Gaffer 1.4.0.0b2

[murraystevenson]

Features

• 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 (Select noodles for deletion #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.

Improvements

• ImageReader : Added fileValid = False metadata to images from missing frames, when missingFrameMode is Black or Hold.
• Viewer : Added Ctrl+PgUp shortcut for displaying the RGBA image layer (or the first available layer if RGBA doesn't exist) [^1].
• RenderPassEditor [^1] :
  • Added "Inclusions", "Exclusions" and "Additional Lights" columns, to provide control over the locations included in the render for each render pass.
  • Added the ability to display render passes grouped in a hierarchy generated from the render pass name. The default grouping uses the first token delimited by "_" from the render pass name, such that render passes named "char_gafferBot" and "char_cow" would be displayed under a "/char" group, while "prop_ball" and "prop_box" would be displayed under a "/prop" group.
  • Render pass grouping can be configured in a startup file by using GafferSceneUI.RenderPassEditor.registerPathGroupingFunction( f ), where f is a function that receives a render pass name and returns the path that the render pass should be grouped under.
  • Grouped display can be enabled by default in a startup file by using Gaffer.Metadata.registerValue( GafferSceneUI.RenderPassEditor.Settings, "displayGrouped", "userDefault", IECore.BoolData( True ) ).
  • Dragging cells selected from the "Name" column now provides a list of the selected render pass names, rather than their paths.
  • Disabled render pass names are now dimmed to more clearly indicate their state.
• RenderPassEditor, LightEditor, PathListingWidget : Boolean values are now displayed as checkboxes rather than 0 or 1 [^1].
• Collect : Added the ability to collect StringVectorData inputs.
• StandardOptions : Added inclusions, exclusions and additionalLights plugs, to control which locations are included in a render based on set expressions entered on these plugs. These, plus the existing includedPurposes plug are now grouped under the "Render Set" section of the UI [^1].
• GafferScene : Registered the "RenderSetAdaptor" adapting the render:inclusions, render:exclusions and render:additionalLights options to prune scene locations before rendering [^1].

Fixes

• 3Delight : Fixed startup errors on Windows when the DELIGHT environment variable wasn't defined [^1].
• 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.

API

• ScenePath : Added automatic conversion of a list of Python strings to a ScenePath [^1].
• RenderPassEditor : Added registerPathGroupingFunction() and pathGroupingFunction() methods [^1].
• ExtensionAlgo : Added exportNode() and exportNodeUI() functions.
• Widget : Added a 0.5 pixel offset to ButtonEvent.line objects passed to mouse event signals such as buttonPressSignal() and dragMoveSignal()

Breaking Changes

• CyclesOptions :
  • Removed useFrameAsSeed plug. The frame is now automatically used as the seed if seed is not set.
  • Removed all texture cache options. These had never been exposed in the UI because this never became an offical Cycles feature.
  • Removed cryptomatteAccurate. This feature is no longer present in Cycles.

[^1] : To be omitted from final release notes for 1.4.0.0.

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This discussion was created from the release Gaffer 1.4.0.0b2.