NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240825

• New render setting for the mouse wheel zoom speed in the main window and UV editor.
• Implemented the 'Startup Direction' render setting that was previously disabled.
• Skyrim and Fallout 4 shader property data is no longer moved to a sub-structure of BSLightingShaderProperty or BSEffectShaderProperty.
• Shapes with alpha blending are now considered fully transparent for the purpose of vertex selection. Note that with alpha tested materials (e.g. vegetation), clicking on a vertex will often still not work because the selection mode ignores transparency.
• Fixed the geometry of docked widgets not being restored.
• Fixed bug in vertex selection with more than 256 shapes.
• Fixed invisible Oblivion models with Mesa (and possibly other) OpenGL drivers.
• Fixed error messages on macOS about unsupported GLSL version in the shaders.
• Fixed Fallout 3 and Oblivion vertices not being highlighted in vertex selection mode.
• Various other minor bug fixes.
• Windows binaries are now also built with Clang.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240818

• Implemented high DPI scaling support for displays with higher than 1920x1080 resolution. Setting the QT_SCALE_FACTOR environment variable to a value other than 1.0 can be used to change the default scaling. Dynamic scale factors (due to multiple monitors with different DPI, or changing the resolution while NifSkope is running) are not supported yet.
• Added support for selecting Starfield LOD meshes in the UV editor, using the LOD slider on the main window.
• macOS binary packages are now available, built with GitHub Actions workflow contributed by DigitalBox98.
• Fixes to silhouette mode when used with Starfield models and/or cube map background enabled. Shaders also remain active for all games, this is more expensive to render, but it allows for correct transparency.
• Improved handling of transparency in PNG screenshots, the alpha channel is now calculated from a second image that is rendered in silhouette mode. The previous method of saving the alpha directly from the OpenGL framebuffer is still available with DDS format screenshots.
• When saving screenshots with transparency, the grid and axes are temporarily disabled. The skybox remains active if it was enabled, but its opacity has been changed to 0.
• PNG screenshots can be compressed, the compression level is controlled by the 'JPEG Quality' setting (0: none, 100: maximum).
• Added batch versions of the spells 'Face Normals' and 'Smooth Normals'.
• The maximum cube map resolution for image based lighting has been increased to 2048x2048. Note: this setting is generally only recommended for high resolution skyboxes with 8K HDR files, and should be used with low sample counts like 64.
• Removed support for the TGA screenshot format, as the plugin did not actually work on Windows. Instead of TGA, there is a new option to save the image as an uncompressed (ARGB32 pixel format) DDS file.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240811

• Vertex selection has been implemented for Starfield, and the maximum number of shapes supported by vertex selection has been increased from 256 to 32768 for all games.
• Fixed the 'Add Tangent Spaces and Update' spell for Starfield.
• Importing OBJ files to Skyrim SE, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 models now creates BSTriShape geometry instead of NiTriShape.
• Added support for vertex colors in exported and imported OBJ files (BSTriShape only).
• Fixes to OBJ import.
• Improvements to image based lighting (Fallout 76 and Starfield), including a new option for tone mapping Radiance HDR format images, which reduces importance sampling artifacts around strong lights.
• Disabled some of the spells for newer games where they are not implemented or should not be applicable (e.g. Fallout 4 and newer do not use triangle strips).

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240804

• Implemented the 'Remove Duplicate Vertices' spell for Starfield, and fixed warnings about missing triangle data for older games.
• Restored support for Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas shading.
• The UV editor now allows selecting Oblivion and Fallout 3/NV texture slots.
• New render setting for the number of importance samples to use at 512x512 and higher PBR cube map resolutions. The default is 1024, lower values reduce pre-filtering time at the cost of image quality.
• The view is automatically centered after importing a glTF file.
• Fixed saving screenshots in WebP, BMP and TGA formats.
• Fixed crash on double clicking block names in the block list.
• Fix to issue hexabits/nifskope#68
• Minor optimizations in the resource manager and renderer.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240724

• Added a new spell (Material/Clone and Copy to Clipboard) that is available in the right click menu on the name of a Starfield BSLightingShaderProperty, and copies the material to the clipboard in JSON (.mat) format, but with randomly generated new resource IDs. This is useful when creating a new material using an existing one as the base.
• The 'Material/Save as New...' spell also generates new resource IDs, but it saves the material as a file instead of copying it to the clipboard. Additionally, it replaces the old material name in object names (BSComponentDB::CTName) to match the new path. Note: material files should be saved under 'materials' in a resource path, and the asset database needs to be cleared in NifSkope (Alt+Q) to ensure that any new or modified materials are loaded and used.
• New spell (Material/Extract All...) to extract all Starfield materials.
• Starfield NIF files are now automatically converted to internal geometry on load. This is often useful because most geometry editing functionality is not implemented for external .mesh files, but it can be disabled in the general settings under 'NIF'.
• New 'Material' spell menu for BSGeometry, BSTriShape (Fallout 4 and 76), BSLightingShaderProperty and BSEffectShaderProperty blocks, with shortcuts to material spells.
• The lighting settings can be saved as the default in the Render menu.
• Trying to edit Fallout 76 or Starfield material data loaded from external files now results in a warning message, instead of the edits being silently reverted.
• Fixed some mesh and material spells not working when cast on data fields of the parent block.
• Bug fixes in drawing the normals or tangents of a selected Starfield shape, the Starfield grid scale, and simplifying skinned meshes.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240716

