ShuffleAttributes and ShufflePrimitiveVariables.
ShuffleUI : Removed
nodeMenuCreateCommand()
.ImageStatsUI : Removed
postCreate()
.OSLShader : Output parameters are now loaded onto the
out
plug for all types (surface
,displacement
etc), not justshader
.DelightOptions : Changed default values for
oversampling
andshadingSamples
plugs.SceneProcessor : Subclasses no longer serialise internal connections to the
out
plug.ImageProcessor : Internal connections to the
out
plug are no longer serialised.USD : Removed Embree Hydra delegate.
Build
Cortex : Updated to version 10.5.6.2.
Cycles : Updated to version 4.0.2.
Embree : Updated to version 4.3.0.
Imath : Updated to version 3.1.9.
MaterialX : Updated to version 1.38.8.
LibWebP : Added version 1.3.2.
OpenEXR :
Updated to version 3.1.12.
Applied patches from the following pull requests :
https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr/pull/1591
https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr/pull/1684
OpenImageIO : Updated to version 2.5.8.0.
OpenPGL : Updated to version 0.5.0.
OpenShadingLanguage : Updated to version 1.12.14.0.
OpenSubdiv : Updated to version 3.5.1.
OpenSSL : Removed.
OpenVDB : Updated to version 10.1.0.
PsUtil : Added version 5.9.6.
PySide : Updated to version 5.15.12.
Python : Updated to version 3.10.13.
Qt :
Updated to version 5.15.12.
Removed QtPurchasing library.
Removed QtNetworkAuth library.
USD : Updated to version 23.11.