JannisX11/blockbench v4.12.0

4.12.0 - The Collection & Selection Update

on GitHub

Key Features

These are the key features of Blockbench 4.12. You can read more about each feature at the bottom of the changelog.

Collections

Collections are a new feature in Blockbench. A collection can hold a selection of outliner groups and elements, regardless of their hierarchy.
Collections allow you to better organize your project, and create partial exports.
The Collections panel can be enabled from View > Panels > Collections.

• Added Collections
• Added Collection Panel
• Added options to export Collections using enabled codecs (#2235)

Physically-based Rendering

This update adds physically based rendering options to Blockbench textures. This adds the concept of "Materials", which are optional and are an extension of texture groups.
PBR materials are currently optimized for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition formats, support in other formats is planned for the future.

• Added materials as an extension of texture groups
• Added "Material Preview" view mode
• Added option to generate PBR maps from existing textures
• Added import and export support for bedrock texture_set.json files
• Added Tone Mapping setting with 6 tone mapping presets

Group Multi-select

You can now select multiple groups at once in the outliner!

Lasso Selection Tool

The lasso selection tool lets you select a free-form area of your texture. You can either drag to create a shape, or click multiple times to move in straight lines.
Click back at the start position of your shape to complate the selection. Press Escape to cancel.

UV Navigation Arrow

Navigating UV maps can be complicated, especially on large models. The UV Navigation Arrow makes this easier.
It's a blue arrow in the UV Editor that points to the selected face. Click it to navigate to those faces. Hold Control while clicking to zoom in on the selection as well.

Modeling

• Added Vertex Snap Rotation snap mode (#665)
• Added option to ignore axis in vertex snap
• Added Apply Mirror Modeling action
• Added direction options for extruding
• Add "even extend" option for extruding
• Add unit option to Loop Cut amend edit menu
• Mirror modeling option to not mirror UV
• Option in template generator to disable UV mirroring (#2218)
• Optional modifier for "Delete" action to keep edges or vertices

Image Editing

• Added lasso selection tool
• Added line tool snapping
• Added image export option in File menu
• Added 'Overlay' blend mode for brush and layers
• Optimized rendering of 3D brush outline (#2559, thanks @Nestorboy)
• 3D brush outlines now properly aligns to stretched and sheared UVs (#2529, thanks @Nestorboy)

Animation

• Added timeline scrubbing audio preview
• Made timeline audio preview no longer clickable
• Menu option to edit animations and controllers externally (#1899)
• Added ability to rearrange animators in the timeline by dragging
• Keep bones in timeline when switching animation

UI Improvements

• Added linked ratio toggle for vector form inputs (#2521)
• Increased start screen thumbnail resolution
• Added Panels menu under View
• Panels can now be hidden in specific modes from the View menu
• Moved mesh tools to new independent menu
• Made proportional editing option visible when no meshes are selected

Minecraft Features

• JPM import and export is now based on JEM submodels (fixes #456)
• Detect if texture is applied and not export as default in JEM (#2457)
• "Goat Horn" Reference Model for Item Models (#2248)
• Bedrock display settings now only exports modified slots
• Added Fit to Frame option in bedrock GUI display settings (Fixes #2592)

Settings & Controls

• Added classroom mode - Mode for teachers and educators to enable on classroom computers. Restricts some features and removes social media bannera.
• Added setting to track selection changes in undo history
• Added navigation sensitivity settings
• Added setting to adjust 2D editor zoom speed
• Added pop-up to offer restart if changing a setting requires it
• Added selection tolerance setting (for vertices and edges)
• Optional modifiers: Add inverted option for all modifiers
• Center on Selection: Optional zoom modifier (#1447)
• Added gamepad navigation support

Miscellaneous

• Tool config system with custom forms, currently implemented by
  • Mirror Painting
  • Tiled View
  • Image Editor Onion Skin
  • Animation Onion Skin
  • Proportional Editing
  • Mirror Modeling
    
• Added option to sync GIF turntable speed to animation length
• Element property toggles (visibility, export etc.) now display their state in the icon (#952)
• Using undo now switches edit modes
• Added Bluesky to About window

