Welcome to the rabbit hole.

24.2.0

16 February, 2024

CORE

• Improve out of memory handling with subd & displacement.
• Raise maximum subd & displacement limits.
• Don't redo subd or displacement unless actually necessary.
• Fix global displacement switch not working during IPR.
• Add initial experimental VisionTone tonemapping.
• Improve performance of hashing input buffers.
• Handle catastrophic internal errors more gracefully.
• Switch from using vstool to mono msbuild for dotnet on macos.
• Force scattering to recompute caches when world scale changes.
• Add natural string sort to better support node list ordering.
• Add ability to clone nodes, and import Bella files.
• Fix live lights when shadows disabled and live lights present.
• Make more attrs interactive without restarting IPR.
• Improve responsiveness of realtime attrs (e.g. ISO, EV, etc).
• Improve responsiveness of IPR navigation/update in general.
• Improve look of render while navigating with live lights.
• Fix refcounting issue with Path iterator.
• Make loading of IES and LDT files more tolerant.
• Protect against invalid input and output names.
• Don't create settings when getting output name/dir/num threads.
• Add new settings:ocioConfig for setting OCIO path explicitly.
• Make Engine::running() work as expected after calling start().
• Add more comprehensive alpha support in file texture.
• Make sure alpha passes through node networks properly.
• fileTexture invert now also inverts border color and alpha.
• Increase demo resolution from 720p to 1080p.
• Notify of pass not found, when requesting image to be saved.
• Allow use of Quick material in Blend, for most Quick types.
• Fix thickness map not default for connecting to thickness.
• Add new "Render Ground" mode for skyDome lower dome.
• Better protect against bad mesh data during optimization.

SDK

• Initial release of Bella Node, Scene, and Engine SDKs.
• You will find docs and example code and projects inside.

CLI

• Fix not not setting asFragment=true when parsing fragments.
• Enable logging info/error/warning labels with color.
• Add support for nnworld & nnstate pseudo-names.
• Add --printScalarInputs to print info on all scalar attrs.

GUI

• Improve performance of world tree & node lists.
• Add grouping of node types in node lists.
• Add natural sorting (i.e. aware of incremental suffixes).
• Improve behavior of object selection in the IPR.
• Retain world tree expanded state in more cases.
• Add Import & Export commands in node lists.
• Add support for importing Bella file types.
• Make import/export dialogs remember dir per import type.
• Add support for cloning nodes & node networks.
• Fix resume/re-render command not showing in pass dropdown.
• Improve behavior of numeric slider spinners for realtime attrs.
• Expose alpha value in color pickers.
• Fix file path textbox not properly updating when changing path.
• Fix undo not lighting up properly when first opening a scene.

RHINO

• Specifically handle cancel result from Render command.
• Add a new toolbar (you may need to use BellaUpdateToolbar).
• Add BellaBox size commandline option.
• Expose all material types in the main material create menu.
• Fix named views not being exported.
• Fix obj props material tab not being shown for lights.
• Expose alpha value in color pickers.
• Improve behavior of numeric sliders.
• Improve live lights interactivity.
• Improve performance of hiding objects during IPR.
• Work around altered v8 behavior of SignalRedraw image update.
• Make more attrs (EV, ISO, etc) interactive without IPR restart.
• Add Lower Dome attribute in Bella Sky Dome environment.

MAYA

• Support Writing maya's OCIO config into exported Bella files.

NOTES

A main feature of this release is to add support for exporting individual or multiple nodes to Bella files for later import into other scenes. It also adds support for cloning individual nodes or node networks. Both of these are accessed by right-click in the various node lists in the GUI.

It also increases interactivity of attributes that are able to be changed without restarting the IPR, such as Live Lights, camera ISO/EV, tonemappings, color spaces, and others. General interactivity & smoothness of the IPR has also been improved.

Lastly, of special note, we have here the first release of our SDKs: the Node SDK, Scene SDK, and Engine SDK, which are described in this document. These are easy-to-use c++ SDKs with included example files, and projects/makefiles for building them on the various platforms.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2023	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2024	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6, 7, & 8	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS
Bella Node SDK	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella Scene SDK	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella Engine SDK	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu

23.6.0

13 December, 2023

CORE

• Add box top face modes of on/off or rounding only.
• New boolean Cut mode uses material of the cutter.
• Add new clip plane, Opaque switch allows light to enter or not.
• Fix a crash in IPR that could occur depending on resolution.
• Improve logic for PBR file matching.
• Remove "refl" as match for PBR Color channel.
• Add "reflection" as match for PBR Glossiness channel.
• Automatically try to deduce GL/DX normal maps types.
• Add new Polygon geometry.
• Add new Polygon option to area light Shape attr.
• Add new emitter & area light Falloff attribute.
• Fix rare IBL light leak illumination issue.
• Prevent trying to write 32bpp as png/jpg/etc.
• Prevent OIIO holding file handles open too long.
• Add Strict Alpha support to PBR material.
• Improve IPR update of non-restarting attrs (ISO, etc).
• Fix rare Atlas crash when restarting solver.
• Fix possible crash in Node.optimize().
• Add color/vector operations in bella_dotnet.
• Optimize core String compare & Input lookup by name.
• Fix a BSX reading error that could occur on MacOS.
• Fix a crash that could occur in the material layer system.
• Improve geometry of default/material preview scene.

CLI

• Allow negative values for turntable render.
• Add argument: --listNodes:xform,mesh to find nodes of type(s).
• Add argument: --queryAttr:xform.steps[0].xform to get attr values.
• Add support for using nicknames (e.g. nnsettings) in --parseFragment.

GUI

• Improve behavior of splash screen.

RHINO

• Add support for Rhino's clipping planes.
• Add new BellaBox command and custom geometry.
• Ignore ground plane if shadows only is enabled.
• Add BellaVersion command.
• Add Color Space support in Output settings.
• Add support for using /bella/ocio.txt.
• Improve behavior of numeric sliders.
• Fix numeric slider malfunction when no step value.
• Improve behavior of transform UIs.
• Add sanity checks when calling Fields setters.
• Use RenderSourceView to properly render Snapshots.
• Use Bella UV projection for WCS/OCS (less baking).
• Better handling of .tiff files baked by Rhino.
• Add support for bump in Rhino Metal/Plastic mats.
• Fix WCS/OCS when Rhino texture used in Bella material.
• Fix some inaccurately translated texture repeat/offsets.
• Add support for mixing Rhino diffuse color and texture.
• Fix missed assignment of diffuse texture input for metal.
• Switch more material translation to use Bella Quick.
• Improve logic for translating Physically Based as PBR.
• Only consider Picture material as such by type ID.
• Improve look up of corresponding IPR scene materials.
• Avoid spurious material translation in some cases.
• Add command for loading/resetting Bella display mode.
• Optimize creation/update of realtime display mode.
• Fix Rhino just getting a black image when animating.
• Re-work render settings sections to work with v6/7/8.
• Run checkMesh prior to rendering and report mesh errors.
• Handle Rhino trying to destroy some UI panels too early.
• Improve translation of Rhino light intensity.
• Add global Light Multipliers in render settings.
• Fix IPR timer not resetting when Saturn restarted.
• Avoid use of missing BitmapData.LockBits on MacOS.
• Fix Rhino 8.2 breaking the 23.4.0 plugin load on MacOS.

MAYA

• Add support for Maya 2023 and 2024 (Apple Silicon).
• Fix an Atlas crash when rendering inside Maya on MacOS.

NOTES

It appears that on MacOS, Rhino's Installer Engine has recently changed behavior in Rhino 8, and is installing the plugin only into the ~/Library/Application Support/McNeel/Rhinoceros/8.0/MacPlugIns folder. This can leave an older version of the plugin in the non version-specific ~/Library/Application Support/McNeel/Rhinoceros/MacPlugIns folder.

The installer .dmg instructions are therefore being changed for the next build, to recommend right-clicking bella_rhino.macrhi, choosing Open With, and choosing the desired version of Rhino.

For now, in any case of failure, just begin by deleting bella_rhino.rhp from the two locations mentioned above and then run the installer again, with any versions of Rhino you may be using, since each version should know how to put the plugin where it needs to be. And as always, if you have any difficulty, feel free to post on our Discord and we will help get it sorted quickly.

