Plumber 1.1.1

Improvements

• Fixed "Import VMT" not working from the import menu or game file browser (import finished but no materials showed up in Blender)

Plumber 1.1.0

New features

• Import some metadata for entities and materials to open up new possibilities for external scripts and addons (thanks @hisprofile)
  • Some extra metadata is imported as custom properties in Blender 3.0 and above.
  • Can be used by external scripts and addons to further process the imported data.
  • Includes full paths for props' models and materials as path_id, and Source engine-defined properties for entities as props.
  • Can be found from here:
    

Plumber 1.0.2

Improvements

• Added support for Blender 4.1. (Fixed model importing not working)
• Added ARM64 build for Apple silicon Macs.

Plumber 1.0.1

Improvements

• Added support for Blender 4.0. (Fixed material importing not working)

Plumber 1.0.0

The addon has been rewritten and renamed to Plumber!

Comparison to io_import_vmf 0.6.9

Improvements

• Major performance increases: typical VMF map import time reduced from 5-30 minutes to 2-30 seconds.
• Manual game configuration no longer required: the addon automatically detects installed Source games on Steam.
• No longer depends on other addons to import models: a built-in MDL importer has been implemented.
• No longer caches anything on disk.
• MacOS support in addition to Windows and Linux.

New features

• MDL importer with animation support.
• Game file browser: easily import MDL/VMT files straight from game files without manual extraction, or extract any files/folders.
• Option to remove animations or animations and armatures from dynamic props to prevent problems when exporting maps outside Blender.
• Option to merge solids into one mesh object per brush.
• Option to import unknown VMF entities as empty objects.
• Support for 4WayBlend materials.
• Support for $layertint1 and $layertint2 parameters in materials.
• Support for Vindictus props.
• Fixed brushes being smooth shaded in Blender 3.6 (made brushes look wrong)

Missing/removed features

• Enhanced QC importer: removed due to the new MDL importer.
• Enhanced AGR importer: missing.
• Reusing previously imported data: missing.

Internal improvements

• Switched to custom VDF (Valve KeyValues) parser, which fixes the current parsing issues.
• Game files are no longer indexed, and are instead searched for on-demand, leading to better performance.
• Importer is now multithreaded.
• Importer backend and Blender glue code are now separated, possibly allowing reusing the backend for other projects.
• Mostly written in Rust for better performance.

Changes to Plumber 1.0.0-rc2

• Changed default import settings: texture format back to PNG and brushes back to separated

Plumber 1.0.0-rc2

The addon has been rewritten and will be renamed to Plumber.

This is a release candidate, please report any bugs you may find.

Also see release notes of previous beta versions for differences to io_import_vmf.

Hopefully there's no more bugs so 1.0.0 can be released.

Improvements

• Added option to import textures as PNG
• Internal improvement: any thread can load any asset types, there's no dedicated material+texture loader thread anymore
• Internal improvement: generic asset processing & caching

Bugfixes

• Fix possible invalid geometry in overlays (could have caused eg. Blender crashes with modifiers)
• Fix a possible race condition with prop import, leading to errors when importing some props
• Fix brushes being smooth shaded in Blender 3.6 (made brushes look wrong)
• Fix brush origin not being at center when using separate option

Plumber 1.0.0-beta4

The addon has been rewritten and will be renamed to Plumber.

This is a beta release, please report any bugs you may find.

Also see release notes of previous beta versions for differences to io_import_vmf.

Improvements

• Add file name filtering to the game file browser.
• Directly open import dialog when a full file path is pasted into the game file browser.
• Add a recent directories list to the game file browser.
• Add support for 4WayBlend materials.
• Add support for $layertint1 and $layertint2 parameters in materials.
• Add a workaround for updating addon on Windows without restarting Blender.
• Add "Detect from gameinfo.txt" button to preferences.
• Add support for Vindictus props.

Bugfixes

• Fix "file not found" errors due to paths sometimes having multiple sequential slashes.
• Fix game file browser not working with a trailing slash in the path.
• Fix hidden solids or entities causing errors in VMF parsing.

Plumber 1.0.0-beta3

The addon has been rewritten and will be renamed to Plumber.

This is a beta release, please report any bugs you may find.

Also see release notes of previous beta versions for differences to io_import_vmf.

Improvements

• Make sure imported asset names stay consistent between manual and automatic imports.
• Allow creating setting presets for importers.
• Add scale setting to mdl importer.
• Add vtf importer.
• Verify that native code and python code versions match on addon startup.
• Add option to import unknown vmf entities as empty objects.
• Show an error in console when trying to import models with unsupported external animations in .ani files.
• Detect local asset search paths when importing models/materials that are in a Source-like directory structure.

Bugfixes

• Fix missing library folder failing game discovery.
• Fix wrong gameinfo.txt being detected sometimes.
• Fix vmf embedded files directory not being detected when using game file browser.

Plumber 1.0.0-beta2

The addon has been rewritten and will be renamed to Plumber.
This is a beta release, please report any bugs you may find.
Also see release notes of previous beta versions for differences to io_import_vmf.

Improvements

• Add path info to game discovery errors.
• Allow importing VMFs using game file browser.
• Add game file browser to 3D view sidebar.
• Improve game file browser interface.
• Add file extraction functionality to game file browser.

Bugfixes

• Fix recursive patch materials being unsupported.
• Fix game discovery errors stopping discovery process.
• Fix file system opening error on missing VPK file (changed to warning).
• Fix incorrect $detail in materials.
• Fix inaccuracy in material blend data.
• Fix being able to browse outside game files using game file browser.
• Fix some out of bounds errors when reading certain models.
• Fix some panics when reading certain models.

Plumber 1.0.0-beta1

The addon has been rewritten and will be renamed to Plumber.
This is a beta release, please report any bugs you may find.

Improvements

• Major performance increases: typical VMF map import time reduced from 5-30 minutes to 2-30 seconds.
• Manual game configuration no longer required: the addon automatically detects installed Source games on Steam.
• No longer depends on other addons to import models: a built-in MDL importer has been implemented.
• No longer caches anything on disk.
• MacOS support in addition to Windows and Linux.

New features

• MDL importer with animation support.
• Game file browser: easily import MDL/VMT files straight from game files without manual extraction.
• Option to remove animations or animations and armatures from dynamic props to prevent problems when exporting maps outside Blender.
• Option to merge solids into one mesh object per brush (enabled by default for better performance).

Missing/removed features

• Enhanced QC importer: removed due to the new MDL importer.
• Enhanced AGR importer: missing, best way to reimplement this is still under consideration.
• Reusing previously imported data: missing, will probably be added back later.

Internal improvements

• Imported texture file format is now TGA instead of PNG for better performance.
• Switched to custom VDF (Valve KeyValues) parser, which fixes the current parsing issues.
• Game files are no longer indexed, and are instead searched for on-demand, leading to better performance.
• Importer is now multithreaded.
• Importer backend and Blender glue code are now separated, possibly allowing reusing the backend for other projects.
• