Cats Blender Plugin Versions Save

• Fully compatible with Blender 2.93

• Translations:

  • Added Korean translation!
    • Cats is now translated into Korean by a large portion
    • To use it, simply change your Blender language to Korean and then restart Blender or select it in the Cats Settings
    • Thanks to Siromori for contributing the translation! <3
  • Added Cats Ui Language setting
    • This lets you choose in which language Cats should be displayed
    • Setting it to "auto" will choose the current Blender language

• Model Options:

  • Added "Connect Bones" button
  • Added options to keep merged bones and to merge the bones of visible meshes only

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Reworked "Attach Mesh" feature, it is much more reliable now

• General:

  • Fixed translation errors
  • Updated mmd_tools

• Bake: (by feilen)

  • Emission influence baking: fake realtime lighting based on your emissive channel, quest-compatible!
  • 'Manual' reprojection mode for Bake: creating new UV maps called 'Target' will allow you to re-bake to a specific layout.
  • 'Optimize static shapekeys' option
    • Splits your mesh into two skinned meshes, one with all shapekey-influenced geometry, one with the rest (and fixes the normals in place). Significantly improves GPU performance, especially when a lot of shapekeys are in effect. Needs the lighting anchor point in Unity to be set to the armature Hips on both, or you'll get lighting artifacts.
  • Introduce 'BakeFixer.cs', which is a run-time unity script that hopefully should do the lighting work for you.
  • 'Ignore hidden objects' option
    • When baking, this will ignore any objects you currently have hidden, making it easier to create different versions of your avatar.
  • Apply Current Shapekey Mix option
    • Sets your basis to whatever current mix of shapekeys you have. Always-on shapekeys are terrible for performance, so if you have some that are only intended to customize the character without updates, this will help with that.
  • '_bake' shapekeys: any shapekey with '_bake' at the end will be applied and completely removed, allowing the static shapekeys option to work better. If you're an avatar creator distributing bases, this is recommended for character customization keys!
  • Misc: Updated defaults to be in line with updated Quest limits.

• Added Bake Panel!

  • This is a non-destructive way to produce an optimized variant of (almost) any avatar!
  • Full credit goes to feilen! Thanks so much for this awesome feature <3
  • Check out the wiki for more information: https://github.com/GiveMeAllYourCats/cats-blender-plugin/wiki/Bake

• Added Smart Decimation!

  • This lets you decimate without loosing any shapekeys!
  • Full credit goes to feilen! Tons of thanks for this awesome feature as well <3

• Added Japanese translation!

  • Cats is now almost fully translated into Japanese
  • To use it simply change your Blender language to Japanese and then restart Blender
  • Full credit goes to Jordo and Ruuubick! Thank you so much <3
  • If you want to help translating Cats into any language, please us know!

• General:

  • Cats is now fully compatible with Blender 2.90 and 2.91
  • Added "Show mmd_tools tabs" option to Settings
    • This allows you show and hide the "MMD" and "Misc" tabs added by the mmd_tools plugin
  • Added button to "Start/Stop Pose Mode" which starts/stops pose mode without resetting the current pose
  • Changed link to a new vrm importer since the old one dropped support
  • Fixed Google Translations no longer working
  • Fixed bug in "Apply as Rest Pose" and "Pose to Shape Key" in Blender 2.90
  • More fixes for Blender 2.90
  • NOTE: Using Cats in Blender 2.90+ on Ubuntu might cause Blender to crash on load (caused by mmd_tools)
    • To fix this use a Blender version prior to 2.90 or try updating your drivers

• Cats is now fully compatible with Blender 2.83!

  • It was compatible with 2.82 all long

• Fix Model:

  • Added "Keep Twist Bones" option to Fix Model
    • This will keep any bone containing 'Twist'
  • Added "Fix MMD Twist Bones" option to Fix Model
    • This will apply a fix to make the MMD arm twist bones usable (Thanks Rokk!)
    • You do not need to enable "Keep Twist Bones" for this to work
  • Added "Remove Rigidbodies and Joints" option to Fix Model
    • This is solely intended for our non-VRChat users
  • Added compatibility to more models
  • Disabling the option "Remove Zero Weight Bones" now also keeps unused vertex groups

• Importer:

  • Imported meshes from VRM files now get automatically parented to their armature
  • Imported armatures now always show their bones in front and in wire mode
  • Fixed export warning being empty
  • Fixed importer error when the FBX importer was not enabled
  • Fixed importer error when a zip file contained another zip file
  • When importing a model, objects of a new scene now only get deleted if all three of them are present

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Added "Remove Zero Weight Bones" option to Merge Armatures

• Decimation:

  • Added "Remove Doubles" option

• General:

  • Fixed some bugs
  • Fixed objects getting unhidden when doing any cats operation in 2.80+
  • Updated mmd_tools

• General:
  • Fixed exporter warning about tris when they are below 70,000

Full Patch Notes from 0.16.0:

• Cats is now fully compatible with Blender 2.81!

