What's New in VRED Products 2017

OpenGL Update

We completely redesigned and redeveloped our OpenGL implementation, upgrading from version 2.x to 4.x. As a result, you can expect:

VR Updates

The VR updates in VRED 2017 make it easy and cost effective to experience total immersion.

Simplified Tracking

We simplified the Tracking module. You can now add and configure servers, tracker devices, and bodies all in one view. Manual calculations are no longer needed. You can set local offsets. You can run diagnostics connection tests to make sure the communications are working.

Choose Interaction > VRPN Tracking.

For details, see To Set Up a Tracking Configuration.

New Realtime Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)

We added SSAO to the OpenGL rendering mode as an alternative to baked ambient occlusion. SSAO provides an efficient, realtime approximation of the baked ambient occlusion (AO). Although SSAO will never be as good as precomputed AO, or even baked lighting and shadows, SSAO is good for quick previews.

To activate it, choose Visualization > Advanced OpenGL Settings > Screen Space Ambient Occlusion Settings and select Enable.

For information on settings, see Advanced OpenGL Settings in the Visualization Menu.

New HPC Cluster Module

In VRED Professional 2016 SR1 we introduced a newly designed HPC Cluster module that provides better scalability, and better monitoring and diagnosis capabilities. Designed to leverage large clusters, the module provides improved load balancing and performs two to three times faster. The bigger the cluster the bigger the gains compared to previous versions of VRED.

The Raytracing Cluster is located under Rendering > Cluster.

In this release, we added a new Display Cluster that leverages the technological innovations introduced in VRED Professional 2016 SR1. The Display Cluster enables high performance raytracing presentations in Powerwall or Cave environments, for ultra realistic immersion. You can now set up each cluster configuration using an arbitrary combination of nodes for raytracing calculations and display options.

In a realtime raytracing cluster scenario, each display cluster node also performs raytracing calculations including load balancing, and thus requires a Render Node license. Because of this requirement, display clustering with realtime raytracing is not possible in VRED Design.

The nodes for OpenGL display clustering are free of licensing for both VRED Professional and VRED Design.

Set up the Display Cluster from the Cluster dialog box. Click Display Setup.

Improved Handling of Shells and Components

VRED 2016 SR1 enabled you to work more seamlessly with Shells and Components.

Instead of rearranging parts of the Scenegraph to apply functions from the Optimization dialog box, you can now simply paste, drag-and-drop, or merge.

Components now cannot exist without a parent Shell

If components are dragged or copied from a Shell to the Root node (or any other group), a new shell is created as a parent of the components.

  • We now differentiate between Surfaces (Surface nodes that are not below a Shell) and Components (Surface nodes that are below a Shell).

    Surfaces can be transformed, components cannot.

    Surfaces have their own material, components always have the material of their Shell.

    Shells and components are imported by the Base CAD formats.

  • Components always stay components when moving them around in the Scenegraph (by dragging, by copy/cut/paste, when using Group Selection, etc). At their new location in the scenegraph a new Shell is created above them.
  • Surfaces stay surfaces when moving them around in the Scenegraph. No extra shell is created above them. (Except when explicitly using the Create Shell From Selection command).

New control over merging geometries

When merging two or more shells or groups together, the new shell uses the name of the first selected shell or group. If the selection is made using rectangle selection, then the name of the selected element that is highest in the Scenegraph is used.

Now when you Merge Geometry in the Scene Graph, the Merge Geometry dialog box opens, where you can select how to merge geometries with different materials and visibility.

New Paste with Transformation command

Two new commands were added to the Scenegraph that keeps a pasted node at the same position in the world as the originally copied or cloned node:

  • Edit > Paste > Paste with Transform
  • Edit > Paste > Paste Clone with Transform

Support for HDR Light Studio 5

We added support for HDR Light Studio 5, which includes Sun Softness control and Live LightPaint.

Autodesk Translation Framework

VRED Products no longer ship with DirectConnect, but instead include new, built-in translators that give higher quality results.

New UV Editor

We added a UV editor that helps to create and manipulate UV coordinates for surface geometries. Using the editor you can cut, sew, unfold and transform UVs.

Note: The UV editor works only with NURBs data that has been tessellated in VRED. Any other mesh or previously tessellated data will not work.

For more information, see To Edit UVs.

Enhanced Light Source

There is now only one node in the scenegraph which represents the positioning and orientation of the light. Local lighting is now done by light linking. You no longer need to place the light sources in certain places of the scenegraph.

To set up a light link, create a new set and assign the geometry nodes and the lights to the set.

When you open an scene from VRED 2016 and earlier in VRED 2017, the lights are converted to the new lighting.

