Simplygon 9.1 Release Notes

Latest Simplygon 9.1 release 9.1.42900.0

• Max
  • Fixed issue where texture path cache did not get cleared between runs
  • Fixed issue with file path when importing sgScene with embedded textures
  • Added "Unsafe" import (sgsdk_SetAllowUnsafeImport) to allow import of sgScenes into another Max session
  • Import (of sgScene) is now more passive and will allow import even if some errors are detected
  • Improved warning- and error messages
  • Added support for morph targets (for Reduction)
  • Added support for first level material nodes in standard material (Tint, Multiply, Composite)
  • Now reads alpha source (Opaque, RGB Intensity, Image alpha) and pre-multiplied flags
  • SceneRadius attribute does no longer include camera position
• Maya
  • SceneRadius attribute does no longer include camera position
• Max and Maya
  • Added option to skip UI metadata when batch importing legacy setting files
• API
  • Fixed rare "Bad geometry" issue caused by incorrect order of triangles
  • Fixed issue with input FBX geometry normals being ignored if not normalized
  • Added more thorough validation and reporting of input settings
  • Added global setting to fully ignore and override gamma settings in PNG files
  • Added setting for forcing soft edges within texture charts, to improve normal map quality
  • Fixed issue where minimum gutter space between charts was not respected.
  • Added global setting (IgnoreCameraInExtentsCalculation) to exclude SceneCamera when calling Scene's CaclulateExtens & GetRadius method.
    • NOTE: When using GetRadius in LODTransition calculations set IgnoreCameraInExtentsCalculation to true.
• Known issues
  • When using the AggregationProcessor, using input scenes containing triangles with degenerate vertex indices like {0,1,1} may cause the potential following MaterialCasting to reference the wrong original triangles and cause artefacts. Will be fixed in next release, and can be avoided by running geometryData->Compact() on the geometries in the scene before processing.

Older Simplygon 9.1 releases

9.1.39000.0

• UE4
  • Fixed default generation of diffuse sample if baking matieral and source material is missing basecolor channel data as flatten material requires it.
  • Fxed Lightmap UV generation for BillboardCloud pipeline.
  • Default lightmap setting based on LOD0
  • Added optional misc setting to remove UV sets from LODs(BillboardCloud) as a workaround for when all 8 UV sets are used in LOD0 which prevent from newly generated UV to be not copied over.
• Maya
  • Fixed crash issue when loading UI in Maya 2017
• Max
  • Added reading of texture tiling and offset
• Python
  • Added support for unicode type in Python 2.x
• Loader
  • Fixed compilation issues when compiling SimplygonLoader using C++20

9.1.36100.0

• Max
  • Fixed issue that resulted in the generated mesh's skin cluster referencing bones more than once (Aggregation, Remeshing)
  • Added support for PassthroughPipeline (scripting)
  • Removed artificial limit of 1 child per level for cascaded pipelines (scripting)
• Maya
  • Added workaround for Simplygon UI "loading" issue in Maya 2020.0 (we recommend updating to Maya 2020.1 or later)
  • Added support for PassthroughPipeline (scripting)
  • Removed artificial limit of 1 child per level for cascaded pipelines (scripting)
  • Fixed issue when multiple WPF plugins are loaded in Maya
• UE4
  • Added foliage pipelines UObjects and custom pipelines (BillboardCloud, Flipbook).
  • New Standin pipeline to generate non-foliage Billboard Clouds.
  • New BaseMaterials for dealing with BillboardCloud and Flipbook materials.
  • Added new Blueprint Utilities modules that exposes utility methods for use in Python scripting.
  • SimplygonUObjects are now blueprintable, allowing access through Python scripting.
  • Added example Python script.
  • Fixed material references breaking after NumLODs array resizes.
  • Fixed default Opacity channel to use when casting OpacityMask.

