ShadeTree Release Notes

The following are release notes for versions of ShadeTree. This is a good way to keep up to date with bug fixes, and whether it is worth your while to upgrade. You might find we already have a fix for a problem you're experiencing in one of our newest releases.

This document maintained by [email protected].

• Codefilter 'hints' added to prman release (from mray release)

• Background object can be turned on and off from the Render Options Editor, and now uses a 'constant' shader.

• Bugs with environment variables fixed in stree.pl

• Sli files: Fixed quoting problem with 'string' datatypes, added support for vvector, vfloat and ufloat datatypes. Also, ButtonTitle is now parsed correctly.

• Codefilter can now generate dynamic if statements using STREE_CODEFILTER_IFRANGE. Also, added #CODEFILTER_IF directive. See codefilter src comments for how they operate.

• Bmrt support added. Added BMRT as licensable option, render script checks for precompiled displacement shaders in $STREE_LIB/lib/bmrt/*.

• Prman: Added new area light. Fixes to velvet, screen, smokeyatmos, light patterned. Added 'new area light' and examples showing how to use arrays. Vomit planet now rotates. Added 'color of light' to render options editor.

• Mray: Saves mihints, Fixed LD_LIBRARYN64_PATH -> LD_LIBRARY64_PATH.

• Interface: cast change on button while slider pinned didn't update, fixes to CPICK for random color problem, and others. Many help documentation HTML links were fixed.

• Mental Ray SP1 support. Added spp preprocessor to allow inline #ifdefs in the lib/*.dat files. Exportall now saves mi files. Problems with 'scanline on' in mi file for lens shaders were fixed.

• Prman enhancements. Added -I$RMANTREE/lib/shaders to renderit, to fix omission of same in Pixar's shader front end script. Light Color now controllable via the ROE in all prman versions.

• Bugs: 'File' button in Export Options Editor was fixed.

• All: Icons for prman and mray were centralized, to make tar bundles smaller. Added factorial box to prman and mray.

• Docs: added some issues to the FAQ regarding license manager and subnetting issues. Also, STREE_ELAN added to man pages.

• Known Bugs in 1.0.30: Hitting 'New' does not update the shader type indicator in upper left corner of screen.

• First support for Prman 3.7.

• Bring up sliders with double click! Double left-click on a button to bring up the slider for it! It's about time.

• Visual indicator for arguments. A little yelow dot appears next to buttons that have their argument flags set, to boldy show arguments to the shader.

• Toggle argument flag via popup menu. This lets you toggle the argument flag for a button via the popup menu, without having to bring up the argument editor.

• STREE_IMPACTFLAG environment variable added to work around window manager bugs that crash SGIs running IRIX 6.x with Impact graphics boards.

• Bug for problem of STREE_LIB environment variable being ignored by 'st'.

• Fixed memory leak in RGB/RGBA sliders; glxDestroyContext() was not being called.

• Clicking on the color swatch in RGB/RGBA sliders prints the RGBA values to stderr

• Re-oriented prman scripts so one can add to the argument list via the Op Box code. Tweaks to codefilter and stree.defs

• Arg editor no longer causes duplicate names. Argnames now stay blank unless typed in by user directly.

• Help->Online Docs added

• Added 'STREE_DeclareHead_VAR' and 'STREE_DeclareTail_VAR' to the opbox macro language, to access cast type declarations.

• Can now change default light's color via the Render Options Editor

• ${varname} now works in the macro generator, so you can abut variables against other words. (1.0.25)

• Sanity checks added to stree file for 'currentcast'.

• 'maxhistory' in stree.defs is now enforced, to prevent excessive growth of the render history.

• Color picker added. All color sliders now have a working CPICK button that lets you pick RGB values off the screen. (1.0.25)

• HSV color chooser added. All color sliders now have a working HSV button that brings up a dialog that lets you slew around to pick colors. (1.0.25)

• stree.defs loader now reports errors using line numbers (1.0.25)

• Support for making inline arrays in prman via opbox code

• Output tieing supported. This lets you pass variables directly through a box, without intermediate variables being created. Added to support Prman 3.7 arrays.

• Documentation added for STREE_BoxTitleWid, 'output tieback', etc.