Also, the addition of color space in Rhino can cause existing files to look different than before, if you are outputting a format/depth combination for which the "Auto" color space is not sRGB.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2023	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2024	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6, 7, & 8	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

23.4.0

17 May, 2023

CORE

• Improve appearance & behavior of IPR at early sampling iterations.
• Fix terminator artifacts with large area lights.
• Optimize texture eval for voronoi and scratches textures.
• Extend terminator fix to work for refraction in dielectrics.
• Fix scattering/volumetric/priority attenuation issue.
• Fix dark edge seen when ground plane had reflective material.
• Fix attenuation misbehavior with distances close to zero.
• Fix image based lighting not working properly with solid-color hdri.
• Improve & simplify render booleans (remove confusing "keep UVs" option).
• Improve shadow pass specular reflection behavior.
• Improve flakes node to use more intuitive size/density/deviation.
• Add voronoi outNormal with deviation parameter for controlling strength.
• Add flakes & voronoi support for projections in 2D procedural mode.
• Improve scratches node to use more intuitive scale/width attributes.
• Add scratches projection support, with default projection set to cubic.
• Add texform outU and outV to easily drive color ramp by UV space.
• Add new car paint node.
• Add support for render time evaluation of rgbxform hue/sat/con/bri.
• Add ability of bevel node to round edges of single-thickness geometry.
• Fix scratches node writing vec3 to rgba outColor.
• Fix rare atlas crash involving transparency in some cases.
• Add fileTexture strictAlpha, to dis/allow requiring actual alpha.
• Add support for licensing by setting BELLA_LICENSE_TEXT env var.
• Add support for 3D procedurals in mapping of grass attributes.
• Make bump strength independent of scene scale for procedurals.
• Fix volumetric rendering black when density was set to zero.

GUI

• Change OpenAssetImport options to prevent splitting of meshes.

RHINO

• Fix multiple texture mappings not working properly.
• Fix current camera values could be written using other viewports.
• Fix cases where assignment of duplicated materials did not take effect.
• Fix some material types not getting rhino's rendered view to update.
• Improve rendered view representation of uber & pbr materials.
• More optimization of realtime IPR update for material & other changes.
• Add Bella section in the Sun panel, to allow changing sun angular size.
• Add command support for Bella camera properties (except shift for now).
• Fix some UI color issues when running in rhino v8.
• Add MaterialPreviewMinSize pref to control when Rhino renders previews.
• Add support for selecting Rhino lights in the Live Lights chooser dialog.

NOTES

• there was not a good way to try to translate existing scenes to get the same bump strength with procedural textures, given their new scale-independent nature, so you may need to adjust the strength of some bump maps if they use noise/voronoi/etc.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6, 7, & 8	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

23.3.0

3 April, 2023

CORE

• Improve stability of the Saturn noise target algorithm.
• Improve thread usage in difficult/degenerate cases.
• Improve general Saturn performance on the order of 10-30%.
• Improvement in degenerate cases may be by multiple factors.
• Improve Saturn progress percentage readout to be more linear.
• Noise targets 1-5 optimized for improved inter-frame stability.
• Noise targets 6-10 optimized for typical single-frame use.
• Add Saturn samplesLimit parameter to manually limit sampling.
• Improve IPR navigation, FPS may be up to 2-4x faster.
• Improve mesh optimization speed, often by several factors.
• Fix missing case for albedo with layer + scattering.
• Properly handle meshes with zero polygons.
• Fix issue with indirects from a recent optimization.
• Updated Open Asset Importer version to 5.25.
• Fix emitter color by SPD not working correctly.
• Fix C environ could be accessed when null on *nix.
• Fix issue with local vs. gmtime not handled correctly.
• Fix Atlas issue with out of range float value.
• Fix crash with IBL set to hemispherical.
• Disallow Saturn saving any image unless allowed by saveImage.
• Modify saveImage to be time-based, saving each N minutes.
• Modify Atlas to use the new saveImage time-based model.
• Fix IBL not properly handling color space in LDR images.
• Add camera response Burn attr, allowing output to go above LDR.
• Add anisotropy & rotation support in the scratches texture.
• Fix emitter meshes sometimes illuminating from both sides.
• Handle potential unexpected infinite value in scattering.
• Let fileTexture alpha logic use non-standard index if specified.
• Add "amb" for matching ambient occlusion in PBR texture sets.
• Upgrade libtiff to version 4.5, zlib to 1.2.13, oiio to 2.4.9.
• Add support for tiffs that use "Adobe Deflate" compression.
• Add support for buffer attrs taking/giving ownership.
• Fix crash when changing from the Quick material emitter type.
• Fix an issue with Live Lights potentially coming out of sync.
• Allow Live Lights to apply to emitters inherited by xforms.

CLI

• Prevent spurious warning about no executable in arg 0.
• Add --outputName for forcing output name in all passes.
• Fix -o/--outputDir/Name behavior to properly override all passes.
• Allow sub-degree values for turntable steps.
• Add CTRL+C support for graceful rendering cancel behavior.
• Add timestamps to log outputs.

GUI

• Fix new scenes created as "untitiled".
• Re-work file importer to keep quads when possible.
• Improve behavior of PRS transform spin boxes.
• Add timestamps to log outputs.
• Fix preview scene failure to resolve relative textures.
• Add support for custom template.bsx, if found in home/bella.
• Add a button for setting transforms to the identity matrix.
• Fix crash in editor panels when removing object[] elements.

RHINO

• Add support for Rhino 8 WIP.
• Note, v8 is not loading the plugin toolbar; you can use BellaExport.
• Now supporting Rhino 6/7/8 on Windows, Intel Mac, Apple Silicon.
• Add export of cameras for all viewports & named views.
• Improve behavior of numeric spinners in bella render content UIs.
• Improve rendered viewport representation of PBR materials.
• Protect from a few cases where the RDK is known to crash.
• Fix render flags were not being applied to Rhino lights.
• Avoid a spurious IPR update when sliders are released.
• Add environment overrides to live lights when environment is added.
• Add section to render settings for enabling render passes in exports.
• Add render settings control for output ext/depth and alpha.
• Improve render content UI performance, for smoother interactivity.
• Improve handling of opacity/alpha maps in Rhino PBR & custom materials.
• Detect if a Rhino is using a PBR, and translate as bella PBR, not uber.
• Add "forceuber" to a material's Notes to override this new behavior.
• Improve categorization behavior of the Rhino content chooser.
• Better handle translation of Rhino lights not set to Linear falloff.
• Improve light intensity to handle document scale compensation by Rhino.
• Export camera under an extra "local" xform to allow easy reset.
• Force translated textures (e.g. tiffs) to use srgb when appropriate.

MAYA

• Export camera under an extra "local" xform to allow easy reset.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6, 7, & 8	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

23.1.0

15 January, 2023

CORE

• Add Color Ramp node.
• Add new Flakes node, for making metallic paints and such.
• Add preliminary Scratches node (use at your own risk, it will change).
• Add cubic/planar/spherical/cylindrical projection to all textures.
• Add texture space for mapping in object, uniform, or world spaces.
• Uniform mode aligns projections with objects, but uses meter scale.
• Expose texture projections & spaces in PBR material.
• Re-work normal mapping to work more generically.
• Add ability for Normal Map node to accept bump/normal input.
• Add normals smoothing option & smoothing angle to mesh.
• Add new UV pass.
• Fix Bump & Normal Map working incorrectly as file textures.
• Fix Bevel not working in conjunction with bump/normal mapping.
• Fix passes were rendering during IPR sessions.
• Allow connection of scalar outputs to vector inputs.
• Re-work noise & voronoi to be in line with other similar textures.
• Fix voronoi watercolor mode not working in 2D mapping mode.
• Fix incorrect UVs being used for opacity mapping.
• Fix caustics through opacity not working correctly in Atlas.
• Fix caustics rendering wrongly in Atlas region render.
• Set default Normal Map border color to produce no normal bending.
• Improve Saturn indirects speed in some scenes involving conductors.
• Fix plane + emitter texture was failing in some cases.
• Add support for emitter Source units in Saturn.
• Add emitter Illumination attr, to disable illumination while remaining visible.
• Fix IPR could stop according to beauty pass time limit.
• Fix slowdown when camera was placed inside of a volumetric.
• Add experimental Preview mode for IPR, with simplified lighting.
• Add new material preview & default material ball scene.
• Fix an issue with displacement creating "cracked" surfaces.
• Fix Bella not using all cores on windows machines with multiple NUMA nodes.
• Fix issue with blend material assuming connected nodes are materials.
• Add new Auto-boolean option to dielectric, easing jewelry rendering.
• Expose normal mapping Flip R option in the PBR material.
• Add new Quick material Gem type, with Auto-boolean always enabled.
• Add "base_color" as a pattern indicating a PBR color texture name.
• Fix artifacts appearing in some render passes.
• Resolve texture paths to the local machine when opening BSZ files.

