Boxshot 5.5 beta
09 Aug 2022
This is the first beta version of Boxshot 5.5 and the main feature of this version is GPU rendering support on Windows. However, that’s not all, so keep reading for more details.
GPU Rendering on Windows
Boxshot Ultimate lets you select DirectX renderer on Windows if you graphics adapter supports hardware accelerated raytracing. The option should work on Nvidia RTX and AMD RX cards and the rendering speed directly depends on the graphics card specs: the more — the better.
Please contact us if you want to share your GPU rendering experience, so we can make a GPU speed chart.
Relief Bump Improvements
This update significantly improves relief bump rendering, so you can use it to enhance bottles and other non–flat objects. On top of that, OpenGL preview driver now displays relief bump, as well.
There are two relief bump modes now: “relief in (push)” — the standard one that pushes the relief inside the object and the new one: “relief out (pop)” that pops the relief out. The latter is used to create stamp–like effects on surfaces. Both have their limitations and features that will be later covered in the tutorial.
Decals Improvements
Decals got more material options, including reflection and refraction parameters and opacity, so they can better match the underlying materials.
They also got the bump option, but only the “relief out” one, so you can add relief elements to the objects where needed (stamps, water drops, etc).
Boxshot offers the relief bump option in the popup menu when you drop artwork onto the object, but you can also configure it manually in the decal’s parameters.
Read more about bump decals here
Color Reflection Masks
Reflection masks are not grayscale anymore and Boxshot will use color information of the reflection mask to tint the reflected rays.
Basically, this means you can have variable reflection color tint in materials. Nice for foil and other effects.
Other Fixes
Besides all the goodies listed above, this update fixes nasty white dots that sometimes appear when you render scenes with rough materials. It also improves rendering of complex scenes where rays may get captured inside the objects because of the overlapping geometry. Finally, rough reflections got a bit better and more physically correct, which is nice.
Some other minor UI glitches were also fixed. You will probably never meet them, but now they’re gone :)
Cheers!