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Mine-imator 2.0 Pre-release 7 (Phase 2)


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On 11/18/2022 at 3:00 PM, Nimi said:

670439504_pre-release5.png.257b116e991911568abb58743ac68ba3.png

 

Hello everyone! The second phase for Mine-imator 2.0's pre-releases is now available for testing, this phase includes overhauls to the interface, rendering, and animation, and plenty of quality-of-life additions. The features included here have been in development for over 2 ½ years, so expect bugs! As always, please report them in the Issues and Bugs subforum with as much information as possible included in your topic and project files if possible.

Note: Back up your projects before installing, or install in a separate location!

 

Get for Windows

Get for Windows (.zip)

Get for Mac

Get for Ubuntu/Debian

Get for Linux (.tar)

Get for Windows 32-bit

Get for Windows 32-bit (.zip)

 

2.0 Pre-release 5 (2022-11-18), changes:

Interface

  • Updated interface to use the Inventory, an interface design by Voxy.
  • Updated Mine-imator logo and program icon.
  • Timeline changes
    • Added icons to timelines.
    • Added icons to preview the contents of folders.
    • “Loop” options have been combined into a single button, clicking will cycle the modes.
    • Changed timeline zooming to require the 'Control' button to be held. (Shift for horizontal scrolling, no button for vertical scrolling.)
    • Selected frames/time is displayed next to the time.
  • Startup changes
    • Added splashes when loading assets.
    • Added project pinning.
    • Projects can now be sorted by name and date last opened.
    • Changed project thumbnail size.
  • Added new program modes:
    • Simple: Recommended for beginners, complex settings are hidden.
    • Advanced: For users familiar with the software, access to all settings. (Requires upgrade.)
  • Viewport changes
    • Added "Flat", "Shaded", and "Render" quality modes.
    • Grid overlay settings are per-project.
  • Added "Render pass" setting to preview data in "Rendered" mode.
  • Added math support to textboxes.
  • Added filter settings to sortable lists. (ex. Library has settings to filter each instance type.)
  • Added support for manual input in sun/moon time and rotation wheels.
  • Added “About Mine-imator” popup with credits and links.
  • Added themes (Light, Dark, and Darker) and customizable accent colors.
  • Added preview images in the workbench.
  • Reorganized the Workbench. (ex. Lights and Shapes are in one menu.)
  • Replaced the toolbar with “File”, “Edit”, “Render”, “View”, and “Help” dropdowns.
  • Audio can now be previewed at different points in the resources tab.
  • Holding “Shift” now allows precision when dragging components.
  • Shortened panel tabs now show a tooltip of the full name when hovered.
  • XYZ scaling is proportional.

Rendering

  • Added alpha modes to change transparency is rendered:
    • Blended: Transparency behaves as it has previously. Has clipping issues but can be tweaked with “Render depth”.
    • Hashed: Noisy, but fixes most rendering issues with transparency.
  • Added PBR support:
    • Introduced metallic and roughness properties.
    • Supports material and normal maps, using the SEUS PBR format. (Red = Glossiness, Green = Metallic, Blue = Emissive)
  • Added “Subsurface scattering”. (Replaces “Bleed light” settings.)
  • Added “Indirect lighting” render settings.
  • Added “Reflections” render settings, and specular highlights from lights.
  • Added “Gamma correction” render setting.
  • Added “Transparent shadows” render setting.
  • Added "Size" setting for light sources, determines shadow softness.
  • Rendering now uses multiple samples from the scene to produce better results for some effects.
  • Improved Anti-aliasing.
  • Improved sun shadows, now directional and visible from anywhere in the scene.
  • Improved ambient lighting.
  • Improved blurring effects. (Glow, bloom, etc.)
  • Improved anamorphic bloom streaks.

Timeline features

  • Added new playback buttons:
    • Skip between keyframes in select objects.
    • Move forward/back by 1 frame.
    • Play from the start of the selected region.
  • Added timeline markers.
  • Added "Color tagging" to help highlight and filter timelines based on selected color.
  • Added "Ghost" toggle for timelines to hide them from the list.
  • Added custom settings for timing markers.
  • Added scrollbar for timeline name list.
  • Keyframes can be selected by clicking them once.

Paths

  • Added "Path" and "Path point" timelines, paths are constructed by parenting points to "Path" timelines.
  • Added "Follow path" setting in the constraints tab.
  • Particles can use paths as a spawn region/bounding box.
  • If a path is a particle attractor, two settings are available:
    • Directional force: Adds force along the direction of the path.
    • Vortex force: Adds a spinning force around the path. (Like a tornado.)