CLI

• Use material ball scene to implement --benchmark argument.
• Fix --parseFragment args were applied after others (e.g. --res).

GUI

• Fix old passes not removed from GUI when restarting render.
• Add ability to remove elements from array[] and object[] attributes.
• Make texture preview larger, and add Scale control for zooming in/out.
• Switch to new material ball scene for material preview & default scene.
• Fix issues with selecting regions, objects, etc, under display scaling.
• Fix pan not working correctly in Maya navigation mode.
• Prefer outValue if available, when connecting to scalar inputs.
• Stop hiding material Common sections when referenced in a blend material.

RHINO

• Fix outThickness not being connected to thin film > thickness.
• Use new emitter Illumination option to support Picture self-illumination.
• Avoid use of Rhino's color dialog on Rhino 6, where it is malfunctioning.
• Fix Rhino 6 not responding to attribute changes in some cases.
• Fix Quick material UI not updating when Type is changed in some cases.
• Automatically enable Auto-boolean for Rhino "Gem" material types.
• Fix cases where it was necessary to restart IPR to make sun responsive.
• Fix PBR in Rhino viewport not perfectly matching its actual Bella behavior.
• Fix GUI expander sections sometimes difficult to open/close on macos.

NOTES

• This build may crash when using scattering with dielectric.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.11.0

2 December, 2022

CORE

• Fixed sss/scattering direction issue.
• Improve performance of bevel.
• Fix access of "bevel" on nodes without it.
• Add bevel support in uber & PBR materials.
• Fix bounding box issue in mesh renderAs.
• Remove clamp on normal map strength.
• Fix triplanar bottom projection direction.
• Improve voronoi smoothness interpolation.

GUI

• Fix rare crash in numeric spinners.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.10.0

25 November, 2022

CORE

• Fix IBL floating point errors in atlas.
• Fix issue with albedo channel on some complex materials.
• Fix some quick material attributes not reset when switching type.
• Fix division by zero issue in sheet material.
• Prevent too many status messages near end of render.
• Add new Bevel corner-rounding node, which attaches to materials.
• Change camera Parallel attr to Projection, with "vertical" option.
• Improve terminator smoothing, especially with bump/normal.
• Add new Noise 3D texture node.
• Add new Voronoi 3D texture node.
• Add new Triplanar texture node.
• Fix a crash in mikkt on linux.
• Fix issue with zero-area emitters.
• Fix shadow pass was not rendering correctly.
• Fix passes being written to disk during IPR.
• Fix some issues (not perfect yet) with boolean vs. sss/volumes.
• Add texform autoAspect, to set repeat by fileTexture aspect.
• Fix failure to unzip pbr textures to /tmp on linux.

RHINO

• Restore previous Export command behavior.
• Fix extraneous event group in material preview rendering.
• Fix some updates being skipped by IPR changequeue.
• Fix view capture to clipboard/file (copies current IPR image).
• Improve behavior when animations are previewed in viewport.
• Add warning to use RenderFull method for recording animations.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.8.0

25 September, 2022

CORE

• Add new Live Lights feature.
• Add new grass feature.
• Add new Instancer node.
• Add Boolean feature, to cut or subtract geometry.
• Add new Random Number node.
• Add standalone Subdivision node, supported on mesh.
• Automatically apply mesh optimization when appropriate.
• Re-work render passes to render in parallel with beauty.
• Fix clamping exr outputs to 1.0.
• Fix parsing .bsx with array[] as child of an object[].
• Improve optical vignetting behavior with small values.
• Fix hierarchy visibility overrides not working.
• Add multiple categories of bounce control.
• Fix multi-material issues with subdivision.
• Smooth meshes when necessary, if not set to flat.
• Allow mesh:renderAs to work even if mesh has no data.
• Make mesh:renderAs:disk sizing match closer to plane.
• Fix artifacts rendering the disk procedural.

GUI

• Change output paths to use single-line gui style.
• Improve layout for array[] inputs.
• Prevent spurious IPR update from numbers beyond precision.
• Fix expanders initialization not correct in some cases.

RHINO

• Add support for Live Lights (in render settings).
• Add support for grass (in object properties).
• Add displacement map support (in object properties).
• Re-work UI to make parameters update IPR interactively.
• General improvement to the smoothness of the GUI.
• Avoid an RDK crash related to thumbnails on macos.
• Add Properties > Advanced > Bella.MaterialPreviews setting.
• Add Properties > Advanced > Bella.RealtimeSliders setting.
• Switch to interactive color picker.
• Fix the camera Burn parameter not initially being shown.
• Fix Rhino gem materials being exported as old complexMaterial.

MAYA

• Add support for Live Lights.
• Add support for grass.
• Add MASH support using Instancer node.
• Improve performance of IPR update in some cases.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.6.0

1 July, 2022

CORE

• Fix tangents wrong in box procedural.
• Make input lookups case insensitive.
• Re-work design of mesh node.
• Add opensubdiv subdivision.
• Add support for displacement.
• Re-work mesh node optimization.
• Optimize mikkt tangent generation.
• Add terminator smoothing feature.
• Add mesh normals smooth/flat option.
• Add IES (and LDT) light node.
• Add area light rectange/disk shape option.
• Improve volumetric perf at extreme aniso.
• Improved sun appearance near rise/set.

CLI

• Prevent parse fragment changing file version.

GUI

• Compensate matrix of imported scene by world matrix.
• Apply mesh optimization to imported meshes.
• Improve behavior of expander expanded/collapsed state.

RHINO

• Add IES/LDT path to spotlight properties.
• Add subdivision parameters to mesh properties.
• Add displacement parameters to mesh properties.
• Improve numeric slider behavior.
• Fix glitchy camera focus mode.
• Avoid rare RDK crashes triggered by properties update.
• Allow degenerate meshes to be exported to Bella.
• Duplicate Rhino light color/intensity in Bella properties.

MAYA

• Export speed improvement, measured at 2-60x.
• Add optional mesh tangents export option.
• Export meshes using subdivision params by default.
• Add "Tesselate" option to export pre-subdivided meshes.
• Add support for Bella displacement node on mesh attributes.
• Set bsx IPR navigation to maya style by default.
• Add support for linking Bella IES light to spotlights.
• Add support for arnold photometric lights.
• Adjust light energy to more closely match maya/arnold.
• Improve switching of UV linking during IPR.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.5.0

24 May, 2022

CORE

• Fix volumetrics crash on macos.
• Remove unused z pass min/max attributes.
• Hide inapplicable volumetric attributes.
• Add Scene fragment parsing ability.
• Fix lone '.' sometimes showing up in paths.
• Add support for PBR material overrides.
• Allow assigning PBR to xform:channels:channel.
• Add new Arch Glass Quick material type.

CLI

• Allow overriding anything via --parseFragment.

GUI

• Change zoom hotkey to CTRL+[=] instead of CTRL+[+].

RHINO

• Add PBR:uvChannel for selecting UV set.

