New: GPU hair display (offloading viewport geometry calculation to the GPU)
New: Volumetric viewport hair shadows (on by default) with a variety of adjustable parameters
New: About dialog converted to Qt
New: All global settings are now in a separate Qt Settings dialog.
New: Settings Reset to defaults button.
New: Character mesh (separate from Distribution mesh) can now be assigned in Ground Strands modifier. It is used for hair shadows and will be used in various places (e.g. collisions) in the near future.
New: Combined root count related parameters in Hair from Guides modifier into one map
New: Added a UI slider to control clump editing position
New: Much faster clumper cage calculation through multi-threading
New: Internal/core speed and memory optimizations
New: Added curved extensions option to grow/shrink brush
Fixed: Much quicker clump position dragging by avoiding invalidation of clump cages
Fixed: Push Away From Surface doesn't change output when input geometry changes
Fixed: Don't draw actual hair when an overlay has 100% opacity
Fixed: Lines drawn in tools with non-0 thickness are treated as screen/pixel-scale values (as opposed to world units)
Fixed: Tools draw polylines without z-buffer (matching behavior on other hosts)
Fixed: Clumps closest to the viewer are selected on click, fixing a frustrating selection issue in Clump modifier.
Fixed: Curves imported into Edit Guides are sometimes straightened at the end
Fixed: GPU hair not displayed in orthographic views
Fixed: Lengthener "jumping" points issue when using curved extensions

Marsel Khadiyev (Software Developer, EPHERE Inc.)