These changes are in various stages of completion on dev version, on the roadmap for next release. It may be updated multiple times before the release.
TODO broSpring_wind node breaks Chain (SpringMagic) simulation
Hotfix release! Fixes "Object has no transform" error.
Fixed "Object has no transform" error that was introduced in 2023.02.07 release and affected Maya 2022+ installs (Python 3 specific).
Nothing particularly huge in this release, but a lot of useful improvements and bug fixes across the board.
Core BroNode class instantiation was optimized globablly to prevent re-instantiation of already instantiated class. What this means is that it should significantly improve performance in some areas of BroTools, but it may introduce new unexpected bugs that fell through the cracks during testing.
Multiple other minor core bug fixes and improvements
Adjusted how path to the BroTools folder is found internally, to fix an issue with launching BroTools from a network mountpoint on Linux
Improved internet and license server connectivity detection to be more reliable
Fixed an edge case causing some errors to fail to show properly in Script Editor
Point (nParticle), Chain (nParticle) and Chain (nHair) simulation modes now properly support simulation in negative frames. This feature was broken for some time.
Auto Playblast and GIF Playblast will now run ffmpeg commans in parallel to greatly speed up mp4 and gif encoding when using multiple cameras
Auto Playblast and GIF Playblast will no longer show CMD windows when using ffmpeg, unless Debug Level is set to 0 in Preferences
Auto Playblast and GIF Playblast now use Maya's built-in progress bar
Fixed a bug where switcher dropdown menu checkboxes would reset on any object selection change and after running Bake
Fixed a bug where Bake Existing checkbox would have no effect
Added support for Maya 2023 (Which means Maya 2023 is now supported on Windows and Linux. MacOS was not yet tested)
Fixed startup crashing when using Floating Licensing on Linux with Maya 2022
Made hostname reading code more resilient to non-ascii encoding, fixing errors like Generic HTTP Exception: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xc0 in position 0: invalid start byte;
Changed text of the message shown when license key verification date expired to avoid confusion.
Fixed some Python 3 errors that were breaking some online functionality
Improvements across most tools, and Maya 2023 support on Windows!
Maya 2023 support on Windows (Linux and MacOS were not yet tested on Maya 2023)
TurboFloat libraries for Linux and MacOS were missing from distribution, leading to Failed to get the floating license lease: Unhandled exception. /BroTools/core/system/libTurboFloat.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory // # error, this problem was fixed
Some systems were getting # RuntimeError: The system does not seem to have a valid MAC and # BroToolsError: name 'O____o____o____0__o__0__o____0_O_O__O__o___0__O__O' is not defined [NameError, 'utilities.on_plugin_initialized'] licensing errors, a potential fix to this issue was added in this release
Fix ping: bad linger time. error on Linux
activeModules in BroDynamics settings (and brodynamics.cfg) is now replaced with disabledModules. By default all modules are now active, and those listed in disabledModules will not be loaded. If you changed this setting before - make sure to adjust it. If you did not change it - this change will not influence you.
New Animation Layer checkbox now properly works with Batch Simulation
Chain (nParticle) mode that was introduced in 2021.6.30 could be missing from your installation if you updated from earlier versions, it was only available on new installations, due to updater not updating the config file properly. This issue has been addressed by changing config logic - replacing activeModules with disabledModules
AnimHUD performance optimization - reduced background redraw rate from 40 fps to 12 fps.
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.
Icons were refactored to be more intuitive, recognizable and have better contrast. Icons now primarily use 2 colors.
Added icons for more tools and actions
Fixed a bug preventing BroTools 2021.12.14 from starting with fresh installs
Greet AnimHUD! This is a HUD interface for primary animation tools. It integrates with the main Maya viewport to provide non-distracting buttons for commonly used Animation Toolbox tools like: tweener, ikfkswitcher, euler filter and others. Refer to documentation for more info.
Main IKFKSwitcher window was changed, and now it only contains primary buttons. All extra options were moved to the right-click menu. This was done to make it more compact and compatible with HUDA.