MAYA

• Expose skyDome rotation in render settings.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.4.0

7 May, 2022

CORE

• Add support for emitter opacity.
• Low-power emitters now render transparently, instead of black.
• Upgrade to OCIO 2.1.1, which has drastically better performance.
• Add new Volumetric material, for rendering participating media.
• Fix SSS issue when exiting surface and changing medium.
• Z pass now writes raw values in float, otherwise normalized.
• Add support for volumetric scattering in dielectrics.
• Improve nested priority system for new sss/volumetric features.
• Add new Quick material, with simplified sub-types.
• Add Saturn support for spot, point, and directional lights.
• Add Saturn support for disk, box, and cylinder procedurals.
• Add periodic image saving in Saturn (every 10 minutes).
• Add optional rgbXform to PBR material.
• Improve rgbXform brightness/contrast/min/max behavior.
• Fix wrong fileTexture invert behavior.

CLI

• Update default values in some commandline scene overrides

GUI

• Re-work color space handling in buttons & texture previews.
• Show linear-mode rgba values using floating-point triads.
• Read more camera info when importing fbx, if present.
• Add missing "All ." filter to file browser dialogs.
• Allow picking objects/material when IPR is not active.
• Restrict objects/material picking to the image rectangle.
• Add image zoom behavior using CTRL and +/- or 0 to reset.

RHINO

• Fix extension being stored/shown when a path has no dir/file.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.3.0 [beta]

16 February, 2022

CORE

• Improve Saturn performance 0-300% depending on scene.
• Fix Saturn light leak issue (Thomas An. box scene).
• Saturn now shows benchmark during initial stages.
• Fix ground plane appearing translucent from below.
• Fix optical vignetting issues with lens shift.
• Support changing image/bsi saving during render.
• Prevent changes to "name" attr from restarting IPR.
• Fix IBL crash when hemisphere option was enabled.

GUI

• Add drag/drop files from Explorer onto objects or file paths.
• Fix wrong xform in hierarchy selected when picking in view.
• Add zoom extents (hit E key) for selected objects.
• Add drag/drop to import files.
• Improve behavior of panels when selecting objects in the view.
• Fix crash that could occur when adding an element to an array.
• Fix Settings panel not loading correctly with new scenes.

RHINO

• Fix slower performance when rendering inside of Rhino.
• Fix material preview stopping early when GPU was enabled.
• Fix default focus was set incorrectly.

MAYA

• Fix soft/min on UInt attributes allowed to go below zero.
• Fix much slower performance when rendering inside of Maya.
• Fix Saturn stopping very early in some cases.

NOTES

Though speed has been greatly improved for rendering inside of plugins (especially in the case of Maya), it remains (and likely will always be) the case that Bella GUI is faster, and should be preferred for final rendering.

Also note that unlike Bella GUI, both Rhino and Maya do not yet run natively on Apple Silicon, so rendering performance inside plugins will be very poor, perhaps on the order of 1/2 the expected speed, so Bella GUI should be strongly preferred for final rendering on Apple Silicon.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.2.0 [beta]

30 January, 2022

CORE

• Add native support for Apple M1 & Monterey.
• MacOS builds are universal binary for Intel/ARM.
• Update to Visual Studio 2022, Clang 13, GCC 7.5.
• Update dozens of 3rd-party libraries for M1.
• .NET Bella SDK wrapper moved to .NET 4.7.2.
• Limit custom SIMD to SSE for Sandy Bridge CPUs.
• Fix embedded alpha premult & color space.
• Implement denoiser+GPU combination in Saturn.
• Fix light correlation issue in Atlas.
• Improve GPU on/off feature parity.
• Implement interactive render region in Saturn.
• Fix timing issue when updating internal scene.
• Fix sheet material broken in Atlas in some cases.
• Print messages during rendering in Saturn.
• Fix Atlas crash with PBR metallic texture.
• Fix blow-up when selecting outside image rectangle.
• Implement Blend/Uber/PBR opacity for Saturn .
• Implement various core optimizations for Saturn .
• Support switching GPU on/off during an IPR session.
• Add thick lens support for Saturn.
• Fix issues with multiple Saturn solvers running.
• Move Use GPU to be global in the Settings node.
• Fix an issue with thick lens dispersion in Atlas.
• Add new Optical Vignetting feature (cat-eye effect).
• Fix an issue with non-uniform scale of world node.
• Allow reading non-convertible types from BSA.
• Avoid unnecessary restart of IPR in more cases.
• Allow changing embedded alpha during IPR.

CLI

• Make command line flags case-insensitive.
• NOTE: the CLI is now bella_cli.app on MacOS.

GUI

• Add ability to pick object/material from view.
• Drag/drop materials on objects in the view.
• Drag/drop material to multiple objects in hierarchy.
• Pick focus distance by CTRL/CMD + click on view.
• Add interactive region render during IPR.
• Improve file import, import cameras if possible.
• Improve general smoothness of GUI operation.
• Add grab-scroll behavior to node editor panels.
• Show warning if started under Rosetta on an M1.
• Work around Qt crash that could occur during undo.
• Show Region & Tonemapping nodes in Cameras list.

RHINO

• Add GPU switch in render settings.
• Add support for new optical vignetting feature.
• NOTE: Rhino is not native M1, so export to Bella GUI for faster rendering.
• NOTE: on Windows you may need this new MSVC++ Redistributable.

MAYA

• Make use of Maya file dialog type preference.
• Add GPU switch in render settings.
• Add support for new optical vignetting feature.
• NOTE: Maya is not native M1, so export to Bella GUI for faster rendering.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

22.1.0 [beta]

2 January, 2022

CORE

• Fix a crash occurring with extra passes.
• Saturn enable GPU option exposed (in beauty pass).
• Improve GPU detection & auto-selection.
• More operations moved to GPU.
• Add ground plane for Saturn.
• Fix skydome disappearing in some cases.
• Fixes for analytical planes in Saturn.
• Fix beauty output using wrong color space.
• Add Depth=0 constant Transmittance for Saturn.
• Add ability to override complex IOR transmittance.
• Fix some data could be uninitialized in Atlas.
• Add dielectric optimizations in Saturn.
• Fix issue with environment changes in IPR.
• Add support for sphere emitters in Saturn.
• Add support for disk emitters in Saturn.
• Improve fitting for mesh renderAs=disk/plane.
• Optimization for scenes with up to 64 emitters.
• Silence harmless warnings when reading old scenes.
• Show two decimals in Saturn progress at all levels.
• Add support for alpha embedded in beauty pass.

CLI

• Add -vi/--vulkanInfo switch to CLI.

GUI

• Fix fields not committed when clicking render.

RHINO

• Restore tonemapping options in camera panel.
• Expose Render As Disk/Plane in object properties.

MAYA

• Fix handling of cameras referenced from alembic/etc.
• Fix darkness seen in early Saturn IPR iterations.

KNOWN ISSUES

• The denoiser is not working correctly with GPU enabled.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows
Bella GUI	Windows
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows
Bella for SketchUp	Windows

21.6.0 [beta]

22 December, 2021

CORE

• Fix: wrong transparency computation in some cases.
• Fix: Vulkan & AVX2 accessed when they should not be.
• Improve progress reporting for Saturn.
• Enable interactive EV/ISO/etc changes in Saturn.
• Add/remove nodes without causing Saturn to restart.
• Fix: Saturn could crash with procedural geometries.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Procedurals besides Sphere & Plane do not yet render correctly in Saturn.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows
Bella GUI	Windows
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows
Bella for SketchUp	Windows

21.5.0 [beta]

19 December, 2021

This build mainly introduces the new Saturn solver, which replaces both the Ares solver, and also the old IPR solver.

Saturn is a new high-performance solver that works differently than anything previously seen in Bella, in that it uses a noise target -- a level of noise measured internally using proprietary techniques, and exposed as s simple number ranging from 1 to 10 -- to determine the point at which rendering ends. It uses this same mechanism to avoid wasting CPU cycles on pixels that have already reached the chosen target. The result is faster and more predictable rendering, though we are still working on how to expose an intuitive "progress" readout.

Saturn is also a hybrid solver, in that at early iterations it is suitable for interactive use, before then automatically shifting into its production mode. This means that there is no longer any difference between the performance or quality of the image when using IPR in a viewport, and rendering for production with Saturn. For viewport usage, we have currently fixed the noise target at 8, as this seems a good tradeoff between getting a good preview, and having the solver render more than necessary while you are trying to work (we welcome feedback on this).

