BroDynamics 2.1.0 (Beta) released!

BroDynamics 2.1.0 is out and with it comes a lot of improvements!

Improvements

First of all you'll notice that with Chain simulation mode you don't have to select Front or Up axes anymore! Simulation rig was updated and it now does not require you to select axes and it also got more reliable and predictable. It's compatibility with different rigs and usecases also improved, for example you can now reliably use it to simulate character's limbs - arms and legs with Preserve animation on!

Another big updage is introduction of new Fake simulation mode called - Simple Chain. Instead of using nHair it relies solely on math to calculate motion. It does not have overshoot, only overlap and drag. But it works better with twisting, it allows to create animation loops and is generally easier to setup. Oh, it also supports wind and collision capsules.

Plugin initialization and imports were reworked with better Python practices in mind, should improve load times and potentially fix some startup bugs.

Update

For this release I highly recommend performing a clean install for this update, as using Updater will leave rudimentary files in place. To perform a clean install simply remove BroTools folder from your PC, and then extract new version in place of the old one. Running install.mel again is not required.

If you try to use built-in updater it will proceed but will result in a lot of rudimentary files, as the structure of the project was changed a bit, some files and folders renamed.

Updater is something I will have to rework and improve in future versions. But I don't feel like it's a feature that's worth delaying this release any longer.

Why Beta?

I decided to mark this release as Beta release for 2.1.X because I was really excited to share this new version with you, guys, but it has a lot of changes and it's not quite polished yet, and it was not thoroughly tested. This is more of a major release version, not a patch. And I feel like testing everything and polishing it may take about as much time as it took to get all these features in. But it works, so why should you wait?

So from now on I will likely stick to this versioning sceme MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, X.X.0 will be considered beta. PATCH will only increase when there are bug fixes and very minor improvements. MINOR will increase when new features are added. MAJOR will change only when and if major overhaul happens.

I hope you'll like this new version, and please report any bugs you find!

You can download or buy BroDynamics here: https://gum.co/BroDynamics