Added Reinstall Here option to license manager, which helps simplify the process of moving your license between PCs. With this option you can now jump onto a new PC, go to License Manager and select "Reinstall Here", and in one action it will move your license to your current PC. It is exactly the same as performing Uninstall and then Install manually.
Added "Copy Project Path" and "Copy Scene Path" menu actions to File Tools - these will copy paths to current project and scene to the clipboard respectively
Added Restore Backup menu option to BroTools menu to launch restore_backup.mel script from UI
Fixed a name "system_locale" is not defined startup bug that showed up on MacOS and Linux
Added new global Overwrite Previous Layer checkbox. This should greatly improve iteration speed, you can use this instead of Ctrl+Z when iterating. If you run simulation with New Animation Layer checkbox on, it will remember last created layer (until you close the window). If you check Overwrite Previous Layer checkbox and run the simulation again, it will remove previous layer, create a new one with the same name and run simulation again. Layers can be renamed, it won't affect BroDynamics's link to the layer.
Chain (nParticle) - much improved twisting calculations, they now use a better and more reliable method
Chain (nParticle) - improved stability and reliability
More bug fixes for Chain (SpringMagic) rewrite. Sorry about frequent releases, but they are required to tackle problems promptly.
Another bugfix release for Chain (SpringMagic) rewrite
Chain (SpringMagic): Fixed gitter bug with Flex parameter above 0
Chain (SpringMagic): Fixed simulation twisting incorrectly with some rigs
Chain (SpringMagic): Fixed MEulerRotation error introduced in 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.
Improved support for non-english locales on Windows for running shell commands, improved detecting of current terminal encoding
restore_backup.mel script was not included with distribution archives, a bug in the release script that was fixed
Fixed Expected (distance, distance, distance) got MVector error in Chain (SpringMagic)
Fixed invalid null reference in method 'MVector___eq__' error in Chain (SpringMagic) that was happening on collision with capsule
Fixed bug when using Flex parameter in Chain (SpringMagic)
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.
restore_backup.mel script has been added to BroTools folder. Drag and Drop it into Maya window to restore to a backup of previously installed version.
Improved handling of SSL connection with the server to help identify SSL issues
Improved support for non-English locales on Windows
Improved logging
Fix shell command errors on Brazilian Portuguese locale in Windows
Chain (SpringMagic) mode was rewritten from pymel to cmds and OpenMaya to remove dependency on PyMEL and improve performance by around 8-10%
Chain (SpringMagic) mode now better supports undo for operations like Adding Capsules and Wind
Improved error handling for Floating License system
Fixed a bug causing changing TurboFloat server port to raise TurboFloatInetError
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!
Fixed critical bug in floating licensing system. TurboFloatFailError was causing BroTools to exit with error, when in reality it's normal part of TurboFloat library operation and should've been ignored.
Tools that rely on matching existing keyframes (like Transfer motion) will now respect timeline range selection
Overall speed optimization (BroNode initialization speed up)
Added an option to bake only existing poses, instead of baking every frame. This allows to transfer animation between IK and FK in a much cleaner and editable way
Bake and Transfer now respect keyframe range selection on the timeline (Shift+Click+Drag region marked in red)
Fixed IKFK Switcher crashing on Maya 2022 with Python 3
Fixed IKFK Switcher compatibility issues on Maya 2022 with Python 3
Hotfix release aimed at adding a workaround for licensing server connectivity issues caused by Let's Encrypt's root certificate issues.
Added an option to disable SSL verification on the client side
Fixed a bug preventing an error window from showing on license key renewal failure
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.
Further improvements to licensing and update systems stability in Maya 2022 with Python 3 and overall
Attempting to run updater without license key will now show proper error
In Maya 2022 with Python 3 there was a bug preventing BroTools from properly working if Windows system language was set to anything other than English. This was fixed.
Tweeener added icon
Added an option to run euler filter after switching
A small release that improves Gravity workflow in Chain (nHair) mode with Collisions enabled and tweaks licensing system to more reliably detect server connection.
Tweaked internal server connection test to be more reliable and reduce false negatives causing Offline Activation window to appear when there is an acitve internet connection available
Fixed Gravity not working in Chain (nHair) mode with Collision mode checkbox enabled. This was a design flaw, users were meant to use Gravity force instead, but it caused more confusion. Now if Gravity is not 0 it will create a force.