Additionally, though like Ares, Saturn does not currently support proper caustics, it has also been made able to handle scenes using either the Sheet material or actual Dielectric material for windows, with none of the typical "sunlight through glass" limitations you may be painfully familiar with.

Though Saturn outperforms the Ares solver by a good margin, we are already involved in adding GPU support to it, and in the future, also plan to add support for the complex caustics that still require use of the Atlas solver, which itself has also been improved in this build -- in some scenes, substantially so.

Note that this beta build is being released as Windows-only (tested on Windows 11), in order to get feedback as soon as possible, as we finish making builds for the other platforms.

Finally, this build is marked a beta because rather than use an internal testing team, we encourage anyone who wishes, as early as possible, to participate in the development of Bella. This is always optional -- the current stable build will continue to be linked on the official downloads page -- and you should be aware that we expect more bugs in such beta builds.

CORE

• Replaced Ares solver with Saturn solver.
• Improved complex caustics in Atlas solver.
• Add Variation attribute to the PBR material.
• Improve filename matching for PBR material.
• Add support for sheet in blend material.
• Simplify target level/noise & time.
• Fix general path issue with drive roots.
• Fix sky dome lower dome radiance issue.
• Add film grain post process.
• Add sensor noise post process.
• Remove old filmic tonemapping.
• Add filmic hable tonemapping.
• Add DoRF camera response tonemapping.
• Add ACES tonemapping.
• Add false color tonemapping.

MAYA

• Fix issue with saving BSX to the root of a drive.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Using procedural geometry, or switching meshes to render as procedural geometry may cause a crash.
• Some apparently vulkan-related crashes have been reported, we are working on a fix.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows
Bella GUI	Windows
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows
Bella for SketchUp	Windows

21.4.1

29 July, 2021

RHINO

• Fix some textboxes not stretching on Windows.
• Fix possible resource-embedding crash on MacOS.

DOWNLOADS

Bella for Rhino 6 & 7

Windows

MacOS

21.4.0

27 July, 2021

CORE

• Fix hsl/hsv/rgb conversion wrong on macos.
• Add PCG RNG class to sdk core lib.
• Add random color variation for the color node.
• Add random color variation for the file texture node.
• Change "Normal" labels to read "Bump/normal".
• Fix percent output wrong on Number node.
• Add dedicated Percent node.
• Add sdk ability to create enum inputs at runtime.
• Fix crash in some cases with null node refs.
• Fix issues with parsing bnd in non-empty scenes.
• Fix borderColor handled incorrectly when no path.
• Improve invert node, when vector/scalar connected.

GUI

• Fix camera zoom backwards for Rhino mode.
• Fix failure to save images on macos in some cases.
• Change material categories to Industry Standard/Bella Native.

RHINO

• Add tonemapping control to camera.
• Fix bump/normal missing "Channel" parameter.
• Fix maths nodes not being brought into Rhino.
• Add support for Blend material & Color Blend node.
• Work around Layer IOR changing Dielectric IOR.
• Add "Viewport Shader" feature to materials.
• Fix Bella object props not shown for meshes/subds.
• Fix file texture border color colorspace issues.
• Re-work how camera focus is handled in Rhino.
• Add ability to track focus on given objects.
• Add tags to Bella environments & textures.
• Fix some issues with node icons in the tree view.

MAYA

• Add support for Maya 2020 & 2022.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2020	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2022	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

21.3.0

28 June, 2021

CORE

• Improve texture sampling performance by 20-40% or more.
• Changed the default solver to Ares.
• Update libpng to fix read failure of png files with large metadata.
• Fix disabled absorption mode being applied to layers.
• Fix failure to resume due to rounding error with some resolutions.
• Fix issue with node names containing numbers outside of signed Int64.
• Adjust spotlight radius range, make the value scale-independent.
• Deprecate all simple "smart" materials, and the Principled material.
• Fix a scene bounding box issue related to use of directional lights.
• Fix watermark missing from production renders in unlicensed mode.
• Add support for BELLA_FORCE_WATERMARK environment variable.
• Fix crash related to assignment of black image to IBL path.

RHINO

• Fix Uber 'Assign PBR Textures' being applied to wrong instance.
• Use improved ShowContentChooser API to filter inapplicable nodes.
• Fix potential crash accessing a null object during translation.
• Fix PBR textures incorrectly applied to Uber in some cases.
• Fix potential crash when no lights are found in the model.
• Fix drop-down menus showing incorrect selected item in some cases.
• Fix potential access of disposed bitmap in preview generation.
• Add "Bella" and node type tags when Bella nodes are created.
• Add render flags support for object properties.
• Add render flags and other parameters for light properties.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

21.2.0

1 June, 2021

CORE

• Integrate Apollo functionality into Atlas, and remove Apollo.
• Add PBR Interpolation attribute for use with low-res PBR textures.
• Improve PBR texture-name detection.
• Add PBR texture paths report for detected textures/slots.
• Add optimization for small projector emitters.
• IBL optimization, and reduction of IBL loading time.
• Add emitter temperature & SPD nodes.
• Improve denoiser behavior in reflections.
• Improve speed of display refresh (applying denoiser, etc).
• Reduce memory and time required for computing bloom.
• Add anisotropy support in previously unsupported layer cases.
• Change Complex IOR to be a node that can be used in various places.
• Fix Uber/Principled specular not matching PBR in some cases.
• Fix level readout could be incorrect in some cases.
• Improve blow-up camera behavior, add second "restricted" mode.
• Fixed region and pinhole mode for thick lens.
• Added ability to texture scattering anisotropy.
• Add various standard camera resolution presets.
• Improve internal image generation and denoising strategy.
• Add ability to set PBR texture set to Uber/Principled materials.
• Add Metallic Roughness to Principled material.
• Unify Uber/Principled Transmission to use the common "Weight" model.
• Fix Uber/Principled to use inverse PBR metal map in specular weight.
• Re-work Uber model to include Bella-specific Thin Medium component.
• Move Uber Thin Film functionality to a dedicated section.
• Improve performance of node-name checking and generation.
• Add ability to convert nodes from one type to another.
• Add new procedural Box node, with adjustable corner rounding.
• Fix issue with handling nan/inf numbers in BSA.
• Change camera default to A+S to enable interactive EV changes.
• Add specific support for conversion of PBR nodes to Uber/Principled.
• Add support for various material node conversions.
• Fix incorrect cylinder intersection.
• Change bump/normal map nodes to include fileTexture as a base.
• Add sdk ability for nodes to re-use their base implementations.
• Fix shadow pass issue with layered materials.
• Improve handling of caustics complexity parameters.
• Fix changes to sun not always causing IPR update.
• Add capability to force resuming a BSI by name, not scene hash.
• Add support for rendering dielectrics with no absorption.
• Add ability to set attribute min/max/default at runtime.
• Fix issue with bloom/diffraction being applied incorrectly.
• Add ability to render meshes as the various analytical primitives.
• Add ability to render meshes with flipped UVs.
• Fix object[] inputs not writing "empty" elements to files.

GUI

• Fix cases where render/ipr buttons were not synchronized.
• Expose new capability of changing nodes from one type to another.
• Fix rare undo-related crash.
• Support interactive color picking without restart when OK is clicked.
• Add new Textures panel for managing texture nodes.
• Prevent imports creating invalid node names.
• Handle unexpected shininess values on import.
• Group multi-file imports under an xform named for the parent directory.
• Improve smart display of relevant nodes/attributes in context menus.
• Add context menu items for converting nodes to other types.
• Add ability to combine xform with child node in hierarchy.
• Add filtering capability to all node lists & hierarchy.
• Add ability to hide unused nodes to all node lists.
• Fix pos/rot/sca xform display not being set correctly on undo.
• Remember last-browsed/saved directory and file type.
• Add re-import function to load the previously-imported file.
• Add capability to re-import without overwriting materials.
• Prevent spurious solver restart on initial IPR start.
• Improve texture preview performance, fix bad initial painting.
• Fix models imported with flipped UVs in some cases.