9.1.34800.0

• Blender
  • Added script templates for Aggregation and Remeshing
• Maya
  • Fixed export of layered (alpha) uv-set and sRGB
  • Added material caster query functions (GetMaterialCasterCount, GetMaterialCasterType) to SimplygonPipeline command
  • Exposed ShadingGeometryFieldNode and additional SimplygonShadingNetwork flags (SetGeometryFieldName, SetGeometryFieldIndex, SetGeometryFieldType)
  • Fixed issue that prevented Remeshing (without material) to be written back properly
• Max
  • Fixed writeback of negative mapping channels (alpha and illumination)
  • Exposed ShadingGeometryFieldNode and additional functions (sgsdk_GeometryNodeSetFieldName, sgsdk_GeometryNodeSetFieldIndex, sgsdk_GeometryNodeSetFieldType)
• UE4
  • Support for Unreal Engine 4.27

9.1.32800.0

• Max/Maya
  • Added support for batch importing legacy settings
  • Fixed crash in log tab (locale issue)
• Max
  • Added support for Max 2022
  • Fixed material mapping issue at import when using EXPORT_TO_FILE
  • Added warning level logging functionality
  • Added reporting of unsupported material nodes
• Maya
  • Fixed UI not loading issue
  • Added reading of Alpha texture for standard materials with layered textures
  • Fixed reading of tiling, offset, colorGain, sRGB, uv-set for layered textures
  • Fixed export of vertex color alpha
• UE4
  • Fixed an issue where the plugin made cooking hang
• Fix memory leak in C# wrapper
• Fix for material mapping issue in ImpostorProcessor that sometimes caused strange foliage geometry distribution
• Fix SimplygonBatch output issue
• Fix crash caused by empty VertexMaterialIds field in welder
• Fix division by zero crash in ImageSaver::SaveFile

9.1.29600.0

• Blender
  • Fix loading/saving pipelines in Blender 2.93
• 3ds Max/Maya/Unity
  • Fix loading legacy settings
• 3ds Max
  • Billboard cloud is now using the correct up vector
• UE4
  • Improved flatten material texture quality
  • Fix, user section data is now restored when generating skeletal mesh LODs
  • Fix, applying new LODs to skeletal mesh was causing memory leaks
• Unity
  • Added support for USD package 3.0
  • Added UI logger tab
• Added COM Initialization to Simplygon Grid
  • API user, who wish to use BC4 (DDS), are required to add CoInitialize and CoUninitialize call in the host application.

9.1.27400.0

• Max/Maya
  • Added UI logger tab
    • Added tooltips for entries
    • Added sorting and filtering of entries
    • Added export to file
    • Added copy to clipboard
    • Added context menus for copy, copy all, clear all
  • Updated Max dark style
  • Redirected and improved logging from Max and Maya to UI
  • Added logging of invalid pipelines
  • Simplygon Houdini nodes in Max/Maya are now supported
• Unity/USD
  • Fixed infinite hang when reporting progress from another thread
  • Now hooks back constant vertex color field as constant (allows material fallback to vertex color in Unity.USD)
  • Fixed vertex color issue in some specific circumstances
• UE4
  • Improved IncrediBuild support for LOD Recipe
  • Fix, sometimes plugin modules prevented UE editor to close cleanly
  • Fix, baking materials for meshes with unordered sections should now give correct mapping in the baked material
  • Fix, LOD recipes with multiple material bakes should now map resulting material correctly to each LOD
• More user friendly out-of-memory messages
• Fix hang when running occlusion mesh processor
• Add option for grid agent to write log to file
• Billboard cloud performance improvements
• Add diffuse channel fallback in glTF importer
• Mapping image is now available as expected after running pipelines in new or distributed process
• Added support for TIFF files with deflate compression

9.1.25200.0

• Unity
  • Plugin now creates a prefab for each LOD in a pipeline
  • Added support for scene nodes with identical scene paths
• Maya
  • Added support for Maya 2022
  • Added more standard material channels (translucence, translucenceDepth, translucenceFocus)
  • Fixed color management overriding sRGB incorrectly
  • Disabled sRGB for transparency
• UE4
  • New LOD Recipe feature: "Allow Morph Targets" - use it to decide whether or not to allow morph target in the LODs
  • Improved IncrediBuild support for Standin
  • New plugin setting to be able to choose distribution system (Simplygon Grid, FASTBuild or IncrediBuild)
  • Optimizations to mesh and texture data conversions
  • Fixed so a mesh that already belongs to a LOD recipe is now properly removed when the mesh is added to a new LOD Recipe
  • Fixed SimplygonEditorCommands crash bug
• Blender
  • Pipeline loading stability fixes
  • Add default file extension to exported pipeline if missing in file name
  • Added Simplygon version to UI
• Set weights crash fix
• Improved memory usage for scenes with large amounts of materials
• Processors preserve the texcoord levels of named texcoord fields when possible
• Improved remesher memory allocation failure logging
• Empty input material tables now throws an assert
• Improved logging and output from Grid Agent service
• Fix crash when using a geometry field node together with a filter node in a shading network
• Fixed invalid black output when using a color caster on an FBX exported by Simplygon

