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The list below shows all the features added since version 2.0. Follow the links for the detailed information:
User Interface
- OpenGL can now used for the interactive views which allows hardware acceleration.
- When enable, Grids are now numbered.
Animation
- Animation previews can now be displayed in any of the available display modes.
Rendering
- The Raytracer is now multithreaded, allowing it to take advantage of multiple processors.
- Photon mapping is available for multiple scattering within materials, allowing simulation of subsurface scattering for simulating wax, skin, marble etc..
- Rendering can now use Ambient Occlusion as a global illumination method.
- When rendering with Monte Carlo, Ambient Occlusion or Hybrid methods for global illumination (GI), the raytracer can use more than one ray to sample the environment. Increasing this value will reduce noise from GI without having to increase the Min/Max Rays and therefore results in faster renders.
Textures and Materials
- The parameters for Materials have been changed to be more intuitive. Full compatability for scenes created in previous versions in ensured by the addition of modules.
- Previews for textures and texture mapping can now be zoomed and panned.
- Dialogues for loading images now show a preview of the image.
Camera Filters
- The camera filter preview can now be configured to give a rendered view using any of the normal rendering settings and now has an automatic update.
- There is a new Exposure Correction camera filter.
Miscellaneous
- When saving files, backup files can be created if the option is enabled. Files are saved using a 'safe save' method.
- In the Triangle Mesh editor, vertices can be made to lie on the surface when smoothing is used via the Project Control Mesh Onto Surface command.
- In the Triangle Mesh editor, the tolerant selection mode now selects all edges and faces within the selection region, even if there are no vertices within the region .
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