RHINO

• Add denoise option to render settings.
• Add "Start render" option to allow starting Bella GUI without rendering.
• Add support for rendering meshes as a Bella box or sphere.
• Fix issues with incorrect custom output resolution in some cases.
• Fix issues with render region & blow-up not matching in some cases.
• Improve behavior of focus in focus-to-selection viewport mode.
• Fix some cases where moving sliders did not produce IPR update.
• Add disabling of various parameters when they are not applicable.
• Work around issue where Rhino disposes things when it should not.
• Allow setting up Uber/Principled materials from a PBR texture set.
• Add support for auto-translating Rhino PBR as Bella Uber.
• Add support for emitter materials being assigned to Rhino lights.
• Fix instanced materials/textures not being instanced in some cases.
• Limit the content browser to showing only applicable types.

MAYA

• Add support for rendering polycubes as a Bella box.
• Add support for new pinhole camera mode.
• Allow setting up Uber/Principled materials from a PBR texture set.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.16.0

27 December, 2020

CORE

• Improve scattering in non-refractive scenarios.
• Improve quality of data given to denoiser.
• Add support for mapped oren-nayar roughness.
• Improve noise in conductors in some scenarios.
• Add new Principled & Uber monolithic material types.
• Add new PBR material type (for use with texture sets).
• Fix file texture alpha including A in average.
• Add built-in invert function in fileTexture.
• Prevent extraneous undo records when setting paths.
• Add scalarOp node for scalar maths operations.
• Add blendColor node for blending colors/textures.
• Add vectorOp node for vector maths operations.
• Add Aces and UC2 modes to filmic tonemapping.
• Improve internal color space handling.
• Add invert node for inverting scalars/vectors/colors.
• Adjust bump strength curve to give better control.
• Fix fileTexture not using interpolation correctly.
• Generally improve firefly prevention in IPR.
• Add pinhole lens mode to camera.
• Improve oren-nayar roughness curve.
• Improve noise resolution in layers and scattering.

GUI

• Fix rare case of undo group not being closed.
• Improve behavior of Pos/Rot/Sca transform UI.
• Improve float representation in numeric spinners.
• Prevent a crash with some assimp OBJ/etc imports.
• Fix Save As not being shown when closing untitled bsx.
• Fix potential re-entrancy issue in texture preview UI.
• Expose more nodes/attrs in node/attr context menus.
• Choose widest data type when auto-connecting attrs.
• Add individual color space choice for picking colors.
• Fix sliders sometimes not giving full min/max values.
• Fix material editor name label not working correctly.
• Add support for interactive color picker behavior.

RHINO

• Work around c# compiler issue in final v7 macos release.
• Make material preview make use of new pinhole lens.
• Make "no focal blur" view mode make use of pinhole lens.

MAYA

• Improve searching for files in /res directory.
• Improve bellaUtil to support non-renderable cameras.

NOTE:

The Principled & Uber materials are not 100% set in stone yet, and this build is intended to get feedback before making any necessary changes. We therefore do not guarantee that there will be perfect compatibility for those materials between this build and the next, so just keep this in mind.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.15.0

21 October, 2020

CORE

• Integrate Intel Embree with space partition.
• Update Intel OpenImageDenoise version.
• Improve integration of OpenImageDenoise.
• Fix smoothNormals node impl. not being called.
• Improve stopping speed for more responsive IPR.
• Fix spurious error messages on reading ad hoc attrs.
• Fix issues with using semi-opaque ground plane.
• Fix crash occurring with oren-nayar + layer.
• Fix UV issue in material preview scene.
• Fix incorrect rendering of instanced area lights.

GUI

• Prevent world tree selection when expanding nodes.
• Fix crash that could occur when creating some nodes.
• Choose outAverage for scalar inputs if possible.

RHINO

• Fix fileTexture node preview not initialized properly.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.13.0

5 October, 2020

CORE

• Fix IBL emitter crash when illum. override was cleared.
• Improve performance of production denoising.
• Fix internal issue with matrix decomposition.
• Change internal high-priority to not use env var.
• Fix issues with some of multiple lights not working.
• Fix some apollo light leak issues.
• Fix bad apollo slowdown with ground plane.
• Fix a crash in blendMaterial.
• Implement directional light guiding optimization.
• Implement direct lighting guiding optimization.
• Add significant optimization for conductor + layer.
• Fix issue with sheet material producing refraction.
• Fix optimizing meshes unnecessarily in some cases.
• Fix floating-point error in oren-nayar + layer.
• Fix hang with some types of degenerate mesh data.
• Fix mesh faces disappearing at some scene scales.
• Fix solver not deleted when switching to IPR.
• Fix fileTexture:interpolation was not working.
• Fix fileTexture:borderColor not using proper color space.
• Add decimalTime node for driving hour/minute/second.
• Add groundPlane UV transform attributes.
• Fix various problematic combinations of IBL overrides.
• Fix rare issue with ground plane rendering black.
• Fix issue with layer not skipped when opacity=0.
• Fix issue updating space partition with zero meshes.
• Augment mesh optimization to handle tris & quads.
• Fix border color selected incorrectly in mayaTexform.

CLI

• Add --resolution override flag for rendering.

GUI

• Fix crash in array-element GUI elements.
• Fix OS error info collection crash.
• Improve file-reading performance.
• Improve undo/redo grouping, fixing a rare crash.
• Prevent focus-on-mousewheel for double spinners.
• Re-work transform GUI for Mat3 and Mat4 attributes.
• Prevent TAB from focusing on lock toggle buttons.
• Fix purecall error dialog not properly pre-allocated.

RHINO

• Fix material preview sizes (i.e. retina) on macos.
• Implement viewcapture for Bella display mode.
• Preset content chooser selected type for more Bella types.
• Fix issue with translation of cycles diffuse material.
• Implement material preview caching system.
• Implement groundPlane UV transform.
• Improve environment translation for material previews.
• Prevent export of unnecessary nodes to BSX/BSZ.
• Re-work lights to make outputs closer match to Rhino.
• Modulate light multipliers by scaling of lights.

MAYA

• Fix crash rendering in IPR after rendering sequence.
• Improve stopping of export/render/sequence by ESC key.
• Add status bar feedback for rendering progress.
• Fix incorrect bloom ranges and default values.
• Fix incorrect IBL transform update from older files.
• Add bellaUtil -export command with -sequence option.
• Add IPR interactivity for changes to the timeline.
• Fix groundPlane node was not being exposed in maya.
• Add support for size attribute in directional lights.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.12.0

17 August, 2020

CORE

• Improve performance by optimizing color space handling.
• Avoid slow down when an OCIO profile is enabled.
• Fix issue with sheet material transmittance.
• Fix issue with oren-nayar material + layer.
• Fix albedo pass was being rendered white.

CLI

• Add turntable animation functionality.
• Add support for various scene parameter overrides.

GUI

• Improve texture preview performance.
• Show texture preview with input & output color space.
• Specially handle space for file texture border color.
• Add "Show more" feature for xforms with many children.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.11.0

13 July, 2020

CORE

• Fix some minor issues in the Subsurface material.

Maya

• Add viewport support for wrap, decal mode, and borderColor in texform node.
• Fix some mismatches between place2dTexture and Bella's mayaTexform.

RHINO

• Fix Bella material/texture IDs were generated incorrectly on MacOS.
• Add support for the greyscale option in the Rhino Picture material.
• Detect alpha in images used in the Picture material and connect as needed.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.10.0

9 July, 2020

CORE

• Add code to disable MacOS App Nap for Bella rendering.

GUI

• Check <home>/bella/ocio.txt for path to an OCIO config.

RHINO

• Let Rhino know about files our content references.
• Use Rhino search paths to find referenced files.
• Attempt to address Bella content UI height glitches.
• Subsurface & Complex IOR material moved to main list.
• Fix progress not shown correctly in render window.
• Add new Rhino sample scenes (here and here).

DOWNLOADS

NOTE: a problem has been reported, which affects opening 3DM files from one OS on the other. At this point it looks like we will have to make a change that will cause Bella materials written on MacOS to be lost when they are read by future plugins. The files will not be otherwise harmed, but Bella materials will not load correctly, and will be replaced by dummy "placeholder" materials, and will have to be re-made. So keep this in mind when using the Rhino plugin on MacOS. You can still use Rhino materials and have the plugin auto-translate, as you did before these recent builds that incorporated Bella materials into Rhino.