A small release with some important hotfixes for Renamer and Auto Euler option added to Tweeener
Fix trim processor not trimming words from the end
Fix a bug causing File - Open to not work on Maya 2022
Loading presets from a file was additive which is not an expected behavior. Now existing processors are replaced with loaded preset.
Added Substeps and Timescale controls to all nucleus based simulation modes - Chain (nHair), Spring (nParticle), Chain (nParticle)
Improved "Welcome back" window for those who upgrade from BroDynamics 2.x
New processor - Split. Allows splitting strings into multiple words by specific separator. Is similar to using Replace and replacing with space.
Trim processor can now work on words instead of characters. In combination with Split or CamelCaseSplit it can allow to easily remove parts of names of unequal length
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.
Improved internal error handling
Fixed an issue where BroTools was unable to get proper Hardware ID on MacOS and showing error in License Manager
Version 2021.6.30 introduced a bug that causes a lot of errors that should halt execution and show error instead pass silently. This has been fixed, some errors will now properly raise exception windows, others will leave warnings in the log.
Clicking simulate button in RBD mode will now show a notification saying that Simulate button is not used in RBD mode, to reduce confusion. RBD has a slightly different workflow revolving around using buttons available in Workbench of RBD mode UI.
Improved documenation on Python API
Improved simulator logging, simulation properties logging was moved to INFO level and now contains proper args and kwargs for using the simulator.run function:
```
// BroTools | INFO || chain.run:82 | Run Simulator for module: Chain (nHair).
Args: ([u'nurbsCircle1', u'nurbsCircle2', u'nurbsCircle3'],)
Kwargs: {'preserveAnimation': True, 'collisionMode': False, 'forces': [], 'shiftDistance': 1.0, 'dontRefresh': False, 'followBaseTwist': True, 'preserveInertia': True, 'preAlign': False, 'autoShiftDistance': True, 'cycleIterations': 0, 'aimRotation': True, 'multiPassSimulation': False, 'simulationProperties': {'attractionScale[1].attractionScale_Position': 1, u'startCurveAttract': 0.01, u'stiffnessScale[1].stiffnessScale_FloatValue': 1.0, 'stiffnessScale[0].stiffnessScale_Position': 0, u'damp': 0.0, u'compressionResistance': 10.0, u'gravity': 0.0, u'attractionScale[0].attractionScale_FloatValue': 1.0, u'drag': 0.05, u'attractionScale[1].attractionScale_FloatValue': 1.0, u'stiffnessScale[0].stiffnessScale_FloatValue': 1.0, 'attractionScale[0].attractionScale_Position': 0, u'bendResistance': 1.0, u'stretchResistance': 10.0, 'stiffnessScale[1].stiffnessScale_Position': 1, u'attractionDamp': 0.15, u'collideWidthOffset': 0.0, u'mass': 1.0}, 'skipControls': 1, 'eulerFilter': True, 'matchPositions': False, 'colliders': [], 'deleteNucleus': True}
//
```
Chain (nParticle) mode was ignoring timeline selection range. This has been fixed, now it will properly simulate only within selected timeline range (Shift+Click+Drag on timeline)
Fixed a bug causing forces from Collisions and Forces window were ignored in Chain (nHair) mode
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.
Floating Licenses, powered by LimeLM TurboFloat server
Lifetime licenses
Added 'restore_backup.mel' script. If there is any issue with the update you can drag and drop this script into Maya's viewport much like install.mel, and it will let you select a backup to restore to.
Updater windows now include warnings asking user to close all Maya instances before updating, as it may cause issues with the update. Additionally on Windows update check will not run if more than 1 Maya instance is running.
Added an option to skip an update, that will remember your choice and no longer notify you about an update to this specific version. If there's another version released that's newer than the one you skipped - it will notify you again.
