BroTools Changelog

2025.5.12

BroRig

new

improvement

Core

improvement

fix

2025.5.3

Core

fix

2025.4.24

This is a huge release, as it marks yet another milestone in BroDynamics development. It could've been considered a BroDynamics 3.0 release, but the version bump from 2024 to 2025 also looks like a good one.

The main feature of this release is a new simulation engine, which is a completely new and custom simulation engine written entirely from scratch. This means that all calculations are now handled by BroDynaimics directly, instead of relying on Maya's built-in physics engines like Nucleus or Bullet. With this new engine I now have full control over the simulation process, and I can implement new features and improvements much faster and more efficiently, and in a way that could be, at least in theory, transferred to other software.

But what does it mean for the user? Here's a breakdown:

All of this is available with this release.

All of the old simulation modes are still available, but they are now considered "Legacy" modes.

For advanced users realtime physics is also already available through the use of new BroDynamics Maya Nodes, and more user-friendly UIs are on my roadmap for future releases.

However the functionality of the new engine exposed to the UI and even nodes right now is just the tip of the iceberg, and I am working on bringing even more features and power to it in the future.

This update may require you to restart Maya after updating, simple BroTools - Reload might not work.

BroDynamics

new

fix

BroRig

new

Renamer

improvement

AnimHUD

hack

MicroRigs

new

LicenseManager

improvement

BroFinder

improvement

Core

improvement

2024.12.27

This release adds a new tool called BroAI, which is a new AI powered tool for Maya. It brings the power of Large Languge Models to assist you with your workflows - it can create new scripts, perform actions and answer questions. You can read more about it in documentation here - https://docs.brotools.tech/BroAI/intro.html Key feature that sets BroAI apart from alternatives is that it supports OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude, but also any OpenAI API compatible service, which includes local models and many other providers. You can use free and open source local models, you can use free models on OpenRouter or you can opt for the State of the Art best models from OpenAI or Anthropic. The choice is yours.

Core

improvement

BroAI

new

2024.11.1

Core

improvement

2024.10.18

BroDynamics

improvement

AnimationToolbox

improvement

Core

fix

2024.06.19

Hotfix for 2024.06.17

Core

fix

2024.06.17

This release has been a long time coming, and brings some improvements that are well overdue! I'll preface this by saying that for the past year or so I had to sort out a lot of boring legal and financial issues that were stalling BroTools development quite a lot. I'm happy to announce that most of those boring issues were now sorted, and I should finally be able to get back to the fun parts - actual development. And I started with revamping big parts of the development, build, release processes with a goal of eliminating as much friction as possible in adding support for new Maya versions across all platforms. This change should also allow me to focus more on improving all the tools.

Unfortunately I had to finally drop support for Python 2. Keeping it supported is something that is takign significant development time and effort, and complicates many things. The industry is moving away from it, and Python 2 has been officially an unsupported language since January 1, 2020, 4.5 years ago. You will still be able to download older verisons of BroTools and use them if you need to run them on Maya 2019-2020.

There was also a regression with some functionality in Maya 2025. AnimHUD relied on some Qt hacks to get it into the viewport which stopped working in Maya 2025 and Qt6. So for now it will revert to using a regular floating non transparent window (in Maya 2025 only) until I can figure out what to do with it next. I'm considering either using a more integrated method of viewport rendering for AnimHUD, or changing it into a simple dockable window which will fit right under or over the timpeline, like most other animation tools do.

When upgrading to this release please note that it has some significant changes which may be buggy. If anything happens - revert to an older version using a backup (there's a restore_backup.mel script which you can drag and drop into viewport, and also available from BroTools menu) or by downloading an archive.

AnimationToolbox

new

Core

new

improvement

fix

2024.1.2

A hotfix for 2023.12.30 release

BroDynamics

fix

2023.12.30

It's been a while since we had new simulation modes in BroDynamics, and I am excited to report that there are 2 new simulation modes added in this release - Noise and Attribute Spring!

BroDynamics

new

fix

AnimHUD

improvement

Core

improvement

fix

2023.7.6

BroDynamics

fix

2023.6.24

Core

new

improvement

fix

2023.2.8

Hotfix release! Fixes "Object has no transform" error.

Core

fix

2023.2.7

Nothing particularly huge in this release, but a lot of useful improvements and bug fixes across the board.

BroDynamics

fix

AnimationToolbox

improvement

IKFKSwitcher

fix

BroFinder

improvement

Core

improvement

fix

2022.05.31

Core

improvement

fix

2021.04.19

Improvements across most tools, and Maya 2023 support on Windows!

BroDynamics

improvement

fix

AnimationToolbox

improvement

Renamer

fix

Core

new

fix

2021.12.29

The biggest change in this release is the introduction of AnimHUD - a new UI for Animation Toolbox! It places tweeener, IKFK Switcher and other most useful tools right at the top of your viewport.

AnimationToolbox

new

IKFKSwitcher

new

Core

improvement

fix

Tweeener

new

2021.12.14

Focus of this release is on improving Chain (nParticle) mode, rewriting the way it calculates twisting and overall improving the way it works. Which means less flipping for most rigs :) This release also brings a long anticipated feature - overwriting latest animation layer. Which means that you won't have to wait for the simulation to 'Undo' anymore! This release also has UX improvements to the licensing system and restoring backups.

