Boxshot 4.6
01 May 2014
The new version of Boxshot brings highly improved rendering engine with support of new effects like uv-spot, medium color and depth of field. It also features new shapes and options, so keep reading.
Medium color
The first improvement is for glass and liquid materials. Boxshot now has a “Medium color” section in materials panel that replaced the old “Refraction fog” one. We completely changed the way Boxshot handles medium color, so you may need to update your old scenes, but now Boxshot really rocks when it comes to semi-transparent mediums.
Reflection blur mask
Another nice feature allows you to create uv-spot effects easily. Simply set the reflection blur to a high level, then apply the reflection blur mask that limits the blur at some places. Here’s what you get:
Depth of field
This feature is still in beta mode and your feedback is much appreciated. By default Boxshot uses a pinhole camera, so everything is rendered sharp. By enabling the depth of field effect, you tell Boxshot to take the aperture into account and focus on some of the objects.
This is controlled at the left “Camera” panel. You can use “Ctrl+Alt+Click” to tell Boxshot where to focus or define the focal distance manually. The aperture size parameter controls the level of the effect. Smaller aperture gives less depth of field effect.
Please note that depth of field is not supported in preview, so you need to make draft rendering to see the effect.
Shadows of the transparent mediums
One of the nice additions is that semi-transparent objects now cast shadows. Here is a small example:
The more transparent the material is, the less shadow it casts.
DPI parameter
A much-requested DPI option is here. You can set it at the rendering window before you start rendering. Home edition is limited by a 72dpi value, but the higher editions support values of up to 600dpi.
New shapes and options
Here are some new stuff in this release:
- A new “rounded box” shape that is useful for simulating toilet paper wraps or nappies packaging.
- Pharma bottle shape got a “show liquid” option with adjustable height.
- Hard cover books are now scaled with content taken into account - no more stretched spines.
- Spheres can be hollow (good for materials testing).
Other improvements
There are lots of other improvements in this release. Here are the most interesting ones:
- Materials got a special “thin object” flag - useful for labels on a glass.
- Paper bag rendering glitches were fixed.
- 3D PDF export improved - home button and lighting modes work better.
- Some preview issues were fixed in Advanced GL mode.
- Better colored medium preview in both Advanced and Simple GL modes.
- Rendering now works with lower priority giving other apps a chance to run at the same time.
- Scene tree selection handling improved.
- Collada exporter got some improvements.
- Some HDR images loading issues fixed.
What has been removed
Due to significant changes in rendering engine and materials, some of the options were removed. This shouldn’t seriously affect your scenes, but in some cases it may be a good idea to keep the old version of Boxshot while switching to the new one. So what has been removed:
- reflection and refraction depth - Boxshot now decides by itself whether it is worth tracing further or not.
- reflection and refraction exit colors - you will never see them anyway, as Boxshot now traces till the end.
- refraction fog - has been replaced with medium color - you may need to update your glass materials.
We also changed reflection and refraction blur formula, so you may want to review the scenes that use them. However, Boxshot does its best to convert the old values to the new ones.
How to update
Visit the downloads page if you need a version for another platform. Note that you may need to renew your license, please do this here.
Plans?
Well. We’re going to release Origami 1.0 soon, so get ready. We also work on a new application that some of you may find useful.
As for Boxshot we’ve got some crazy ideas for the next version, so stay tuned :)
Finally
We did a lot of changes to the rendering engine and materials, and while we’re almost sure everything is OK there, please let us know if you have any issues with the new version.
Have a nice day!