9.1.22400.0

• 3ds Max/Maya
  • Added TextureDirectory button and browser
  • Fixed issue when passing TextureOutputDirectory between UI and plug-in
• Unity
  • Fix for material names in GeometryDataCaster
  • Support for prefab creation
• FBX
  • Read material channel colors from FBX files
• UE4
  • Fixed hardcoded path to SimplygonSDK inside the Simplygon module. The plugin should now work properly when putting it in project plugins folder.
  • Fixed plugin compile issues when disabling PCH usage
  • Added pipeline error checks. Errors should now be reported to the output log if a simplygon pipeline fails.
  • Removed redundant processing timer. Pipeline execution time is now reported once to the output log.
• Fixed inconsistent UV borders for ReductionProcessor
• Python SDK stability improvements
• Move installer, Uninstall.exe and SimplyUpdate.exe to .NET 5 to avoid random start-up failures
• Fix for field index verification in ShadingGeometryFieldNode

9.1.20400.0

• 3ds Max
  • Preserving unmapped vertex color fields
• Maya
  • Added support for color management
• Unity
  • Texcoords now imported even if not used
  • Support for casting to other file format than PNG
  • Fix for invalid number of submeshes in LOD
  • Import method extended to better support custom scripting
• 3ds Max, Maya and Unity
  • Fix for failing to import cascaded pipelines in UI
• Support for indexed textures with bit depth 1
• Support for Python 3.9

9.1.19200.0

• 3ds Max
  • Support for materials with the same name
• 3ds Max and Maya
  • Texture output directory option now available in the UI
  • Select processed meshes option now available in the UI
• glTF
  • Fixed crashes when exporting skinned assets
• New console input parameter for license application -DontSendTelemetry

9.1.17700.0

• Blender
  • Extended BSDF material support
• glTF
  • Added support for KHR_materials_clearcoat
  • Added support for KHR_materials_transmission
• Fix for incorrect blending when using ETextureBlendType::Over
• Memory usage optimizations
• Added memory tracking tool

9.1.16600.0

• Blender
  • Reduction template now works in Blender 2.91 and 2.92
• Unity
  • All Simplygon namespaces are now available in the Simplygon.Unity.EditorPlugin.dll and can be used for scripting
  • The SPL/ini dependency is now removed from the editor plugin src for easy compilation
  • Fix for missing environment variables when running Simplygon in Unity for the first time
• UE4
  • Fixed section info mapping for LODs with no material baking
• FBXExporter
  • Fix for preserving scene units
• GLTFImporter
  • Default material is now added to avoid crash if materials are missing
• Added STL file format support
• Fixed memory leak in color caster and DDS writer

9.1.14300.0

• Welcoming Simplygon Free users to Simplygon 9
• Unity / USD
  • Added support for texture wrapping (repeat, clamp, mirror) to USD
  • Path, WrapMode and SRGB are now texture specific
  • Fixed issue when using Unity's Unlit shader (caused by invalid color values in USD)
  • Fixes for root node rotation and scaling issues
  • Always add base color when using automatic casters
  • Fix for metallic/smoothness automatic casters and material channel name
  • Added check for USD 2.0 installation status
  • Documentation updates
  • Knows issues:
    • Unity.USD.Export ignores SRGB - USD implementation limited to detecting normal maps
    • Unity.USD.Import ignores WrapMode - USD fully support WrapMode
    • Unity.USD does not export offset and tiling - USD does not seem to support these
• Blender
  • Fix crash when processing an asset without basecolor texture in Blender
  • Added warnings for unsupported material channels
  • Added checkboxes to the different reduction targets for StopCondition to function properly
  • Added processing progress tracking
  • Fixed automatic material casters
  • Fixed SingleViewImpostor view direction
  • Material caster deserialization fix
  • Fixes for processing issues with cascaded and non-cascaded processings
  • Documentation updates
• Maya
  • Removed length limit of field names for UVs and vertex colors
• GLTFExporter
  • Fix for opacity in basecolor alpha channel
  • Fix crash when exporting asset without basecolor texture
• Add ability to run Simplygon Grid Agent as a service
• Add option for setting FBX file format version when using FBXExporter
• Added possibility to zoom images in documentation
• Fix crash when trying to run a remeshing with ERemeshingMode::Inside on a mesh without an inside
• Fix crash when processing in Houdini (add support for GlobalAttributes in bgeo files)
• Fix material section info when processing static meshes via LOD recipes in UE4

