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Dynamite VSP Version 3.6 | Release Notes

Primary areas of focus in this release include improved support for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009, the introduction of Country/Project/Private Resource Kits, and a range of improvements derived from community feedback.

Release Date

18th August 2008

Availability

Dynamite VSP Version 3.6 is available as a downloadable service pack for Dynamite VSP Version 3.1, 3.5 and 3.51. This upgrade is available free to users currently holding valid annual software maintenance contracts for Dynamite VSP.

This service pack may be downloaded from the User Support Centre.

Major New Features

  • Civil 3D 2008 Compatible A new .vsp3d file format has been introduced in this release providing greatly enhanced support for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. A new VSP3D Exporter for Civil 3D 2009 is also available which provides dedicated support for Dynamite VSP Version 3.6. Limited support is still provided in this release for older Version 3.5 .vsp3d files (see below for further details).
  • The new .vsp3d file format provides new support for grading/site feature lines, improved support for offset assemblies, and new support for parametric/intelligent material mapping for imported Civil 3D corridor surfaces. This important new feature allows textures to automatically follow the alignment of a road.
  • Improved parametric road marking functionality.
  • Improved Feature Interpretation functionality.
  • Improved support for Mental Ray.
  • Dynamite VSP Country Kits now known as Resource Kits, and there are now three types available - Country Resource Kit, Project Resource Kit and Private Resource Kit. This feature provides far more flexibility for small and large workgroups alike in the management of shared Dynamite VSP resources such as styles and image files. Applies to Autodesk VIZ 2008, and 3ds Max 9 (and higher) only. Users of older releases of Autodesk VIZ and 3ds Max will continue to have the ability to access to Country Resource Kits only.
  • Automatic mesh smoothing option introduced for imported surfaces.

Dynamite VSP Explorer Enhancements

Dynamite VSP Explorer

  • It is no longer necessary to left-click each node before attempting to access context-sensitive right-click menus.
  • The layout of Environment Nodes in DVSP Explorer has been refined. There are now dedicated entries for sunlight, skylight, and indirect light (for Mental Ray based Final Gather settings). The Indirect Light node only appears if the current production renderer is set to Mental Ray.

Sunlight Parameters Rollout

  • Supports new mr Sky parameters introduced in 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design 2009.

Sky Parameters Rollout

  • Supports physically accurate mr Physical Sky environment maps when Mental Ray production renderer is active.

Exposure Control Parameters Rollout

  • Supports new mr Photographic Exposure Control introduced in 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design 2009.

Rail Object Parameters Rollout

  • New button provided which allows all rail object parameters to instantly be mirrored to the left or right of the parent shape.
  • Default brace section style is now rectangular.
  • Default rail section style is now w-section.

Road Marking Parameters Rollout

  • New centre-gap parameter has been introduced allowing dashed or continuous double lines to be defined as a single road marking object.
  • New crossfall parameter has been introduced allowing road markings to be tilted slightly to suit the crossfall of the underlying road surface.

Sign Parameters Rollout

  • This rollout now displays a preview of the diffuse bitmap which is assigned to the face of the selected sign.
  • When selecting an alternative sign from the DVSP object libraries, the sign selection panel is now categorised.
  • When selecting an alternative sign from the DVSP object libraries, the selection panel is now filtered and only shows signs (not road marking symbols or signals).
  • Solved problem which caused an error if a sign was selected which used a non-standard material.

Signal Parameters Rollout

  • This rollout now displays a preview of the diffuse bitmap which is assigned to the face of the selected signal.
  • When selecting an alternative signal from the DVSP object libraries, the signal selection panel is now categorised.
  • When selecting an alternative signal from the DVSP object libraries, the selection panel is now filtered and only shows signals (not signs or road marking symbols).

Surface Parameters Rollout

  • Entirely reworked Statistics tab which provides far more information about imported Civil 3D Corridor Surfaces. It now possible to identify, edit and highlight parts of the mesh that have been derived from originating subassemblies, subassembly classes, and link codes in Civil 3D.
  • Map tiling adjustments may now be applied interactively/dynamically to any part of the mesh defined by material ID, or originating subassembly, subassembly class, or link code. Map tiling adjustments are applied parametrically/intelligently to imported Civil 3D corridor surfaces, allowing textures to automatically follow the alignment of a road.

Swept Object Parameters Rollout

  • Issue fixed where element longitudinal/lateral mapping parameters were incorrectly labelled.
  • Issue fixed where the longitudinal complexity value is not reset when opening a swept object style.
  • The option of spanning spline geometry / separated spline geometry modes is no longer offered if the selected parent shape only contains a single spline.

Tree Parameters Rollout

  • This rollout now displays a preview of the diffuse bitmap which is assigned to the selected tree.
  • When selecting an alternative tree from the DVSP object libraries, the tree selection panel is now categorised.

Other Dynamite VSP Improvements

Data Import Panels

  • A re-designed import panel for Civil 3D .vsp3d files has been introduced to support the new .vsp3d file format introduced for Dynamite VSP Version 3.6. Version 3.5 .vsp3d files are still supported via a legacy Civil 3D import panel which has been temporarily retained in this release. Content imported from Version 3.5 .vsp3d files may no longer be updated in this release of Dynamite VSP.
  • All data import panels now include an Apply button, allowing selections to be made from the source file without closing the panel.
  • All data import panels now include an Options button, allowing a range of common import options to be accessed. Initially, an auto-smooth parameter has been introduced for imported surfaces which allows a smoothing threshold value to be specified. This feature causes any two adjacent faces to be put into a common smoothing group if the angle between their normals is less than the threshold angle. At render time, faces in the same smoothing group are rendered as a smooth surface. A value of 8 to 10 degrees seems to work well, particularly on cambered roads.
  • When an attempt is made to use the update function on objects that no longer exist in the selected source data file, the error message now displays the name of the object that could not be found.

