This page contains information on all the ArtEngine releases of 2021, including new features and fixes.
The versions are listed in order of release, from most recent to last.
ArtEngine version 2021.15.1
Release date: December 6th, 2021
Officially supported Nvidia Drivers
Versions 461.72 or later.
New Features and Improvements
Plane Generator and Export Mesh
The Plane Generator node takes a mesh input (usually a high poly) and outputs a poly with a predefined amount of faces that the curvature of the input will be projected onto. This output can then be used in the Baker node as the low poly input, or exported to a desired location via the Export Mesh node.
- Subdivisions: This slider determines the poly count in the output mesh, and controls how detailed it should be. The current range is between 2 and 2000, although 2000 will result in a large mesh which is not optimal for high to low poly baking. Smaller subdivisions are recommended.
- Coverage: This slider determines the surface area of the high poly to capture and project onto the newly generated plane. It is a percentage value that defaults to 100% i.e. the surface of the entire high poly will be projected.
Templates - Categorization and Favorites filter
The Templates panel has been updated with categorization for ease of navigation.
UI Refresh
The Unity ArtEngine User Interface is getting revamped. In this release,
- Node graph - Nodes now show which ones are selected and imbued with a blue stroke around the node. The color scheme of the Node execution status has been updated to make it more intuitive. Black means the node has not been executed, orange means it has old data and needs to be re-executed and green means it has been executed successfully.
- 2D/ 3D Viewers - The Headers are now fixed and the Footer of the 2D viewer now shows pixel location and color information.
- Interactive elements now have more consistent hover and selected states and the color scheme makes it easier to intuitively know what toggles and buttons need to be pressed.
- Logo and splash screen aligned with latest Unity branding.
Unity Window in ArtEngine (beta)
ArtEngine users no longer have to skip back and forth between ArtEngine and Unity when they want to validate their HDRP materials. You simply right click on the node you want in the node graph and select View in HDRP Viewer, to see the bitmap or material launch inside a HDRP Unity Scene in ArtEngine. You can turn on and off a range of effects like Bloom and SSAO to get a sense of how your material will look in Unity without having to open the Unity Editor.
ChromeBall Updates
You can now:
- Change the normal intensity on the images generated by the Chrome Ball node.
- Change the Shadow Strength on the images generated by the Chrome Ball node.
- Use spheres and hemispheres as guides to the light direction in my pictures inside the Chrome Ball node.
Baker Updates
- Added CLI support for Baker.
- Baker performance & visual improvements.
- Created a new BakerPlane Node, A new node called Plane Generator, that takes a high poly as an input.
Batching Node - Custom Name Types
Users of the Batching node can now just batch bitmaps with certain name types. For example if you just want to batch all the normal maps inside a folder you can just enter the name type you want in the Filter Maps field.
Resolved Issues
- Fixed an issue where you cannot execute a saved project with Mutation Structure Patch Detection.
- Clones stamp fixes:
- Fixed a variety of issues in the Clone Stamp node that affected performance
- Linearity of the generated output bitmap/material was not being set in the Clone Stamp node.
- Cannot switch between maps after project re-open.
- Fixed issues around undoing stamps.
- Unity Window fixes:
- Incorrect rotation of Unity Window camera while using the UV scaling.
- Hard crash when navigating to a new project with the HDRP window still open.
- Chrome Ball fixes:
- Loss of output after project save.
- Cannot stop node execution.
- Cannot preview node in the 2D Viewport.
- Backwards compatibility.
- Multi-Angle to Texture node - Property ‘Focal Pt. Distance’ has been increased from 100cm to 250cm.
- Fixed an issue where CLI did not support Blend Material node.
Known Issues
- Seam Removal, Mutation, Mutation (Structure): using an Ignore mask with hard edges may sometimes cause artifacts in the output of these nodes. There is a known workaround for this problem, which is to blur (or feather) the mask edges. You can do so in one of the following ways:
- When creating the mask using a Mask Paint node, you can adjust the hardness property of your brush at the time of painting to ensure mask edges are feathered.
- When working with an existing mask, you can pass it through a Blur node before connecting it to the Ignore port of Smart Mutation nodes.
- Nodes that are not recommended for Batching: Color to Mask, Color Muse, Mask Paint, Color Transfer, and in general nodes that are more specific to the individual bitmaps coming through.
- There is an issue with Batching creating extra black maps for output folders to make up the difference in numbers, if one input folder has more maps than another.