The particle data is stored in a separate texture if any of the dupli objects uses particle info nodes in shaders. To map dupli objects onto particles the store an additional particle_index value, which is different from the simple dupli object index (only visible particles, also works for particle dupli groups mode).
Some simple use cases on the code.blender.org blog:
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/05/particle-info-node/
Most of the changes are related to adding support for motion data throughout
the code. There's some code for actual camera/object motion blur raytracing
but it's unfinished (it badly slows down the raytracing kernel even when the
option is turned off), so that code it disabled still.
Motion vector export from Blender tries to avoid computing derived meshes
when the mesh does not have a deforming modifier, and it also won't store
motion vectors for every vertex if only the object or camera is moving.
and 5 float image textures. For CPU render this limit will be lifted later
on with image cache support. Patch by Mike Farnsworth.
Also changed color space option in image/environment texture node, to show
options Color and Non-Color Data, instead of sRGB and Linear, this is more
descriptive, and it was not really correct to equate Non-Color Data with
Linear.
By default lighting from the world is computed solely with indirect light
sampling. However for more complex environment maps this can be too noisy, as
sampling the BSDF may not easily find the highlights in the environment map
image. By enabling this option, the world background will be sampled as a lamp,
with lighter parts automatically given more samples.
Map Resolution specifies the size of the importance map (res x res). Before
rendering starts, an importance map is generated by "baking" a grayscale image
from the world shader. This will then be used to determine which parts of the
background are light and so should receive more samples than darker parts.
Higher resolutions will result in more accurate sampling but take more setup
time and memory.
Patch by Mike Farnsworth, thanks!
* Passes renamed to samples
* Camera lens radius renamed to aperature size/blades/rotation
* Glass and fresnel nodes input is now index of refraction
* Glossy and velvet fresnel socket removed
* Mix/add closure node renamed to mix/add shader node
* Blend weight node added for shader mixing weights
There is some version patching code for reading existing files, but it's not
perfect, so shaders may work a bit different.
* Add max diffuse/glossy/transmission bounces
* Add separate min/max for transparent depth
* Updated/added some presets that use these options
* Add ray visibility options for objects, to hide them from
camera/diffuse/glossy/transmission/shadow rays
* Is singular ray output for light path node
Details here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Render/Cycles/LightPaths
* Add alpha pass output, to use set Transparent option in Film panel.
* Add Holdout closure (OSL terminology), this is like the Sky option in the
internal renderer, objects with this closure show the background / zero
alpha.
* Add option to use Gaussian instead of Box pixel filter in the UI.
* Remove camera response curves for now, they don't really belong here in
the pipeline, should be moved to compositor.
* Output full float values for rendering now, previously was only byte precision.
* Add a patch from Thomas to get a preview passes option, but still disabled
because it isn't quite working right yet.
* CUDA: don't compile shader graph evaluation inline.
* Convert tabs to spaces in python files.
