MoonRay for Modo 0.3.51.3

Native Windows experimental release for Modo 16.1v9. This is 0.3.51.2 with Safe Denoising no longer holding a render back. Download the kit and the windows-runtime ZIPs and follow INSTALLATION.md; the content ZIP is optional and adds MoonRay's ten example scenes to the asset library. All three unpack to a MoonRayForModo folder; merge them into one.

If you already have 0.3.51, 0.3.51.1 or 0.3.51.2, only the kit ZIP is different: the runtime and the content are the same.

Fixed since 0.3.51.2

• A safe render keeps pace with a normal one. MoonRay stops rendering while it saves, and a heavy scene's save is long: with 26 buffers at 1920 x 900 each save took about ten seconds, and at a save every three seconds most of the render's time went to saving. Saves are now spaced by how much there is to write: every three seconds for a small picture, up to every two minutes for a large one with many buffers, so that saving takes about a sixth of the time at most. Under Safe Denoising the view is brought up to date at each save, so on a heavy scene it changes less often than a normal render's does, and a stop keeps the render as it was at the last save.
• Stop keeps the picture with Safe Denoising off too. A normal MoonRay preview stopped by hand (Live off, a denoiser on) is kept as it stood and denoised, at no cost while it renders. Only the beauty and its denoised picture are kept this way. Safe Denoising is now only needed for Continue, and to keep every buffer of a stopped render.
• A new render starts from an empty view, whatever buffer is shown. With Denoised Beauty chosen, the last render's denoised picture stayed up while the new one rendered, which looked like a render that had stopped improving. The beauty is now shown as it comes on, and the denoised picture takes its place when it is ready.
• A stop under Safe Denoising ends at once when MoonRay is between saves, and waits only for a save that is being written.

Earlier fixes

0.3.51.2 fixed renders that did not refresh after a stop; 0.3.51.1 fixed Draft and Stop.

New in 0.3.51

Everything in 0.3.51. The full list, with pictures, is in What's new in 0.3.51.

What was checked

On an origami cheetah scene (1920 x 900, 26 buffers) in a separate test copy of Modo:

• Before the fix, a safe render showed 3 pictures in four minutes against 33 for a normal render, and its estimate was about three times as long. MoonRay alone, with and without the saves, comes to the same picture for the same samples; the cost was the saving.
• With the saves spaced (every 100 seconds in that test; the release saves a little more often, every 56 seconds for that scene), a safe render's estimate was in line with a normal render's, and a stop at 200 seconds ended at once, kept and denoised, with Continue on offer.
• A normal render stopped at 80 seconds was kept and denoised.

On a light two-ball scene, a normal render and a safe render were each stopped at 25 seconds and each was kept and denoised. In the normal one, very faint marks can remain in the denoised picture where MoonRay was part way through a pixel as the picture was taken.

Not checked: Continue after the change in how often MoonRay saves, beyond its being offered; the final spacing of the saves on the cheetah scene; a stop of a normal render with Live on (it is left as it was). The packaged kit and runtime ZIPs were unpacked into an empty folder and passed the release check. One machine, as before.