The following example shows a scene with a point light that is locally lighting three boxes. The images on the left show the lighting setup in VRED 2016, the images on the right show how the lighting setup is transferred when you open the same file in VRED 2017.

Left: Scenegraph VRED 2016, Right: Scenegraph VRED 2017

Left: Light Editor VRED 2016, Right: Light Editor VRED 2017

General Enhancements

Changes to licensing

When performing a stand-alone installation, you no longer provide the serial number and product code during the installation process. Instead, you enter this information when you first launch the software. For more information about licensing Autodesk products, see Manage Licensing.

Ability to add trusted IPs or hostnames to the WebServer Interface

You can now provide a list of IPs or hostnames that are allowed to connect to the WebServer.

Improved web browser streaming

We improved the performance of web browser streaming.

Extended color chooser

The color chooser now supports the creation of Blackbody and CIE D spectra, third party functions that define the spectral behavior of a body.

Improved performance of Convert To Mesh

Convert to Mesh performance has been significantly improved.

VRED Presenter is now available on Mac OS

New option to hide warning messages for undoable functions

You can now choose to hide warning messages for functions that cannot be undone.

Shortcut changes

  • Changed the O hotkey for toggling navigation in Presentation mode to Ctrl+Alt-drag.

  • Changed the shortcut for Create Shell from Selection from Ctrl+Shift+G to Ctrl+Shift+M.

    Use Ctrl+Shift+M (Merge) to create a shell from the selection.

    When you use Ctrl+Shift+G (Group Selection) on multiple surfaces which are not yet under a Shell, the surfaces are grouped together and no shell is created.

    When you use Ctrl+Shift+G on multiple components (surfaces under a shell), a new Group node is created, and under that, a new shell with the components in it.

Clip selection added to Render Settings in VRED Basic

In the VRED product, you can now set the Start and Stop Frame in the Animation section of the Render Settings dialog box.

Added command line help to VREDPro.exe

For a list of VREDPro.exe command line options, use the -h, -help, or /? option.

For example, type the following at a Windows command prompt:

VREDPro.exe /?

Added message to log file when render is canceled

When a render is cancelled, the message "Render job cancelled." is added to the render log file.

New deferred still-frame antialiasing render update

New samples threshold option to define at which sample the still antialiasing render update starts. A value of 16 typically prevents grainy-looking progress samples from displaying. The render continues to calculate in the background.

Rendering > Render Settings > General Settings > Start update render with

All render jobs can be cancelled at once on a cluster

When rendering multiple render jobs with Cluster enabled with the Sequencer or Render Queue, you can now cancel them all at once.

Overlay Editor enhancements

We added the following options for positioning overlays: Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Center, Top Left, Bottom Left, and Bottom Right.

Options removed from the Optimize editor

[The Create Strips and Create Fans options in Optimize editor are no longer used, so they have been removed.]

Added Hotkey option for Viewpoint in Camera Track of Camera Editor

Set the hotkey in the Animation Properties dialog box for the Viewpoint.

New feedback in the Terminal for blocked mouse interactions

If you try to interact with a node that is set to be unselectable, and therefore the interaction is blocked, you are now informed in the Terminal.

Blocked interactions on unselectable nodes are: Select in the Render window, drag-and-drop Materials in the Render window, and fix normals in the Render window.

Fixed freeze when switching normals

VRED no longer freezes when switching normals with Alt+Box selection.

Added Undo and Redo to the Sequencer

Added undo redo to tasks such as creating, deleting and moving sequences. However, you cannot undo a sequence "run".

Improvements to Variants

Import/Export enhancements

Improved performance

  • Opening an NX part into VRED from a network drive now takes less time.
  • Importing .CGR data into VRED now takes less time.

Ability to export FBX textures

When exporting FBX files, Diffuse textures are now exported.

New Import options

  • When importing files, your settings for Unshare Nodes and Flush Transformations in the Import Options dialog box are now retained for the VRED session.

    Also, you can now set these options in Edit > Preferences > FileIO > BaseCAD.

  • We added the Import Animation Curves and Import Clips options to the Merge Project Options dialog box. If you do not want the curves or clips in your project, you no longer need to delete them from the .vpb file before adding the file.

Support for NX 10.0 file import

We added support for importing NX 10.0 files.

Ability to open FBX 2016 files

You can now open FBX 2016 files in VRED.

New ability to import curves

We added the ability to import curves and make them visible in the viewport.

Import summary added at completion of plmxml file import

When you import a plmxml file, a dialog box now displays at the completion summarizing the import (listing any parts that did not load properly) and providing the location of the log file (c:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\VREDPro\log).

Catia part node structure is now correctly represented in the Scenegraph

Enhancements to Overlays

API Improvements