Controls

  • Added interface setting to split controls into specific tools:
    • Select tool (No gizmos.)
    • Move tool (Position arrows and planes.)
    • Rotation tool (Rotation wheels.)
    • Scale tool (Scale handles and XYZ editing.)
    • Bend tool (Bend wheels.)
    • Transform tool (Move, rotation and scale tools combined.)
  • Added support for common textbox shortcuts:
    • Home/End key support to jump between the start/end of lines.
    • Word skipping. (Ctrl + Left/Right)
  • Added "Save as" shortcut.
  • Added camera panning. (Shift + Drag left mouse button)
  • Added "View instance" shortcut to jump to a selected object.
  • Holding "Control" while group-selecting keyframes will now deselect them.
  • Holding “Shift” now allows better precision when moving objects.

Environment

  • Added new color settings for leaf blocks for 'custom' biome setting.
  • Added directional wind settings.
  • Added "Twilight" toggle for environment changes during sunset/setrise.
  • Updated default clouds settings to better resemble Minecraft clouds.
  • Default clouds texture is no longer cropped to 32x32 pixels.
  • Biomes are combined in one list and can now be animated.

Particles

  • Added rotation support for particle timelines, now rotates the “Launch angle” of particles.
  • Added new particles; “Electric spark”, “Potion effect”, and “Teleport”.
  • Updated default particles.
  • Default particles now use the language file.
  • Improved bouncing when hitting their bounding box.

Minecraft support / Assets

  • Added structure block file support. (.nbt)
    • Integrity can be changed to randomly filter out blocks.
    • If available, palettes can be chosen.
  • Added support for custom player heads in scenery.
  • Added support for shields in the new “Pattern editor”.
  • Added "Trees4.schematic".
  • Updated Minecraft assets to 1.19.

Inverse kinematics

  • Added “Inverse kinematics” settings to limbs:
    • Target: a setting for choosing another object in the animation to rotate/bend towards.
    • Angle target: another object in the scene to use for rotating towards.
    • Angle offset: A rotation value to offset the twisting from the angle target.
    • Blend: How much IK should rotate/bend the limb.
  • Limbs that meet this criteria will support inverse kinematics:
    • The body part must have bending.
    • Can only bend on the X axis.
    • Defines the "End offset" setting. (Ex. Distance from elbow to hand, knee to foot, etc.)

Animation

  • Block texture animations, wind, clouds, and particles are synced with the animation.
  • Particles will be cleared if the marker goes backwards.
  • Added "Bézier" transition.
  • Added “Wind influence” slider for objects.
  • Organized the transitions list.

Camera

  • Added “Zoom amount” setting for the distort effect.
  • Added “Rotational” mode for camera shake.
  • Cameras can be closer to objects without clipping through them.

Changes

  • Renamed settings:
    • “SSAO” -> “Ambient occlusion”
    • “AA” -> “Anti-aliasing”
    • “Alpha” -> “Opacity”
    • “Brightness” -> “Emissive”
    • “Graphics” (Timeline panel) -> “Appearance”
    • “Background” -> “Environment”
    • "Show seconds" -> “Show intervals”
  • Added mesh caching to speed up bending limbs.
    • To prevent excessive memory use, bend angles are snapped by 0.05° internally and only update every quarter frame.
  • “Render” and “Graphics” settings are combined and are per-project.
  • Renamed "schematic" resources to "scenery" in the interface.
  • Updated cloud name settings.
  • Optimized noise texture generation.
  • Loading popup will now show overall progress when loading multiple assets. (Ex. When loading a project.)
  • Resetting camera position/rotation now always defaults to 0.
  • Updated text when canceling movie exporting to "Are you sure you want to stop rendering?".
  • Sunrise and sunset no longer affects fog size.
  • Timelines no longer use a random color for keyframes.

Moved

  • Moved playback time and buttons into a new timeline header.
  • Moved the "Select all keyframes" button into a right-click menu.
  • Moved “Blades” and “Blade Angle” settings into a new “Aperture settings” group.
  • Moved “Grid snapping” to the viewport.
  • Moved “View Grid Size” to the viewport.
  • "Add folder", "Duplicate/Delete/Export objects", "Walk cycle", "Run cycle", & "Copy/Cut/Paste/Delete/Export keyframes" buttons are in a right-click menu.
  • Position, rotation, scale, and bend tabs are combined in a new "Transform" tab.
  • Color and texture tabs are combined in a new "Material" tab.
  • The workbench button has been moved into the viewport.

Removed

  • Warnings when attempting to create a project:
  • Empty project names will use a default name.
  • Duplicate project names will be given a numerical suffix.
  • Rotation loops setting.
  • Custom interface color settings.
  • Custom interface font setting.
  • "Shadow blur size" and "Shadow quality" settings.
  • "Follow camera" and "Sunlight range" environment settings.
  • “Gigantic (8192x8192)” option for Point light buffer size.
  • FPS interface setting. (Custom FPS can still be set in the settings file.)
  • Custom watermark settings.
  • "Desaturate night" environment setting.
  • "Noisy grass/water" graphics setting
  • “Block glowing” / “Block glow threshold” graphics settings.
  • "Custom object fog color" environment setting.
  • "Foliage tint" appearance setting.
  • "Bleed light" / "Foliage light bleeding”.
  • “Advanced Color Effects” button.