Improved stability of licensing server connection test
Reduced spacing of some UI elements, specifically in License Manager and Preference Windows, to make UIs more compact
UI Style update
Added more tools icons for menu
Server side support for updating to and downloading specific versions, part of the work required to implement lifetime licenses
Improved stability of BroTools - Debug - Reload BroTools command
Improved licensing system to better handle multiple tools installs on same machine
Fix critical bug causing BroTools to not properly get hardware ID on MacOS and Linux
New Chain (nParticle) mode! Combines the best of... well, seems like all previous modes. It has proper inertia for both overlap and overshoot motion like Chain mode, but it's easier to work with and more predictable like Simple Chain. And it supports looping animation in a similar way as Point mode, meaning proper transfer of both position and inertia in the seam area. And it follows your existing animation and poses! And collisions with objects (any nCloth - Passive Collider). It will likely become new primary simulation mode for most animators.
Updated default values in Chain mode to provide a more uniform result
Renamed simulation modes in UI for transparency:
New tool - BroRenamer! Ultimate modular renaming tool for Maya, stack string processing actions in any order, preview rename, save and load presets and more!
Highlight of this release is addition of Cycle\Seamless Looping for Point and Chain modes!
Chain mode - also tweaked how it simulates start and end frame. It was skipping first 2 frames of the simulation to preserve initial pose, this was a rudimentary feature that was taking it's roots way back from version 1.x. Now it will simulate and match all frames including first ones, required for
Simple Chain mode - Is Loop? option renamed to Create seamless loop, should be more intuitive to understan what it does
Custom Scripts menu now supports running mel scripts
Custom Scripts menu now has reload button which will allow adding new scripts without restarting Maya or reloading entire BroTools plugin. It's only required if you add new files to custom scripts folder, reloading is not required to detect changes in scripts' code, they are loaded from disk for every execution
Custom Scripts now have Python and Mel icons
BroDynamics on startup will check Undo Queue state, if it's off it will suggest to enable it
Point mode - previously simulation was ending 1-2 frames before the final frame. Now it simulates until the very last frame properly. Tweaked frame walking logic to better match frames on different steps.
Fixed some logging bugs introduced by python 2 to 3 convertion
Fixed 'Object's name 'bro_dynamics_windowWorkspaceControl' is not unique.' error when trying to reopen BroDynamics UI or other BroTools dockable UIs when it's been docked before closing Maya
Improved message for offline activaiton
IKFK Switcher window is now dockable
You can now dock some windows together, for example you can combine IKFK Switcher, Tweeener and BroDynamics into one window. This concept will be improved in future versions
All dockable windows will now remember their docked state between maya sessions and when closed and reopened
Added an option to revert to old version to the main BroTools menu for users coming from BroDynamics 2.x
Fixed some HTTP error messages not showing up
New Tool! Tweeener - allows creating in-between and overshoot poses with a slider. Well, if you know TweenMachine - you know what Tweeener is. But it now comes included with AnimationToolbox, has sleeker UI and is going to be upgraded over time with new features.
Fixed bug with SquashStretch tool showing errors and not reverting slider on selection change
Menus for fileops advertised in 2021.5.14 were missing on some platforms, this has been fixed
New Animation Layer checkbox! It will automatically generate a new animation layer and all simulated keyframes will go there. Should allow to improve iteration speed a lot, no need to remove keyframes or wait for undo command to finish, just disable current simulaion layer and run simulation again. It also preserves your existing keyframes, allows to compare different simulation results or stack simulations on top of each other.
GIF Playblast and other playblast tools that expected camera names to have "Cam_" will now support namespaces
License Manager window will now automatically select "Install" if you only have 1 license, so you can just click "Next"
License Manager will now show a warning suggesting to start a trial and a "Go Back" button if you don't have any licenses
Start Trial button was not available after running License Manager once
Pre-update backups will now include date and time when they were created
Fixed License Manager window width, it would open up too narrow to show license action dropdowns, causing confusion
Improvements to better support those upgrading from BroDynamics 2.x
Added File Tools menu containing some tools to help working with files and file browser. Available to both BroDynamics and BroTools users
Locate current scene - will reveal current scene folder in your system's file browser (Explorer in Windows)
Locate current project - will reveal current project folder in file browser
Find Textures - for every file texture in the project it will scan current project directory and subdirectories for a file with matching name and replace the path to the file. Can help find missing textures in the scene.
