Improved PDG Async Importer performance.

Unreal 5.8 compatability fixes.

Changes to RV_Instance initialization, to allow Extra Extensions to be added at later point in startup. If new extensions are requested after the instance is created, but before the viewport is initialized, the instance will be re-initialized to include all extensions.

Fixed the TOP status bar work item selection menu so it can only be scrolled when the menu is open. This prevents accidental changes to the selected work item in the menu when using the mouse wheel to zoom the network editor, which could trigger a recook of displayed nodes that use work item attributes.

Added a console variable Houdini.GarbageCollection that can be used to enable/disable the plugin's explicit calls to Unreal's Garbage Collector.

Fixed an issue where custom instancer values would not be set correctly when using packed primitives.

Fixed baked actors not being recentered correctly.

Reduced schedular timing, improving performance.

XPU: improved error reporting when CUDA NVML library fails to load

Fixed a bug in outlines where depth-based detection may erroneously draw in lines over objects with outlines disabled that's in close proximity to objects with outlines enabled. Also addresses the issue where objects with outlines disabled always used random ID for contour detection, which prevented users from removing unwanted outlines on objects with outlines disabled using user-defined IDs.

XPU: fixed a gsplats SPH transform rendering bug

Add missing documentation for KARMA_ALBEDO_AOV_DIFFUSE environment variable.

Fixed Poly Frame tangent frame style of the input geometry in COP Preview Material SOP, to be linked to the MikkT Tangent Space toggle. This fixes render mismatch between VK and Karma rendering of normal maps.

Added HOUDINI_SCENEGRAPHTREE_ALPHASORT environment variable that controls whether to sort the scene graph tree alphabetically (1, the default), or to use the pri morder encoded in the USD data.

Fixed crash on File > New when a custom visualizer option was present. Such options are created using DM_RenderTable::installGeometryOption().

Fixed crash on File > New when a custom visualizer option was present. Such options are created using DM_RenderTable::installGeometryOption().

Fixed a bug where the MaterialX logical not operator could have resulted in a crash.

Fixed an issue where newly added instncer prototypes were not properly instantiated in Karma, which could lead to crashes

Fixed a bug in outlines where contour-based detection would fail against background if contour threshold is set to a large value.

Fixed an issue where HAPI_SetAttributeIndexedStringData() could crash if tuple size is not 1.

Added an option to use Unreal's Mesh Description structures when transfering data to Houdini (on by default). This can be disabled if the Mesh Description is inaccurate (eg. for modelling tools), in which case the render data is used instead.

Fixed a bug in Muscle Properties Otis and Muscle Constraint Properties Otis SOPs where adding a new property raised an error. Adding a new property can now be undone in one step.

Added support for UTF-8 characters in material parameter names for mesh inputs.