9.1.9100.0

• Support passthrough of animation data in glTF
• Read access violation fix
• Houdini plugin fixes;
  • Fix memory leak in HoudiniExporter
  • Fix for missing temp dir in HDA scripts
  • Added early check for triangulated input in HoudiniImporter
  • Fix for temp dir cleanup
• Changes to ERemeshingMode::Manual due to known issues with the implementation in 9.1 (will be fixed in 9.2). See ERemeshingMode for more information.
• UE plugin fixes;
  • Fix, incorrect section info mapping when using reduction pipeline from LOD Recipe
  • Fix, crash when using the plugin without a valid license
  • Fix, material baking settings was not reset correctly when removing all material property casters
  • Fix, reset mapping image settings when material baking is disabled
  • Chart aggregator is now using correct default values (same as aggregation)
  • Added LOD streaming settings to LOD Recipe
• Fix serialization of tangent space global settings
• General Unity plugin improvements related to material mapping, transparency, skinning and impostor processor support. Upgrade to Unity.USD 2.0.
• General Blender plugin improvements including UI cleanup, progress tracking and normal maping fixes etc.
• Improved memory usage for long running processes using Simplygon
• Fixed issue with MaxEdgeLength causing bad outputs. Default is now REAL_MAX and setting removed from integration UIs.

9.1.6600.0

• Support for Unity USD package 2.0
• Fixed crash when appending packed geometry with very few vertices
• Fixed issue with OpacityInAlpha in color caster

9.1.6200.0

• Support for running SimplygonGrid over multiple subnets
• Support for distributing processings without locally installed license
• Maya - fixed mapping issue related to bones with same name
• Maya - stability improvements
• 3ds Max - stability improvements

9.1.5200.0

• glTF texture packing improvements
• Fixed crash in legacy remesher

9.1.4100.0

• Blender 2.91 support
• Fix for 3ds Max multi-material mapping issue
• Fix for morph target issue
• Unity impostor fix

9.1.3200.0

• Blender fixes
• glTF texture name handling

Initial release (9.1.2600.0)

Major updates

• Standalone UE4 plugin
• New impostor processor
• Autodesk 3ds Max plugin (Max 2021 in preview)
• FASTBuild and Incredibuild support
• New integrations as previews: Blender, Houdini & Unity
• New file formats: USD and Alembic

Simplygon API updates

• Ability to use opacity as transparency in material casters
• Foliage processor is now part of impostor processor type: billboard cloud
• Added posibilty to add meshes to CameraSelectionSets
• Visibility support in new remeshing processor
• Added method to dump a settings object as JSON
• Added geometry field shading node
• Added missing rotation methods to texture shading node interface

Pipeline updates

• Added batch API
• Added support for metadata in pipeline settings
• Added cascaded pipeline support in pipeline settings path
• Arbitrary pipeline in cascade mode as intermediate
• New setting for unique material names in pipelines

Max plugin updates

• Camera support for visibility
• Automatic export of active selection sets
• New impostor pipeline
• Added support for legacy INI settings
• Added support for physical material system in Max 2021 preview

Maya plugin updates

• Camera support for visibility
• Automatic export of active selection sets
• New impostor pipeline
• ShaderFX/Stingray PBS documentation
• Added support for legacy INI settings

File format updates

• Support for glTF KHR_texture_transform
• Skinning support for glTF
• glTF: Support for separate wrap modes
• Support for Alembic and USD