4.56 – 10/4/2026

• New – Merge Passes: a Merge All button, and a progress bar that shows how far a merge has got.
  
• Improved – Much faster in large scenes: switching passes, refreshing the pass tree, and copying, deleting or de-instancing passes.
• Improved – Merge Passes is much faster with many passes, and no longer slows down as more are merged (200 passes: 34 seconds → 3 seconds).
• Improved – Generate Pass per Camera, Pass Builder and passes from CSV are faster.
• Improved – Resizing the LayerSet Editor and Set Editor no longer stutters in large scenes.
• Fixed – Merging passes did not keep the order from the file: base pass modifiers arrived reversed, and pass groups were placed ahead of the ungrouped passes.
• Fixed – Loading a missing, damaged or non-renderStacks package could wipe the current setup.
• Fixed – A failed package export could stop later changes from being saved to the scene, and left an rsDepot helper object behind.
• Fixed – MakePreview MP4 could report a failed encode as successful (and delete its frames and FFmpeg log) when an older MP4 already existed. FFmpeg launch failures and leftover preview files are no longer reported as success, and a % in the output path no longer breaks encoding.
• Fixed – Execute could run actions against the previous pass when a pass failed to activate, and stopped entirely when an action pass modifier was disabled on a pass. The path length check could also miss an over-limit MP4 preview.
• Fixed – Camera multi-pass, overscan and render settings were not restored if a pre-render script or the renderer failed.
• Fixed – A pass that failed output validation left Auto Key, Set Key and the command panel changed.
• Fixed – Merging passes could change object visibility when multi-visibility was on.
• Fixed – Save modifier: “Repath as relative path” did not save when toggled.
• Fixed – Tractor submissions failed silently when the Tractor API was not installed.
• Fixed – XRef merges repeated layer work each time renderStacks was reloaded.

4.44 – 8/2/2026

• New – Local render log. The Render Check dialog now has a “Save local render log to file” option. Each pass writes its own log file in real time, so the log survives even if 3ds Max crashes mid-render. The log includes pass activation, camera/resolution/frame range/output info, per-frame render times, and render start/end with durations. Each line is timestamped with the elapsed time since the previous entry.
  • Log file name is built with tokens, configurable in the new “Render Log File” group in the Preferences dialog. Default: <RenderFolder>/<SceneName>_<PassFullName>_<YY><MM><DD>_<Time>.log
    
  • “Log Pass Activation” option controls whether the pass activation details are included in the log file.
  • New path tokens: <YY> (2-digit year) and <Time> (HHMMSS).
• New – “Overwrite Existing Files” option in the Render Check dialog. When enabled, the “File Exists – Confirm overwriting” prompt is automatically confirmed during local renders.
  
• New – “Open Listener” option in the Render Check dialog. Opens the MAXScript Listener when any render/preview/batch button is pressed.
• Improved – “Remove OverScan Data” button added to the Camera pmodifier, and as a Utilities menu item. Removes any overscan FOV or focal length data left on the assigned camera after a render.
  
  
• Improved – The VRayVFBLayerTree pmodifier now records how its layer tree data was created: captured from the VFB or loaded from a file (with the source file name), and when. The info is shown as a tooltip on the Capture button.
  
• Improved – When a local render fails or is interrupted, the pass is now reported as FAILED instead of being counted as rendered.
• Improved – Security hardening for scene data handling.
• Fixed – DataGridView error (“rowIndex must be a non-negative value”) that could appear when a list was filled, in the pmodifier panels, the Render Check dialog and the Set Editor. This started with 3ds Max 2027.2.
• Fixed – “DataGridViewComboBoxCell value is not valid” error dialog when a stored value was no longer one of the available choices, for example an object set type or a layer name that had been renamed or removed. The stored value is now shown in the dropdown instead of raising an error.
• Fixed – Iterative (ActiveShade) rendering stayed switched off for the rest of the session if a pass failed to activate during a render. Render settings are now restored on every exit path.
• Fixed – A locked VRayVFBLayerTree or Maxscript pmodifier disabled the Renderer pmodifier panel instead of its own, and those two panels were never locked.
• Fixed – Spelling in several messages and labels (“Submitting”, “successfully”, “Performing”, “file is missing”, “executable file”).

4.34 – 3/23/2026

• New – Added “Passes to show in the Render Check” with 3 options: Selected, All, and None.
• New – Added total pass count display in Render Check.
  
• New – Added the same “Passes to show in the Render Check” option to Preferences and save it as a user setting.
  
• Improved – If rsUserRender() exists and Alt is not pressed, renderStacks will use that custom render function instead of opening the normal sanity check window.
• Improved – Post-submit message output can now be suppressed when needed by setting ::rsBlockPostSubmitMsg global variable and set to true.
• Improved – Preview rendering now restores viewport and render view state more reliably.
• Improved – When settype == #all, all layers are explicitly turned on before processing.
• mproved  – Added guards to prevent unwanted UI updates while Render Check is opening.
• Fixed – Changed default VRay Deep merge ZDepth threshold from 45.0 to 1.0.
• Fixed – Duplicate output path validation no longer runs when passes are hidden.

4.18 – 9/22/2025

• New – rsPassGenFromCVS utility: Generate passes and pmodifiers directly from a CSV file or the clipboard.
  *Commercial Version Only
• Improved – Set Editor: Users can now add or remove items in Layer Sets and Pass Sets via the right-click menu.
  
• Improved – RenderOutput pmod: Added a “Use VRay Frame Buffer” checkbox.
  
• Improved – RenderersParam pmod: Added support for Cylindrical camera type in VRay 7.2.
  

4.05 – 5/8/2025

• Improved -Maxscript pmod script textbox is now aligned left.
• Improved – rsPassBuilder – Select and untag rsPassBuilder pass, Delete existing pass builder pass is now optional.
• Improved – Added Sort items alphabetically for rsRenamer
• Fixed – Merge dialog becomes too big with a lot of passes
• Fixed – Empty Arnold AOV can crash renderStacks

GarageFarm.NET is supporting renderStacks!

Now you can just transfer one file and spawn 100s passes directly on the farm!

https://garagefarm.net/documentation/3ds-max-vray#RenderStacks