Technical changes

• Added forms as a standalone UI element that can be used outside of dialogs
• Added inline multi select form option
• Updated font-awesome
• Upgraded electron to 33.3.1
• Added PSA start screen section ID
• Added plugin contributors metadata field
• Option to get alt tri normal for face in face.getNormal()
• Add format property node_name_regex
• Added 'num_slider' as form input type
• Outliner toggles now support all Blockbench icon strings
• Added Group.first_selected to get group that was first selected
• Added Group.multi_selected to get all selected groups
• Group.selected currently works as before, but will be changed to return an array of selected groups in the future.
• Project.materials no longer exists, materials are now saved per texture. texture.getMaterial() still works
• When editing PBR materials, texture.getMaterial() will return the displayed material of each texture involved, while texture.getOwnMaterial() will return the individual material of each texture.

Fixes

• Fixed #1185 trackpad viewport zoom too sensitive
• Fixed texture bleeding when using anti-aliasing (#2518, thanks @Nestorboy!)
• Fixed #2563 Image reference rotation isn't applied for color picking
• Fixed #2588 Blender keymap conflicts
• Fixed shift clicking face in UV editor selecting it multiple times
• Localization string for toolbox menu (#2544)
• Fixed #2568 UV not updating when applying a texture from menu
• Fixed issues with cluster select mode
• Fixed #2555 pasted selection layer appears outside of canvas
• Fixed #2603 cannot select custom macOS app to edit images externally
• Fixed #2593 bedrock block GUI display preset has incorrect rotation
• Fixed #2594 support for "." and "-" in bedrock bone names
• Fixed #2590 animation molang properties are stored as numbers
• Fixed plugin loader console error
• Fixed UI issues when editing animation controller transitions and animations
• Fixed X-ray Outlines setting not working with meshes
• Fixed Move Texture with UV issue
• Fixed box UV template generator issue
• Fixed #2623 Paint Bucket broken in 3D view with an active selection area
• Fixed console error when hovering over cubes while mesh selected with knife tool

Collections

There have been a lot of requests for creating "selection presets" for certain elements in projects regardless of outliner hierarchy, to toggle visibility on sets of elements, and for ways to only export certain sets of elements.
Collections are an attempt to combine all of those features. Collections are "selection presets" that contain references to a selection of elements in your projects, completely independently of the outliner.

Selection

You can select a collection to select all elements inside them in one click. Collections also have a visibility button to toggle visibility on everything inside them at once. Just like element visibility buttons, you can click while holding Alt to "solo" the visibility and only make the collection visible while hiding everything else.
One element can belong to one collection, multiple collections, or no collection at all. Adding a group to a selection will add everything inside the group, even elements that you may add at a later time.

Export

Collections can be exported using a selection of exporters (codecs). This allows you to have multiple objects in one Blockbench project and export them to individual files. Or, you can export the whole project to one file, but export smaller sections to extra files in addition.

Collection Panel

Collections are intended as an optional feature for experienced users.
If you want to use collections, you can enable the Collections panel. Go to View > Panels > Collections > Enable, and pick which slot you want to add the panel to.
You can add the panel to any sidebar or keep it floating. You can hide it again from the same menu if you no longer need it, or you can collapse it to save space.

PBR

This update adds physically based rendering options to Blockbench textures. This adds the concept of "Materials", which are optional and are an extension of texture groups.
PBR materials are currently enabled and optimized for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition formats, with plans to add support for more general applications in the future.

To create a PBR material, open a Minecraft Bedrock project, right click a texture and click "Create Material". This will create a Material texture group, which includes the selected texture as albedo, and a configuration file called "*.texture_set.json".
Right click the configuration file to change its properties. You can set uniform values for certain rendering options here, or assign maps.

To add a map to your material, for example a height map, import a texture to your material texture group. Right click the new texture and set PBR Channel to "Height".
You can also generate a map based on an existing texture. To do this, select the base texture, right click your texture group, and click "Generate PBR Map". This will open a dialog to generate a map.

To preview physically based rendering, switch your View Mode to Material Preview. PBR maps can be edited just like regular textures, even in Material preview mode. Just make sure to select the texture you want to edit.

To apply a material to a face or element, just apply the color/albedo texture.

Thanks @jasonjgardner for some contributions to this feature!