Changelog / Updates

v2.8 - October 28, 2023

Following the changes in Blender 4.0 this update has 2 branches, one is compatible with Blender 3.x and the other with blender 4.0+
this will be the last update for the 3.x compatible version of Blender and from now on only the new blender 4.0 compatible version will be updated.

Materials

New:
-Bubble Wrap (4) - Fabric ✓
-Opus Roman Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Diamond Corner Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Mixed Tri Hex Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Star Diamond Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Mixed Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Thermal Blanket (4) - Fabric ✓
-Subway Tiles (4) - Buildings ✓
-Tech Grid (4) - Others ✓

Updated/fixed:
-The Materials Normal Bake output was baking in DirectX format instead of OpenGL (Blender Format), so it was fixed. ✓
-Sandpaper Material reworked to make it able to bake. ✓
-Parallax Materials: fixed the effect to work after rotating the object (old version parallax effect was getting broken when the object was rotated) ✓
-Smart Metal v2, Smart Metal v3, Smart Plastic: Added control to make AO only Local, This will change the way the AO mask (use in this materials to add dust) to react to close objects or only to it's own. If an object with a smart material is close to the ground or other object it will acumulate dust on those areas, if switched to local, the dirt will only acumulate on it's own occluded areas ✓
-Beach Sand - Added separate control for shells and snails height ✓
-Old Bronze, Old Copper, Old Gold, Old Metal and Old Steel materials border mask was reworked to add variation along edges and a Bevel Radius parameter was added to bevel sharp edge normals. ✓
-Smart Plastic edge mask reworked to look less homogeneous ✓
-Reworked sandpaper ✓
-Added Bevel control to Rubber ✓
-Hex tiles surface noise reduced ✓
-Parallax Sci Fi Panels FAN/LIGHT - The material was see through by mistake, I changed a few nodes to make it look the same but not see through.✓

GN Tools

Modified/Fixed:
-SL Dual Light 01 - Default color was not correct, so if you imported the asset it was correct, but if you applied the asset to an existing object the color was incorrect.✓
-SL Dual Light 01 and 02 - Added an option to hide the container object, in case you want to "Add" the asset to the scene instead of applying it to a specific object, and then move it arround as a light setup, once placed where you want you can hide the container.✓
-Lighting assets are now organized in collapsible menus for better control.✓
-Potions - The default light that goes through the glass was changed to 1x to have a more realistic result. Added a realize instances switch, you can activate and then apply the modifier to convert it to mesh.✓
-Book Shelf - added a switch to remove the books. Added a realize instances switch, you can activate and then apply the modifier to convert it to mesh.✓
-Cupcake - Added a realize instances switch, you can activate and then apply the modifier to convert it to mesh.✓

Shader Tools

New:
-Combine Normal Maps - Utils ✓
-Normal Str - Utils ✓
-Normal Map Rotation - Utils ✓
-Spherical to Vector - Utils ✓
-Vector to Spherical - Utils ✓
-Flip Normal Map - Utils ✓
-Diamond Tiles - Coordinates ✓
-Roman Tiles - Coordinates ✓
-Mixed Tri Hex - Coordinates ✓
-Star Diamond - Coordinates ✓
-Mixed Tiles - Coordinates ✓
-Decal Bake Combine (combine decal baked textures with a material baked textures to create a combined single material) - Utils ✓

Updated/Fixed:
Normal Bake - Utils - fixed to output OpenGL insted of DirectX normals.✓

Decal tool:
-The Decal Tool guide when you first place a decal now correcly matches the size and aspect ratio of the decal you are placing ✓
-While placing a new decal you can adjust the size with shift + mouse wheel (even if you can later resize the decal with parameters) ✓
-A text showing the commands that can be used while placing decals was added (place/resize/cancel placing) ✓
-A new Bump control based on the decal alpha and tearing was added to the decal parameters. ✓

Updated/fixed:
-Adding a custom decal now has the filter set to show images by default in the file browser (it was incorrectly filtering out images) ✓

Addon:

-New search system implemented to search by Name and Category of the current module (Materials/GNTools/Decals) - For now it only searches NAMES and CATEGORIES but I plan to add tags in the future.
-New filter added to the filter system (Material Requires UVs)
-Most GNTools now have their controls organized in Drop down menues to simplify them and make it easier to find and use.✓
-Baking results now have filters to organize by name or time. ✓
-Baking Queue has a new button to clean the queue. ✓
-Baking Queue items now have a toggle to hide them from baking in case you want to bake some of them with specific settings without the need to remove and add them again.
-Baking Was reworked and now supports baking objects with multiple materials.
-New option to select Displacement Method in the addon panel for materials that use displacement
-Added Material Slots and Link to the panel ✓
-Added options to hide/show Filters and Material Slots in the panel.✓
-All materials now have a documentation link on the top left corner of the selected material thumbnail leading to a specific page with render gallery, parameters documentation and technical information (content is in progress and it's scheduled to be complete by the end of november 2023).✓
-Completed documentation for all materials in the building category✓