Feature Interpretation Style Editor

  • Now provides the option to set up feature interpretation instructions that differ by model/corridor/layer/level name as well as by object/string/featureline name. This allows a single master feature interpretation style to be set up in cases where consistent model/corridor/layer/level naming conventions are being used in the source civil design application.
  • Some minor style path issues in earlier versions of Dynamite VSP have been resolved.

Object Placement Style Editor

  • Road marking symbols no longer incorrectly have double sided materials applied to them.
  • The name of the selected parent shape is now displayed in the title bar.
  • Random object selections per style element are now highlighted in a bold font instead of in red.
  • Archvision RPC content may now be used in the Furniture category as well as the Vehicles category.
  • Animation speed is now calculated correctly when 3ds Max system units are not set to metres.
  • Resolved bug which caused Chainage Looping feature to have no effect when used in conjunction with negative speeds.

Preferences Panel

  • A range of new functionality has been added to the Preferences panel providing much more control over default settings in Dynamite VSP and introducing the concept of Country, Project and Private Resource Kits in place of basic Dynamite VSP Country Kits.
  • Dynamite VSP Country Kits now known as Resource Kits, and there are now three types available - Country Resource Kit, Project Resource Kit and Private Resource Kit. This feature provides far more flexibility for small and large workgroups alike in the management of shared Dynamite VSP resources such as styles and image files. Applies to Autodesk VIZ 2008, and 3ds Max 9 (and higher) only. Users of older releases of Autodesk VIZ and 3ds Max will continue to have the ability to access to Country Resource Kits only.
  • A new tab has been added to provide access to new Resource Kit Path settings. By default, only the Country Resource Kit will be active, but it is possible to activate additional Resource Kits at Project and Private level.
  • A new tab has been added to provide materials defaults, such as self Illumination settings for signs and trees.
  • A new tab has been added to provide import options, such as mesh smoothing parameters, and interpretation options for Civil 3D Corridor Surfaces.

Placed Object Manager

  • Filtering functionality in this panel has been improved. It is no longer necessary to remove an existing filter in order to apply a new one.

Rail Object Style Editor

  • New button provided which allows all rail object parameters to instantly be mirrored to the left or right of the parent shape.
  • Default brace section style is now rectangular.
  • Default rail section style is now w-section.

Resource Kit Manager Panel

  • Panel renamed from Country Kit Resource Manager to Resource Kit Manager.
  • All object parameter files are now displayed in a fully categorised list.
  • Detailed diffuse and opacity map information is now displayed such as image resolution in pixels, file size, and bit-depth.

Road Markings Style Editor

  • Horizontal offsets for road marking lines may now be saved to Road Marking Styles.
  • New centre-gap parameter has been introduced allowing dashed or continuous double lines to be defined as a single road marking object.

Swept Object Style Editor

  • A new Select Parent Shape By Name button has been added allowing the current Swept Object Style to be applied instantly to multiple parent shapes.
  • Issue fixed where element longitudinal/lateral mapping parameters were incorrectly labelled.
  • Issue fixed where the longitudinal complexity value is not reset when opening a swept object style.
  • The option of spanning spline geometry / separated spline geometry modes is no longer offered if the selected parent shape only contains a single spline.

Materials

  • The DynamiteSurfaces material has been refined and now provides improved support for Mental Ray. Some sub-materials within this multi/sub-object material has been modified. Refer to the Dynamite VSP User Documentation for further information. The content of this material will now vary depending on which production renderer is active when the material is created or reset/rebuilt.
  • The DynamiteVehicles material has been refined and now provides improved support for Mental Ray. The content of this material will now vary depending on which production renderer is active when the material is created or reset/rebuilt.

Other General Items

  • When using a system unit setting in 3ds Max other than metres, the warning that appears when starting Dynamite VSP will now only appear once.
  • Minimum and maximum values in user interface controls have been reviewed to accommodate users working system units other than metres.
  • When a Licence Error Code 10 is encountered, the resulting warning panel will now only appear once.
  • When using optimised object linking and surface tracking with 3ds Max, animated objects no longer stop moving after an update is applied to the parent shape.
  • When opening an existing .max file which contains no scene content except one or more XREFs, the length of the animation and frame rate is no longer reset.
  • Industry Defaults settings have been modified for versions Autodesk VIZ and 3ds Max that support Mental Ray.

Supported Host Applications

Important Note: This will be the last release of Dynamite VSP to provide support for Autodesk VIZ.

Full product support for:

  • Autodesk 3ds Max 8
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 9 (32-bit only)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 (32-bit only)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 (32-bit only)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009 (32-bit only)
  • Autodesk VIZ 2007
  • Autodesk VIZ 2008

Additional Rendering and Scene Compatibility support for:

  • Autodesk 3ds Max 9 (64-bit)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 (64-bit)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 (64-bit)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009 (64-bit)

Dynamite VSP provides limited support for 64-bit versions of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design. A 64-bit version of the Dynamite VSP plugins folder is now included in the standard Dynamite VSP installation. Although Dynamite VSP will not currently run in 64-bit versions of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design, these plugins may be used to allow .max files containing Dynamite VSP content to be opened in 64-bit versions of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design. This support has been added to allow the rendering of Dynamite VSP based scenes in 64-bit based render farms.