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.9.0

5 July, 2020

CORE

• Fix issue with handling of non-uniformly scaled emitter geo.
• Fix floating point error in blend material.
• Fix uninitialized variable used in oren-nayar material.
• Add bumpMap:normal input, allowing to chain bump/normal maps.
• Adjust OIIO max memory to prevent slowdown with very large maps.
• Fix issue with rare out of range values in IBL.
• Fix rare crash in dielectric evaulation.
• Fix issue in sheet material, and dielectric with depth zero.
• Fix issues with new tangent frame generation.
• Fix BSZ extraction failing in root of drive on windows.

RHINO

• Attempt workaround to fix render content UI height glitches.
• Adjust render content styles to improve previews.
• Fix tangent frame issues (produced wrong bump/normal shading).

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.8.0

1 July, 2020

CORE

• Change native coordinate system to z-up right handed.
• Eliminate incoherence in various coordinate systems (UV, etc).
• Fix procedural geometry UV coordinates to work coherently.
• Change core to use MikkT for generating tangent space.
• Fix precision issue with tangent frames.
• Improve quality of surface anisotropy.
• Improve preprocess to ignore hidden paths.
• Multi-thread mesh preprocesssing & tangent generation.
• Switch to new, faster parallel-friendly BVH model.
• Fix space partition not invalidated correctly.
• Add smoothNormals node (mesh modifier).
• Add support for textured transmittance and scattering.
• Add new randomwalk Subsurface material (note: works best with Ares, not yet supported in Apollo).
• Improve UV behavior when there is no texform present.
• Optimize preparation for rendering to start quicker.
• Modulate bump strength by scale for proportional behavior.
• GGX surface white furnace replaced with an improved model.
• Precomputed data tables remade, require 1/2 the memory now.
• Fix some issues with energy and mapping in IBL model.
• Upgrade Oren-Nayar substrate material to support a layer.
• Fix an energy loss in material & layer system.
• Layered conductor noise reduced (esp. with dark reflectance).
• IBL optimized for greater speed, fewer fireflies.
• Add groundPlane elevation capability.
• Fix some differences possible between IPR & production.
• imageDome & fileTexture now inherit inputImagePath node.
• Fix an IPR issue with switching textures to different uv sets.
• Fix an IPR issue where textures would not fall back to uv0.
• Textures return outAverage for outAlpha when there is no alpha.
• Add SDK support for standalone, arbitrary texture eval.
• Improve SDK refcounted wrapper implementation.
• Add SDK capability to find first path to a given instance.
• Drastically improve (~10x) preprocess of scene with 10K+ instances.
• Avoid re-allocating some buffers that did not need invalidation.
• Fix rare crash due to rendered image size not being set properly.
• Add support for reading/using EXIF rotation from applicable files.
• Fix procedural plane width/height transposed.
• Improve usable color ranges for water/glass smart materials.
• Add support for $cam output name macro.
• Add "decal" mode to texform, to allow matching with Rhino.
• Add "Use Path" and "Use Data" options to complex IOR type.
• Add roughness for polypropylene material.
• Improve glossy mats for IBL with no illumination & image background.
• Re-worked RGB Xform algorithms, also allowing negative values.
• Bump mapping much improved, now using 0-1 strength range.
• Normal mapping much improved, fixed orientation issues.
• IPR engine optimized to stop quicker for better response.
• BSI files now store time rendered, and compatible solver.
• Resuming render now correctly shows elapsed time from BSI file.
• Benchmark readouts improved, fix incorrect values with region render.
• Fix bad UV orientation for ground plane node.
• Fix fileTexture:outRes intermittently returning incorrect size.
• Add support to mesh node for exporting meshes with triangles only.

GUI

• Add IPR navigation mode (Maya, Rhino, SketchUp).
• Reset material preview camera by hitting the R key.
• Fix bad IPR material preview cameras when opening old scenes.
• imageDome & fileTexture no longer require separate path nodes.
• GUI now remembers last-opened BSX and loads it when hitting Reload.
• Texture previews multi-threaded for much quicker response.
• Add multi-line UI for applicable string attributes.

RHINO

• Implement Bella material & texture nodes in Rhino.
• Bella nodes are implemented as render content, can be ex/imported.
• Bella materials can use Rhino textures and vice-versa.
• Bella nodes generate custom GUI based on node definitions.
• Standard Rhino material preview system is supported.
• Bella materials provide high-quality OpenGL representations.
• Export date/time/location info, whether it is used or not.
• Export layer structure to BSX as hierarchy of xforms.
• Export better display names to BSX for materials, objects, etc.
• Use new groundPlane:elevation to match Rhino's auto ground plane.
• Add Render Settings > Output & Solver settings section.
• Add Object Propertes > View > Bella camera settings (exposure, etc).
• Translate custom material as dielectric when transparency > 0 and IOR > 1.
• Camera f-stop works with Rhino's "focus to selected objects" mode.
• Rendered viewport performance and responsiveness much improved.
• Export Rhino document notes to a node in the output BSX.
• Requires minimum of Rhino 6.27.20163.15081 or 7.0.20168.13075 on Windows.
• Requires minimum of Rhino 6.26.20147.06482 or 7.0.20168.12016 on MacOS.

MAYA

• Add support for explicit sun direction (linked in settings node).
• Add viewport support for rgbXform node.
• imageDome & fileTexture now expose a path directly in UI.
• Improve geometry export speed and memory usage.

SKETCHUP

• Make export of Sun optional (use Auto to use SketchUp settings).

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.7.0

16 April, 2020

CORE

• Improve colors in sky dome lower hemisphere.
• Fix image dome crash with certain greyscale HDRIs.
• Fix crash when rendering without vertex normals.
• Fix crash when deleting objects during IPR.
• Make engine tolerant of meshes with no polygons.
• Add optional quads & polygons mesh buffers.
• Implement modifier node mechanism.
• Multi-thread mesh preprocess & tangent generation.
• Add initial support for SSS in dielectric material.

MAYA

• Fix issue with intermediate objects being written in IPR.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.5.1

10 April, 2020

MAYA

• Fix crash produced when connecting certain node types.
• Fix wrong Hypershade IBL orientation.
• Fix crash with certain types of HDRI (e.g. neutral ones in Hypershade).

DOWNLOADS

Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS

20.5.0

8 April, 2020

CORE

• Improve space partition build time.
• Add sun Rotation attribute for changing North direction.
• Fix various issues with environment orientation.
• Fix camera orbit to handle arbitrary world xform.
• Fix rare crash in Apollo solver in some illumination scenarios.
• Fix normal mapping wrong with some axis systems.
• Fix issues with escaping in BSA strings.
• Fix file version not being read from BSA files.
• Add options for rendering lower skyDome hemisphere.
• Fix a couple of rare floating-point error issues.
• Handle degenerate cases in files (e.g. zero resolution).
• Fix water node missing override of IOR attribute.
• Remove useless "idle" priority option.

RHINO

• Work around some issues, now mostly working on V7.
• Fix crash on mac when resizing viewport with IPR running.
• Fix render settings resolution not used in export.
• Change approach to handling linear & gamma.
• Improve performance of writing IPR to viewport.
• Start rendering automatically on export to GUI.
• Prevent spurious messages during doc translation.
• Add support for rendering parallel views.
• Plaster material type now translated to lambert.
• Hooked up sky dome turbidity & albedo attributes.
• Fix issues with translation of "basic" environment.

MAYA

• Change to exclude hidden geometry from export.
• Add more interactivity for subdiv & nurbs geometry.
• Prevent spurious messages being printed to console.

SKETCHUP

• Initial version of plugin, supporting win & macos.
• Very simple, just two buttons: settings & render.
• Very quick export times, comparable to DAE export.