• Importer:

  • Added support for ZIP files
    • It will only extract the zip if importable models are found
    • If multiple models are found in the zip, you can select the one you want in a popup window
    • Japanese zip files will be extracted with the correct encoding
  • Models can now be imported with Cats via the Windows command shell

• Fix Model:

  • Hips bone will now be larger than before, to comply with the VRChat recommendations
    • Read through them here: https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/full-body-tracking
  • FFXIV models are now compatible
  • Added "Fix Materials" option in Blender 2.80 and higher
    • This will apply some VRChat related fixes to materials
    • This has always been done in Fix Model but now you can turn it off

• Model Options:

  • Remove Doubles no longer effects meshes with no shapekeys

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Added "Join Meshes" option
  • Merge Armatures and Attach Mesh no longer require a mesh on the armature
  • Fixed bones from the merge armature sometimes getting deleted unintentionally

• Optimization:

  • Added manual download button if Material Combiner is outdated

• Copy Protection:

  • Removed Copy Protection panel
    • It is no longer a good method for protecting against cache ripping and it can cause performance and lighting issues

• General:

  • Armatures will no longer be forced into rest position after any action
  • Fixed armatures sometimes not getting detected
  • Small bug fixes
  • Updated mmd_tools

• Cats is now fully compatible with Blender 2.81!

• Importer:

  • Added support for ZIP files
    • It will only extract the zip if importable models are found
    • If multiple models are found in the zip, you can select the one you want in a popup window
    • Japanese zip files will be extracted with the correct encoding
  • Models can now be imported with Cats via the Windows command shell

• Fix Model:

  • Hips bone will now be larger than before, to comply with the VRChat recommendations
    • Read through them here: https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/full-body-tracking
  • FFXIV models are now compatible
  • Added "Fix Materials" option in Blender 2.80 and higher
    • This will apply some VRChat related fixes to materials
    • This has always been done in Fix Model but now you can turn it off

• Model Options:

  • Remove Doubles no longer effects meshes with no shapekeys

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Added "Join Meshes" option
  • Merge Armatures and Attach Mesh no longer require a mesh on the armature
  • Fixed bones from the merge armature sometimes getting deleted unintentionally

• Optimization:

  • Added manual download button if Material Combiner is outdated

• Copy Protection:

  • Removed Copy Protection panel
    • It is no longer a good method for protecting against cache ripping and it can cause performance and lighting issues

• General:

  • Armatures will no longer be forced into rest position after any action
  • Fixed armatures sometimes not getting detected
  • Small bug fixes
  • Updated mmd_tools

• Importer:

  • FBX no longer imports animations and poses by default

• Fix Model:

  • Now always applies transforms of the model
  • Added "Keep Upper Chest" option
    • Warning: Currently having an Upper Chest breaks Eye Tracking, so don't use this if you want Eye Tracking
  • Removed "Fix Full Body Tracking" option
    • It is no longer needed for VRChat
    • The button to add/remove the fix is still available in Model Options
  • Improved Hips placement as recommended by VRChat
  • Legs are now getting bend forward very slightly if they are completely straight
  • Fixed a bug which could sometimes delete bones unintentionally

• Model:

  • Fixed pose mode error in 2.80

• Model Options:

  • Added new "Delete Zero Weight Vertex Groups" button
  • Improved layout of the "Full Body Tracking Fix" buttons
  • Fixed visual "Merge Weights" bug in Blender 2.80

• Optimization:

  • Improved Material Combiner detection algorithm

• General:

  • Updated mmd_tools

• Cats is now fully compatible with Blender 2.80!