• Window title now correct when 'Save As' is used

• Mray version: hint files, .dat files. Texturemaps, bump maps, lens shaders, material, light, and displacement shaders. 4 All primitives now seem to work (sphere,cyl,patch,corner). Bug fixed in matrix object rotation tool. Animations work, controlled via ROE.

• Don't add help to source when render button is hit

• Render history bug fixed: saves affected 'current filename'

• New streedefs commands exportbrowser_dir, ext.shaderiface, ext.randeriface

• Fixed bug with string slider's OPTION button name

• Added new codegen expansion variables STREE_BoxTitle, STREE_BoxTitleWid, STREE_BoxWid, STREE_IsConnect_

• ROE now resets framerange verbose, etc. when File->New is hit, or when one hits ROE->Defaults button.

• Fixed bug with window titles not being set correctly in beta 1.0.11

• Added example test-grid.stree showing texture coordinates

• Interface file generation

• Expanded generic: specification in box defs files

• Added 'Render To A File/Screen' to the Render Options Editor.

• The 'corner' primitive now rotates the sphere without affecting the background checker pattern.

• A render button was added next to the FREEZE button, for easy access to rendering.

• Added an '.stargs' intermediate file format for the saving of slider information for arguments to the shader. Implemented, but not yet used, this file aids in the conversion of third party shader information files, such as pixar's .sli and SoftImage's .cus/.mat files.

• Much stuff beneath the surface was changed to support message passing for all save/load operations.

• Frame Range in the Render Options Editor now affects all the primitive renders. Select 'Render To A File', and then set a frame range to render an animated sequence.

• More examples were fixed due to the default ambient light tweaks back in version 1.0.0.

• Fonts for the Min/Max fields in sliders were made smaller, to visually differentiate them from the actual data values.

• The string slider (and generic slider) now support an 'Options' menu button. Fixed strings can be programmed into the menu.. for a simple example, see the 'ctransform' box, and note the new Options button for the FROM and TO sliders.

• The 'File' button can now be disabled via the box defs files.. for strings that should not need to ever be filenames. Not all boxes were updated to take advantage of this new feature.

• Version number was jumped from 1.0.3 to 1.0.10, because the format of the defs files changed, we jumped the version number to indicate a loss of backwards compatibility with the box defs files.

• Fixed problem with File -> Save Shader including a comment separator AFTER a close comment, rather than before it.

• Added _SUBMENUCOLORS_ file, which specifies colors for the pulldown menus in the menu bar. Having the menu bar itself color coded looked kinda ugly, so just the pulldowns have it.

• Repaired a sorting problem with custom menu dirs not correctly sorting into the existing menus.

• Fixes were made to some of the example stree files. In version 1.0.0 the intensity of the default ambient light was changed from 0.1 to 1.0, and this wacked out the lighting on examples shaders such as ice* and water*.

• Fixed problem with View Shader and Save Shader not updating with information from the Render Options Editor. For those with 1.0.0 or less, you can work around by hitting 'Render' before you hit 'View Shader' or 'Save Shader'.

• Added control in Render Options Editor for 'bucket size'

• Ambient changed from 0.1 to 1.0 in our test rib files

• Fixed problem where exiting software leaves a render running. The render is now killed before the software exits.

• This version is AKA 0.10.7.

• Repaired a '0' sized log file problem in the Install script

• During renders, the full compile/render commands now echo to the tty

• The elan manpages are preformatted; gtbl(1)'ed and groff(1)'ed

• Save help when 'Save Shader' is invoked from main menu

• ROE window title: ROE -> Render Options Editor

• Fixed problem with stree.defs: customrenscript was being ignored

• Disabled the Help button in the File Browser to prevent confusing catch-22 problem with window manager.

• Colors for sliders now selectable via the stree.defs

• Fixed """bin/customrender""" problem during multiple saves of stree files.

• Ran hack-stree.0.10.5.awk to fix """, STREE_LIGHT, etc

• If the icon image for a box can't be found, the icon text is automatically displayed.

• File->New now resets the ROE

This list maintained by [email protected].

Copyright (c) 1996 Cinema Graphics Inc. All Rights reserved.