New Knald 1.1.0 Beta Release!

 
Since the initial 1.0 release of Knald we have been hard at work developing new features and adding improvements. The Beta has been underway for a while now and we think it’s about time that you might like to try it out!
 

What’s changed since Knald 1.0?

 

New Features, Improvements and Optimizations

 

  • Added our new next generation baker.
  • Significantly upgraded 3d preview with all new IBL & PBR support with Metal & Smoothness workflow.
  • Added ability to view Skybox, Color & Ambient backgrounds.
  • Added Exposure controls to the 3d preview.
  • Added Reinhard tonemapping to the 3d preview.
  • Added MSAA in the 3d preview.
  • Added free rotation to the 3d preview.
  • Added MatID support in the baker (MeshID) with user selectable colors or preset RGBCMY.
  • Added NGon support for imported meshes.
  • Increased the max number of HP meshes to 255.
  • Substantially improved the AA quality when baking AO.
  • Added support for custom FBX tangent space in the baker.
  • Added support for FBX vertex color baking.
  • Reorganised the Preferences tab.
  • Added an option in the preferences to show a warning message if Knald is exited before saving modified settings.
  • Increased online activation grace period from 7 to 30 days.
  • Added support for Cavity maps in The Baker.
  • Added support for Convexity maps in The Baker.
  • Added single a dual channel curvature maps to The Baker.
  • Added “P” hotkey for 3d preview viewport.
  • Added a new Lys style contrast slider to Concavity & Convexity.
  • Added a new settings/preferences management system
  • Added additional 3d preview controls to settings system.
  • Added low poly mesh refresh when mesh is modified externally. -You must hit bake for the changes to the mesh to appear in Knald.
  • Added next-generation DDS export including high performance support for BC6H/BC7/11_11_10 formats.
  • Added single channel image space curvature.
  • Added new 16xAA option for Material ID maps, with a toggle for Median AA.
  • Added new 16xAA option for Height maps, with a toggle for Median AA.
  • Added new Random and Max Euclidean palettes to Material ID.
  • Added the ability to scale the strength of normals post bake without seams via the Bumpscale slider (works on meshes without smoothing groups/hard edges).
  • Added new material presets to the 3d preview.
  • Added new default/fall back Knald Technologies folder in Documents.
  • Added Pow2 and Mul4 constraint support when manually editing baker size spin boxes.
  • Added support for copy/paste (CTRL+C/CTRL+V).
  • Added the ability to load/save Knald settings to a file (.ksf).
  • Fixed beta documentation link from the help menu.
  • Improved Anti-aliasing quality on tangent space normals.
  • Mesh processing improvements.
  • The Knald Demo now supports the full 1.1.0 feature set.
  • Updated to latest FBX standard.
  • Miscellaneous improvements and optimizations.

 

Bug fixes

 

  • Fix for issue where certain saved settings might not be persistent in some cases.
  • Fix for various modifier key sticking issues in 3d preview and settings cluster.
  • Fix for very large TIFF files (8k) not opening correctly in Photoshop.
  • Fixed a few minor GUI related issues.
  • Fixed an issue where some GUI element positions were not saved correctly in the configuration .ini.
  • Fixed an issue where under some circumstances baking -MeshAO in Integrator mode after using the baker caused a crash.
  • Fixed an issue where vertex colors were not rendered correctly for non-square textures.
  • Fixed some rare license authentication issues.
  • Fixed some small issues with the Curvature/Cavity and Convexity sliders.
  • Fixed issue where Copy/Paste breaks if you close the Copy/Paste popup.
  • Fixed an issue when loading non-HDR panoramas in the 3d Preview were displayed incorrectly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Into tab’s red channel max value was displayed incorrectly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Export Name didn’t update when loading multiple normals in integrator mode.
  • Fixed an issue where obj and fbx were sometimes rotated differently within the baker.
  • Fixed an issue where the group modified notification didn’t show correctly under some situations.
  • Fixed an issue where the last used load/export locations were not remembered correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where the user could crash Knald by closing the bake progress pop-up and initiate a secondary bake before the initial bake had completed.
  • Fixed an issue where the Material ID export settings were showing up outside of the baker mode.
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes.

 
You can grab the new beta build from https://www.knaldtech.com/knald-1-1-0-open-beta/