• Fix Model:

  • Improved DAZ compatibility

• Model Options:

  • Added "Merge Weights" and "Remove Zero Weight Bones" to the spacebar search
  • Added "Apply All Transforms" button to correctly apply the transforms of all objects
  • Separating Meshes now deletes the Basis shape key if it is the last shape key left

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Added "Apply Transforms" option to "Merge Armatures"
    • Use this if both armatures and meshes are already at their correct positions
  • Merge Armature and Attach Mesh now correctly restore the initial state from before the operation

• Visemes:

  • Fixed shape keys sometimes not appearing in the viseme list

• Optimization:

  • "Combine Same Materials" and "Convert Textures to PNG" are now compatible with Blender 2.80
  • Added loading cursor to "Convert Textures to PNG"
  • Added support for Shotariyas Material Combiner in Blender 2.80
    • Minimum required Material Combiner version is now v2.1.1.2
      • It now fully supports VRM models, has a greatly improved combining logic and an updated UI
      • It also got compression removed, so you will always get full quality images now

• Updater:

  • Made it more robust to different version naming schemes

• General:

  • Improved shading in 2.80
  • Improved initial state restoration after an operation
  • Backface culling is now always toggled on
  • Removed tons of unintended functions from the spacebar search
  • Upon startup Cats now enables "Testing" as supported addon level
  • Updated mmd_tools
  • Fixed a bug while loading settings during startup
  • Fixed a bug while loading the initial state after an operation

• Importer:

  • Fixed imported armatures being in edit mode

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Merge Armatures now properly merges bones when the vertex group of one of the merging bones is missing
  • Attach Mesh no longer removes zero weight bones and constraints

• Model Options:

  • Fixed error when switching to object mode during pose mode

• General

  • Updated mmd_tools
  • The Blender 2.80 API is stable now, so Cats should no longer break in 2.80

• Importer:

  • Now selects the imported armature in Cats
  • Added bone orientation fix after import if all bones point in the same direction

• Fix Model:

  • Changed clipping planes to 0.01 and 150
    • This prevents rendering inaccuracies (thanks Rokk!)
  • Fix Model also no longer resets the visibility of objects
  • Added option to not connect the bones to their respective child

• Eye Tracking:

  • Added random vertex movement back in
    • Instead of the exporter, Fix Model was deleting the empty shapekeys now (whoops)

• General

  • Disabled backface culling in mmd_tools again

• Fix Model:

  • Added option to not join the meshes
  • Now greatly reduces clipping distance
    • This will allow you to move much closer to the model without clipping into it
  • All bones with exactly one child bone will now be connected to that child
  • Improved compatibility with VRoid 6.X
  • Fixed bug which caused the FBT fix to create multiple leg bones when "Remove Zero Weight Bones" was unchecked

• Custom Model Creation:

  • Merge Armatures and Attach Mesh are now compatible with Blender 2.80
  • Renamed "Merge Same Bones Only" to "Merge All Bones" to better reflect what it actually does
  • Merge Armatures now always merges bones that have the exact same name and position

• Model Options:

  • QOL: Objects not longer get unhidden, unselected or get their mode changed when performing any action
  • Added "Separate by Shape Keys"
    • This splits the mesh into two parts, depending on whether it is effected by a shape key or not
  • Fixed "Join Selected Meshes" joining all meshes
  • "Remove Doubles" now ignores vertices effected by shape keys
    • This prevents cases like upper and lower teeth getting merged together

• Eye Tracking:

  • Fixed empty shape keys sometimes not exporting correctly
    • This fixes the bug that you would open your mouth when looking down in VRChat

• Optimization:

  • Removed support for old v1.x Material Combiner versions
    • This fixes the random "Material Combiner missing" errors
    • If you still want to use old versions, please use them directly via the shotariya tab

• Import:

  • If a required plugin is not installed, it will now show you the link to the correct version depending on if you use Blender 2.79 or 2.80
  • Added .vrm files to the "Import Any Model" button in Blender 2.79

• Export:

  • Improved export warnings
    • They will no longer exaggerate as much as before
  • Added warning when Eye Tracking is set up but there are no meshes named "Body"
  • Blender 2.80: MMD models will now have their textures correctly assigned to their materials in Unity
    • VRM models as well but only partially at this moment

• Shapekeys:

  • "Apply Shapekey to Basis" now applies the shapekey at its current strength into the basis instead of at full strength

• General:

  • Modified default FBX Exporter to always export empty shape keys
    • This fixes the above described eye tracking bug
  • Added multiple Blender 2.8 compatibility fixes
  • Fixed all compatibility issues with other plugins
  • Updated mmd_tools
  • Fixed multiple errors