• Implemented Starfield glTF import, fixes and improvements to glTF export.
• Basic material information and textures can be exported in glTF format. The resolution of the exported textures is reduced according to the mip level in the general settings, which defaults to 1 (half resolution). Setting the mip level to -1 disables texture export.
• Exporting and importing LOD meshes from/to glTF files can be disabled in the general settings under NIF.
• New spell for simplifying Starfield meshes (LOD generation), using meshopt_simplify() from meshoptimizer. It can be configured under NIF in the general settings: the algorithm tries to reduce the triangle count to the original number multiplied by 'Target count', but not less than 'Min. triangles' per shape, while keeping error under the specified value. A target count of 0.0 and/or maximum error of 1.0 disables LOD generation for all remaining levels. Note that internal geometry is required, and that using the spell globally processes all shapes as one large mesh (this is less efficient, but preserves topology across shapes and can reduce seams).
• The 'Flip Faces', 'Flip UV', 'Prune Triangles' and 'Remove Unused Vertices' spells have been implemented for Starfield (internal geometry only). Flip UV also allows for swapping the two sets of texture coordinates.
• New render setting for using the Fallout 76 or Starfield PBR cube map as a skybox. Setting this to a negative value disables the effect, while positive numbers control the amount of blur.
• Starfield bone bounding spheres are now drawn when the 'Skin' field of a BSGeometry block is selected.
• The maximum PBR cube map resolution in the render settings has been increased to 1024x1024 (uses importance sampling at mip levels 1 and 2).

Note: the binary packages now include 'noavx' executables that support older CPUs.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240630

• Implemented support for Starfield BSGeometry blocks that use internal mesh data instead of .mesh files. This format allows for value editing and visualization of the data, including vertices, triangles, normals/tangents, and meshlets.
• New mesh spells for converting between external and internal Starfield geometry data.
• Face Normals, Flip Normals, Normalize, Smooth Normals and Update Tangent Space have been implemented for Starfield internal geometry.
• The 'Generate Meshlets and Update Bounds' spell updates meshes (internal geometry only) to the new version 2 format introduced by Starfield 1.11.33.0, and generates meshlets using code from meshoptimizer or DirectXMesh. The algorithm can be selected in the general settings.
• Update Bounds now also updates the bone bounding spheres of Starfield skinned meshes, and the bounding boxes of meshlets (version 2 and internal geometry only).
• Added new spell (Batch/Copy and Rename all Meshes) by 1OfAKindMods to copy and rename all .mesh files used by a Starfield model. Note that the spell expects a loose NIF file, if the model is from an archive, the renamed mesh files are written under the NifSkope installation directory.
• The right click menu on header strings that end with .bgsm, .bgem or .mat has a new option to browse materials. Updating the view (Alt+U) may be needed for material path changes to take effect.
• Added limited support for rendering translucent Starfield materials (thin objects only).
• Implemented support for rendering Starfield layered materials with Additive and Skin blend modes, the latter is currently interpreted as Linear.
• Fixed the contrast parameter of Starfield blenders that is inverted in the material data.
• The default height scale for Starfield parallax occlusion mapping is now 0.0 in the render settings, as height textures do not actually work in the game.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240616

• Starfield material rendering improvements, including support for layered materials with PositionContrast blend mode. CharacterCombine mode is also rendered, but it is interpreted as linear blending.
• Implemented support for Starfield detail blend mask settings, layered edge falloff and opacity component.
• Fixed mouse wheel sensitivity in walk mode and in the UV editor.
• Added render setting for Starfield parallax mapping height offset.
• The game manager no longer displays "unexpected change to size of loose file" error messages, if such change is detected, resources are now automatically closed and reloaded instead.
• Fixes to reading JSON format Starfield materials, import support, and workaround to invalid parent objects.
• Updates for Starfield version 1.12.30.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240608

• The UV editor now supports exporting Starfield .mesh files. Note: currently only the first available LOD can be edited, and to be able to render the model with the modifications, the file needs to be saved to a path where it is found by NifSkope as a resource, and the NIF reloaded (Alt+X) after closing resources (Alt+Q).
• Implemented the "Flip UV" and "Remove Unused Vertices" spells for BSTriShape geometry. Note that skinned meshes are not supported yet by the latter.
• Fixed the "Search Other Games if no match" resource setting, and the edit and browse path widgets not being enabled/disabled according to the game status.
• SizedString16 data fields are now shown and can be edited as strings.
• Anti-aliasing above 4x can be enabled on Linux by adding "Render\General\Antialiasing%20Limit=4" to the configuration file (NifTools/NifSkope 2.0.conf) under Settings.
• Minor Starfield rendering optimization.

NifSkope-2.0.dev9-20240602

• Added limited (read only) Starfield support to the UV editor.
• Implemented texture slot selection in the UV editor for Fallout 3 and newer games.
• Fixed textures not being rendered in the UV editor.
• Implemented the Prune Triangles mesh spell for games using BSTriShape geometry.
• Layered emissivity settings are now shown in Starfield BSLightingShaderProperty blocks.
• The resource manager has been overhauled to allow for multiple loose NIF files to use local data paths when opened in separate windows. GameManager functions can now also be accessed from NifModel.
• Starfield rendering fixes.