GUI

• Attempt to fix pixelated svg icons on hi-DPI screens.
• Add BELLA_USE_QT_DIALOGS env var for disabling native file dialogs.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS
Bella for SketchUp	Windows	MacOS

20.4.0

12 March, 2020

CORE

• Fix thinFilm for sheet & dielectric.
• Increase checker max value.
• Fix issue with opacity in Apollo engine.
• Fix resolution vs. caustics issue in Apollo engine.
• Fix a crash on macs with pre-Ivy Bridge cpus.
• Improvements in thin SSS.
• Switch to improved spectral curves.
• Fix hang with small fstop value.
• Improve responsiveness of IPR.
• BSI now written at least each 30 min if allowed.
• Fix IBL not respecting world xform correctly.
• Change IBL to have a transform instead of angles.
• Improve layered materials.
• Set sensible step values for attrs with step unset.
• Add multiplier for colorDome & imageDome luminance.
• Add adaptive internal FPS adjustment for IPR.
• Improve stopping speed of IPR.
• Add imageDome Background/Refl/Refr/Illum channels.
• Add infinite groundPlane node.
• Improve render time mesh memory usage.
• Fix scene hash was including file directories.
• Avoid space partition rebuild for sun/env changes.
• Fix issue when mesh has no normals/UVs.
• Improve cycle detection when connecting attrs.
• Add internal bitmapTexture node.
• Fix an issue with opacities in layered materials.
• Add bilinear interpolation for imageDome.
• Improve noise removal/reduction in IPR.
• Fix issues with normal mapping orientation.
• Add support for skyDome without sun.
• Increase range of thin film thickness.
• Add camera-mapping for IBL background.
• Improve performance of space partition.
• Add support for baking standalone texture nodes.
• Improve fileTexture alpha channel detection.
• Improvements in caustic complexity evaluation.
• Add polypropylene material node.
• Update to build/notarize for MacOS Catalina.

RHINO

• Initial release of the Bella for Rhino plugin.

MAYA

• Fix GUI lag due to missing Qt directory.

CLI

• Allow BSI files without extension.
• Allow the same BSI to be both input & output.

GUI

• Improve xform matrix/PRS GUI.
• Improve behavior of float GUIs.
• Fix misbehavior of edit boxes in sliders.
• Make TAB key skip inapplicable controls.
• Add fileTexture preview to editor panel.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Rhino 6 & 7	Windows	MacOS

19.6.0

26 October, 2019

CORE

• Re-enable support for thinFilm on layer.
• Fix scene hash changed by some resumable params (e.g. diffraction).
• Fix rare solver crashes due to values being out of expected range.
• Fix/improve logic & management of <file>.bsi and <file>.bsi.tmp.

MAYA

• Fix cases of layer/sheet attrs being reset to default when opening a file.

GUI

• Do not enable pass Resume/Re-Render menu item while rendering.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS

19.5.0

18 October, 2019

CORE

• Fix BSI invalidated by material preview-related attr changes.
• diffractionFilter renamed to gratingFilter.
• Fix gratingFilter opacity computed incorrectly.
• Improvements in diffraction and bloom performance.
• Fix node prep function not always called when necessary.
• lens:diaphragm renamed to the more precise lens:aperture.
• Fix wrong color space used in evaluation of some rgba inputs.
• Add new material preview scene, embedded in Scene SDK.
• Fix banding issues in reflections in bloom.
• Fix bloom applied when values were set to zero.
• Uniform bloom changed to use non-linear 0-1 range.
• Add outAlpha output for checker texture.
• Add new grid procedural texture.
• Fix bug with layer fresnel conservation of energy.
• Fix interior of clip-mapped geometry rendered wrong.
• Fix bug with backward scattering.
• Add support for textured scattering albedo.
• Fix a NaN condition that could occur in dielectrics.
• Improve aniso behavior to match disney PBR standard.
• Fix aniso rotation incorrectly affecting scattering.
• Fix some cases of rotation & roughness computed wrong.
• Add support for textured aniso rotation.
• Fix case where layered conductor could be made transparent.
• Fix some cases where aniso was computed wrong in layer.

MAYA

• Add support for grid texture.

GUI

• Add visualization of generated gratingFilter map.
• Fix materials without preview using current camera view.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS

19.4.0

12 October, 2019

CORE

• Improve support for 1-channel textures.
• Return average for outAlpha when input lacks actual alpha channel.
• Fix attempt to connect refraction when geometrically reflection.
• Fix issues with dielectrics priority.
• File texture now supports decal mode (i.e. when wrap U/V is off).
• Fix Atlas not stopping properly at level, when region active.
• Fix insufficient dielectric internal bounce recursion limit.
• Fix layer surface opacity vs. medium opacity operation.
• Diffraction and bloom improvements.
• Fix IBL-related issue with refractive surfaces in non-IPR engines.
• Avoid restarts of IPR when changed inputs would have no effect.
• Fix rare cases of recursion exceeding stack space.
• Improve behavior of sun when it goes below the horizon.
• Add initial bella core documentation.
• Improve TIR model for layer & sheet (thinFilm is temporarily broken).
• Improve tangent frame generation for analytical sphere.
• Adjust behavior of anisotropy rotation.
• Remove unnecessary "weight" parameter from scattering node.
• Improvements and fixes in layer/sheet scattering.
• Update Open Asset Import library to version 5.0.
• Use typename of node when asked to create with illegal name.
• Avoid updating core scene when no solver is created.
• Remove plastic:type input (use complex IOR material for that).
• Disallow sheet material in blend material (useless and confusing).
• Adjust sheet material defaults for more common use as glass.
• Adjust smart node formulas for improved TIR model.
• For clarity, "coating" node has been renamed to "thinFilm".
• Remove stackMaterial as it could tend to imply physical stacking.
• Add "mixing" mode to blendMaterial, to replace old stackMaterial.
• Fix incorrect transparency with blendMaterial in some cases.
• Resume render implemented for Apollo engine.

MAYA

• Add initial Maya-specific documentation.
• Update links to point to documentation URLs.

GUI

• Add visibility button for xforms in world tree.
• Add initial gui-specific documentation.
• Add/Update documentation links.
• Add "null" material icon for xforms in world tree.
• Add simple default scene for new files.
• Add import support for OBJ, FBX, DAE, 3DS, STL.
• Improve node/output creation/assignment context menus.
• Add buttons for clearing node & output connections.

DOWNLOADS

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS

19.3.0

28 September, 2019

• add: angle-based area for directional light.
• fix: denoiser data wrong when resuming BSI.
• fix: benchmark wrong when resuming BSI.
• change: use max threads for space partition.
• change: general diffraction improvements.
• improve: time/benchmark/etc display when resuming.
• fix: bidirectional not used for directional light.
• fix: border color used incorrectly in maya texform.
• fix: wrong layer evaluated with dielectric substrate.
• improve: avoid some unnecessary partition rebuilds.
• add: maya export progress, ability to cancel by ESC.
• add: skyDome and sun, using Hošek & Wilkie model.
• add: support for sun in colorDome and imageDome.
• add: automatic UTC offset computation for sun angles.
• fix: use Bella logic to find textures in maya display.
• add: bellaMaterialPreviewEV optionVar in maya.
• add: toneMapping/lensFilter support to maya camera.
• add: camera/sensor/lens overrides for maya camera.
• improve: add missing camera params to maya, rearrange.
• add: complexMaterial with built-in complex IOR data.
• add: complexLayer, a complex IOR version of layer.
• fix: connections could be handled out of order in maya.
• improve: categorization of nodes in create menus.
• improve: general cleaning of material nodes design.
• fix: dispersion enabled in layer when enabled in dielectric.
• add: plastic, ceramic, metal, and urethane materials.
• improve: "tabs" behavior in gui node editor panels.
• add: efficacy attribute for watt-based emitters.
• improve: all illumination (emitters, domes) recalibrated.
• fix: world tree collapsed when assigning new material.
• fix: various opacity issues with dielectric/blend/stack.
• improve: match arnold IBL orientation in hypershade.

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS

19.2.0

4 September, 2019

• fix: level=100 now renders forever.
• fix: apollo benchmark was broken.
• add: initial shadow pass implementation.
• fix: we must refuse to render with missing resources.
• fix: improve cli reporting in case of non-existent input bsx.
• add: cli --outputDir & --outputName (-od, -on) options.
• add: cli --finalBsiDir & --finalBsiName (-fbd, -fbn) options.

Bella CLI	Windows	MacOS	Ubuntu
Bella GUI	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2018	Windows	MacOS
Bella for Maya 2019	Windows	MacOS