Bugfixes

  • Fixed texture filtering artifacts.
  • Fixed frame outlines leaving particle sheet preview.
  • Fixed "redo" creating particle creator new particle type in particle creator.
  • Fixed "undoing" creating particle creator not working. "Redo" creating a new particle creator.
  • Fixed crash when "redoing" duplicating particle type. (If "redoing" from before particle creator was created.)
  • Fixed "redoing" deleting particle type not working. "Undo" crashes after redoing. (If "Redoing" from before particle creator was created.)
  • Fixed crash when deleting huge hierarchies.
  • Fixed sunlight in low-quality rendering.
  • Fixed timeline selecting being offset depending on scrollbar.
  • Fixed crash if an asset's file extension wasn't fully lowercase.
  • Fixed timelines and keyframes disappearing on edges of the timeline.
  • Fixed slow viewport navigation during lag.

Known issues

  • Particles spawned from the “Spawn particles” shortcut won’t show until the marker moves forward.
  • Preset particle loading issues.
  • End time value for sound effects not working.
  • Crash when selecting items with the "Surface properties" tab open with material maps enabled.

 

Installation:

Windows: Run the installer executable or extract the .zip archive before running.
Mac: Open the disk file (.dmg) and drag the Mine-imator icon to your Applications.
Ubuntu/Debian: Either double click the .deb file to run the Software Installer or run the following command in the folder:

sudo apt install ./Mine-imator\ 2.0\ Pre-release\ 2.deb

Mine-imator can then be found in your Applications menu.

Fedora/Arch Linux/Other distributions: Download the tar.gz archive and extract all the files, then run the Mine-imator executable.

 

We hope you enjoy the 2.0 update, also please consider donating to help the project if you can!

 

Donate to Mine-imator development

($5+ one-time or recurring)

The one thing I want to know is why does it take so much longer time to render than the older versions. 73 hours for a 5 minute animation. I get it that other softwares act the same but mine-imator used to only take like 2 hours to render a 5 minute animation depending on how laggy it is. I don't know if this will be fixed but I hope it is.

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Update removed way too many features that we needed. I think I'll stick to Pre-Release 4, because for right now it's just way too confusing and hard to use. Hopefully these things get re-added so I can use the new features. I will say though it's not all bad, I do like some parts of the new UI, I just think it could be better.

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On 11/20/2022 at 12:13 AM, CamTheCoolKidYT said:

Update removed way too many features that we needed. I think I'll stick to Pre-Release 4, because for right now it's just way too confusing and hard to use. Hopefully these things get re-added so I can use the new features. I will say though it's not all bad, I do like some parts of the new UI, I just think it could be better.

So you think mine imator should have something for sfm users to use to rotate better and get the hang of mine imator, Again something like this https://gyazo.com/2f743bf6023c4489c6f3e86faa09d366

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On 11/19/2022 at 7:04 AM, cuteskyler said:

Great job, guys, I'm sure CD Projekt Red would be proud!

image.png

I'm sorry, but are you guys forgetting this is a pre-release? it's gonna be buggy on release because we're trying to FIND the bugs. This isn't what 2.0 in it's final stages is gonna be.

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I like it! Played around with it a bit ago and I like the sleek and clean UI and oh gosh being able to search for characters and blocks now! Finally! Thank you!!! The fast boot is amazing. Older versions would take forever to boot. 

Like the mini tutorials. Showing me an image difference between spotlight and point light and telling me what either does. Giving me a rundown on the pathing system. Appreciate these. These will for sure help future animators. One thing I have felt MI has always lacked is FAQ. Its always been vague

I haven't played around with other settings yet. But I am going to backup and transfer my current animations to this update

A huge thank you to the development team

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This update seems alright, even after I got the same problem with the loading assets, even worse. I can't find the camera settings so I can change the camera shakes high to low since I was using one of my previous projects but now I just found the camera settings and it was just to change the render settings to custom. But one problem is that I try to export my animation, it crash and I don't understand what just happen, too high up graphics or is my computer can't handle the newer update pre-release? Hope you fix it the export problem, even with it saying that'll export in 68 hours, not right, please fix it. And ofcourse thank you for the newer features. And maybe... just maybe a small update with paintings being added, since I been exporting maps and I wish for the paintings that are part of a map being imported to the software?

 

Plus for another update, can there be a setting to put outline on the player and the world? Make them look like those 2D animated styles? Outline could be a good idea.

Edited by Firelord6089
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