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SItoA 3.15 was released today, with portal lights.

Enhancements

• Updated to Arnold 4.2.15.1.
• Light portals: skydome lights can now use portals to reduce noise for interior scenes, where light comes in through relatively small openings. Light portals are regular quad_light nodes where the new parameter "portal" is enabled.
• OpenVDB motion blur optimization: faster rendering of motion blur from physics simulations, between 25% and 80% in test scenes with strong motion blur. The new velocity threshold parameter controls filtering of noisy/extreme velocities.
• Volume shader support for SDF (Signed Distance Function) grids.
• New core AOVs available: diffuse albedo, shadow matte.
• Added a detailed texture statistics diagnostic flag.

https://support.solidangle.com/display/SItoAUG/3.15

This is a great news. Arnold is a great render engine but since Solidangle was joined to Autodesk, all was point to stopping SItoA development.

I hope they keep developing SItoA always, but under Autodesk direction I'm sceptic.

Three years after Softimage EOL still can't beliver that Autodesk decision.

At some point it just becomes a business decision.
Why waist the man hours to program for something only a handful of people are still using. It's a matter of time before the 'tipping point' is reached, and your 'stuck' with the latest version SA is going to release for SI.

It's tough, but SI is already falling behind all things new, and as much as we like the software, we have to move on at some point.
And I have to say Maya has been improved workflow wise since 2016. And no, it's still not as friendly as SI is.
But with the adoption of Arnold by AD, it's only logical the render development is going towards 'active' applications, being Maya, Max, Houdini , Cinema4D and Katana.

It that what you want to hear? Probably not. Is it a logical progression? yes it is. ;)

rob