This build is a release candidate; It has all the features we plan to add for Stoke 1.0 so its now just a matter of making sure everything works properly in all situations. Please let us know when you encounter any rough edges.
(Attachments removed)
[size=150]Changes since RC2[/size]
- Implemented a new algorithm for creating many particles from small particle sets that have IDs. This also fixes the problem with emitting from TP particles with sub-samples which used to produce less particles than expected.
- Added new “Use New Particles Only” option to particle distribution objects. When checked (default), only new particles will be considered as seeds, assuming a valid ID channel is present. When unchecked, or if no ID channel is found, every particle will be considered a seed regardless of when it was born. Together with the existing “Use Seed Count As Rate”, this provides 4 different distribution modes when using seed particles.
- Added optional per-object Grid settings. This allows you to have two particle systems that have completely different grid settings to better capture their specific motion, or set one to use Fluid Motion while another does not.
- The Velocity list will now show Scale, Grid Size, Padding and Fluid Motion since they can be all per-object.
- When the Use Global Grid Settings option is turned off, the Velocity Sources filter will allow the same particle source to be picked multiple times to add multiple versions together. This way, you can have the same particle system mixed with itself two or three times with different grid sizes to “blur” its influence. Be sure to set the Scale to less than 1.0 for the multiple instances since the mixing is currently additive.
- Added a checkbox to allow the picking of the same Distribution object more than once. It is unchecked by default, so picking Box001 will remove it from future picks. When checked, you can add the same object as many times as you want and give each instance different settings. This way, you can for example mix emission from vertices and edges, or surface plus volume etc.
- To facilitate the management of the same object picked more than once, the storage of the active objects for both lists had to be changed. Previously, the list of active objects was stored in the parameter block in addition to all objects. In this version, a boolean flags list stores the enabled state of the objects from the full list. As result, loading scenes saved with previous versions of Stoke will FORGET the disabled states of some objects - all objects will be turned on. Once modified manually, the new states will be recorded. Similarly, loading a scene saved with this version in an older version of Stoke will DISABLE all checkboxes because the active objects list would be empty.
- Implemented the File Name Prefix [>>] button to show a menu with two options - “Default Name ‘Stoke’” and “Object Name ‘Stoke001’” where the latter uses the name of the current Stoke object.
[size=150]Bug Fixes[/size]
- Fixed the Preview Nth problem not updating when Disk Cache was on.
- Fixed a problem when attempting to use a [>>] preset button (e.g. Icon Size) while in Create mode but before a scene object is actually created. Now the menu won’t open unless a valid Stoke object is created.
- Fixed an error in the Pick Output Path function of the Folder menu which wasn’t expanding the $default path correctly.
- Fixed handling of Missing Plugins. When an instance of a plugin object (e.g. TP) was added to Stoke and the scene was loaded on a machine with that plugin missing, it was confusing Stoke because the object type was coming as undefined. This is now handled correctly.
- The Geometry Mode property was not being managed correctly when adding/removing Distribution sources. If you added 3 objects, set the third to use Edges>Edge Selection and then deleted the first or second, the settings of the third were corrupted, switching to Surface mode instead. This has been fixed.
- Added an error trap and error message when the Add Magma and Delete Modifiers button for deleting by Age causes a problem.
[size=150]Not Fixed In Stoke[/size]
- The problem with Magma modifiers not updating dynamically when >AUTO is checked will be fixed by a Krakatoa update.
- The problem with modifiers in general not updating when turned on/off on the Stoke’s stack is related to the use of Scripted Plugins are will be left unaddressed for now.
The attached ZIP file contains the latest Scripts with fixes to bugs reported in the 3 days since the uploading of the RC3 build.
Please unzip into the Thinkbox\Stoke MX\Scripts\ folder and restart Max.
[size=150]Bug Fixes[/size]
- Fixed a crash when creating a PRT Loader or Delete By Age modifiers and Krakatoa was installed after Stoke. Some global variables were not initialized and Stoke did not know about PRT Loader and Krakatoa Delete modifiers if the Krakatoa entry was later in the plugin.ini file. This is now fixed.
- Fixed a huge Time Step bug which was caused by an unexpected time value handling by MAXScript. You can read more here: viewtopic.php?f=162&t=9543#p40923
- Added callbacks to reset Stoke objects before File>Open and File>New All. Previously, resetting was performed only on File>Reset and this could cause apparent memory leaking between scenes if no File>Reset was performed manually.
- Deleting a Distribution source picked via the Pick… button (as opposed to By Name…) was causing an error due to a missing property in one of the value tabs.
[size=150]UI Enhacements[/size]
- Changed the Velocity Scale range to allow negative values for special cases where a velocity has to be reversed.
StokeUI_20130429.zip (29.1 KB)