BroDynamics

new

improvement

Core

new

improvement

fix

2021.11.25

More bug fixes for Chain (SpringMagic) rewrite. Sorry about frequent releases, but they are required to tackle problems promptly.

BroDynamics

improvement

fix

2021.11.24

Another bugfix release for Chain (SpringMagic) rewrite

BroDynamics

fix

2021.11.23

Bugfix release for Chain (SpringMagic) rewrite and further improvements to supporting different locales. Also restore_backup.mel script is back, and should allow you to revert to any of the previous versions that you had installed.

BroDynamics

fix

Core

fix

2021.11.19

Most interesting change of this release is a long overdue rewrite of Chain (SpringMagic) module that offers performance increase of around 8-10% and better Undo support. It also improves support of non-english Windows locales.

BroDynamics

improvement

Core

new

improvement

fix

2021.10.18

Core

improvement

fix

2021.10.13

Hotfix release triggered by necessity to address a critical bug in the floating licensing system. But it also brings a long awaited feature for BroDynamics Batch simulation mode!

BroDynamics

improvement

Core

fix

2021.10.11

IKFKSwitcher

new

improvement

fix

Core

improvement

Updater

fix

2021.10.4

Hotfix release aimed at adding a workaround for licensing server connectivity issues caused by Let's Encrypt's root certificate issues.

Core

improvement

fix

2021.9.27

Hotfix release that fixes critical bugs in the licensing system in Maya 2022 with Python 3. Also added an option to run euler filter in IKFK Switcher.

IKFKSwitcher

new

Core

improvement

fix

2021.9.23

A small release that improves Gravity workflow in Chain (nHair) mode with Collisions enabled and tweaks licensing system to more reliably detect server connection.

2021-09-23_13-34-07.gif

BroDynamics

fix

Core

improvement

2021.9.15

A small release with some important hotfixes for Renamer and Auto Euler option added to Tweeener

Renamer

fix

Tweeener

new

2021.9.10

BroDynamics

improvement

Renamer

new

improvement

2021.8.17

This release is not as large as the previous one, but it has some useful improvements and important bug fixes. This release is most recommended for MacOS users as it fixes the incorrect HardwareID detection in licensing system and for people writing scripts and automating their simulation workflows with Python, as logging and Python API documentation were improved.

BroDynamics

improvement

fix

Core

improvement

fix

2021.6.30

This release is a rather big one and has a lot of focus on improving BroDynamics, fleshing out existing features and adding new simulation mode to BroDynamics as well as two completely new tools - Renamer! You can read more about it below.

For those people who prefer to own their software and not pay for a subscription I also have good news - Lifetime purchase option is coming back in this release in a form of lifetime version which is limited to 1 year of updates. It will cost more, but I've decided to give a fair discount to everyone who already bought BroDynamics 2.x in the past.

Another very important part of this update is of most interest to studios, thanks to LimeLM BroTools now has support for Floating licenses. Floating licenses also come in a form of subscription or lifetime.

I decided to rename simulation modes to make their naming more transparent and intuitive to what they do. Documentation was updated to reflect this change as well, however there may still be traces of the old naming here and there. If you notice any, please, report so I can fix it.

Another big addition to the family of BroTools is a new Renamer tool. It's modular and is inspired by tools like Advanced Renamer for Windows. The best way to describe it is to check out some screenshots and a video which you can find in Documentation here

I'm also further improving BroTools UX around updating and licensing. For example in previous updates I've introduced pre-update backup, allowing users to restore to previous version in case there is an issue with an update. But you had to manually find and extract a zip archive which may've not been very convenient. So now I've added a restore_backup.mel script which you can drag and drop into Maya's viewport and it will do it for you. It has to be a separate script, because of an assumption that if an update failed then BroTools might not even be able to load a menu.

There was also a critical bug concerning MacOS and Linux users that was making BroTools to not properly detect hardware IDs, and this change may require re-installing your licenses. Sadly it's not possible to auto-correct it in this case like it happened before.

BroDynamics

new

improvement

Renamer

new

Core

new

improvement

fix

2021.5.26

BroDynamics

new

improvement

fix

2021.5.22

AnimationToolbox

new

fix

Core

improvement

fix

2021.5.18

BroDynamics

new

AnimationToolbox

improvement

Core

fix

2021.5.16

Core

improvement

fix

2021.5.15

Core

improvement

2021.5.14

BroDynamics

fix

Core

new

improvement

2021.5.10

Core

fix

2021.5.5

Core

improvement

2021.4.30

Core

improvement

2021.4.28

Core

fix

2021.4.26

BroDynamics

improvement

AnimationToolbox

new

Core

new

improvement

2021.3.18

Core

fix

2021.3.13

Core

improvement

fix

2021.3.10

BroDynamics

new

improvement

fix

AnimationToolbox

new

IKFKSwitcher

improvement

Core

new

improvement

fix

ControlMeshCreator

improvement

2.3.0

BroDynamics

improvement

Core

improvement