Update: Autodesk Arnold v7.2.3 (Watermark Issue on Render)

v7.2.3 is a feature release for Autodesk Arnold with several enhancements and an API addition, however there is a licensing issue that results in watermarks on renders. So it is best to hold off on updating until the issue is fixed.

What’s new in Arnold v7.2.3?

Enhancements

• Global light Sampling support on GPU: Global Light Sampling (GLS) is now available with GPU rendering. Many scenes with moderate to large number of lights render 2-6x faster with GLS. Scenes that do not benefit from GLS tend to be a few percent faster or slower. See the GLS documentation for important information on the optimal number of light samples to use with GPU. (ARNOLD-13109)
• Return direction and distance to nearest hit in distance shader: Arnold 7.2.3 adds out_distance and out_direction output parameters to the distance shader, which return the direction and distance to the nearest surface, respectively. The shader still returns the color-mapped result by default, which is now available as the out_rgb parameter. (ARNOLD-13473)
• state_float, state_int, state_vector multiple outputs: The shading state shaders now have multiple outputs, so you can use a single state shader with multiple output connections in a shading network. (ARNOLD-13579)

USD Enhancements

• Support vertex UV coordinates on Curves in the render delegate usd#1435
  Curves without width should render with a default value usd#1579

API Additions

• AiProceduralExpand: A new API AiProceduralExpand expands on demand the contents of a procedural (such as a ‘usd’, ‘alembic’, or ‘procedural’ node), as it would happen in a regular render. You can use this to force the creation of procedural child nodes before the rendering starts, and to avoid race conditions when the procedurals are not thread safe. (ARNOLD-7067)

Bug Fixes

• ARNOLD-10643 – FIS no longer forces a box filter
• ARNOLD-12917 – Viewport API uses incorrect motion blur reference time
• ARNOLD-13645 – Instancer crash if a single node is instanced but set to null
• ARNOLD-13678 – Holes in alpha channel when opacity is almost 1
• ARNOLD-13741 – Log messages missing colors
• ARNOLD-13770 – Name scope clashes with nested procedurals
• ARNOLD-13776 – NaNs when using global light sampling with low-light-threshold
• ARNOLD-13789 – Corrupted tiff output if skip_alpha and unpremult_alpha are both enabled
• usd#1538 – Fix triplanar in USD MaterialX