Find Textures In - does the same thing as Find Textures, but allows user to specify directory to scan in. Also recursive. Can be used to find missing textures or to replace existing textures with other textures in another folder, as long as they have same filenames.
A backup of BroTools folder will now be created before every update to allow user to easily roll back in case of a failed update
Licensing improvements
Fixed config read error preventing Point tab from showing in Maya 2022+ with Python 3
Fixed Python 3 (Maya 2022+) bug causing updater to fail file downloads
Changes how BroTools identifies hardware IDs, should help make it more stable and unify between different Python versions. It will attempt to upgrade old HID in the database, but if it fails it may require you to reactivate your license. To do it open License Manager, enter your email, click "Next" select "Uninstall" next to your license, click Next. Close any windows that show up, reopen License Manager, enter your credentials, click Next - select Install from the dropdown. Click Next. Your license should be bound to new ID.
Network host IP input changed from a text box to a dropdown list of IPs that are available for use with network licensing system for transparency
Fixed a bug causing menus for some tools to not be created
Python 3 and Maya 2022 support
Small UI tweaks
In Chain - Renamed "Use Nucleus (Collision mode)" checkbox into "Enable Collisions (Use Nucleus)" to make it more intuitive as to what this checbox is for.
New tool under Curves subsection - Cycle Animation Tangents (beta), helps with making animation loops
Hotfix - fixed email validation regex to match RFC 5322 Official Standard. Prior to this update some emails would be falsely detected as invalid.
Downloader speed up
Add file download progress indication to downloader
Fixed a severe bug affecting Unix (Mac and Linux) users that was breaking some of the menu entries from showing up, for tools like IKFK Switcher, broSelector and some others
Added licensing system to allow for more flexible licensing terms, subscriptions and trial periods
Updater reworked from scratch featuring per-file sync with checksum checks
New calendar based versioning system, instead of arbitrary numbers, it's now YEAR.MONTH.DAY of release. Versioning is now unified among all tools, as they all share same core modules.
Code improvements and optimizations
Installation script was improved to not require Maya restart
Cleaned up and improved logging styling, removed timestamps from logs as there is no use for them
New error message window
Transform matching now respects locked attributes
trackTransform now respects locked attributes
Better config option names in all configuration windows
Overall UI framework update
Overall UI styling update
Stopped using WebView anywhere in the UI as it was causing Maya to freeze in some cases. Which means that some thigns like changelog will now open in the web browser instead of being opened inside BroTools UI
Core function for writing files had a serious bug preventing it from writing any files that used this function
You can now use Shift+Drag selection on timeline to tell BroDynamics which frames to simulate!
Video tutorials with voice over!
Improved and Updated UI
More user-friendly and meaningful error message when trying to run simulation on objects without transforms in selection
Show error if trying to use BroDynamics with unsupported Animation Blending settings
Some now rudimentary menus and options were removed, like Help and some Preferences options
Fixed error preventing user from adding or editing license key in BroDynamics
Fixed issue where simulation could result in adding translation to control where it was locked by respecting locked attributes while matching transforms
Simple chain mode proxy joints parenting fix, fixed an issue where chain would not properly following animation in some cases
Fixed Presets - Load Defaults, which was broken for a while
Animation Toolbox is released!
IKFKSwitcher has been updated to match new BroTools frameworks and updated UI.
Code cleaned up
BroNode updates and improvements
Maya 2019-2020 improved compatibility
Added prefix to internal menu names to avoid potential clashing with other plugins
Added a configuration option to fallback to using a more reliable QTextBrowser instead of QWebEngineView. There was a slowly but surely growing number of users reporting Maya hanging when trying to import it, and disabling anti-malware software was not always a solution.
core.cfg was deprecated, as it was only used to define config and log directories, which was moved to environment variables
Maya menu improvements and bug fixes
Minor improvements, still pending major redesign
Maya 2019-2020 improved compatibility
Added 'Disable Viewport' checkbox which may allow to speed simulation up a bit more
Fixed a bug where some objects were not cleaned up from the scene when simulating with 2 objects or using Multi Pass Simulation checkbox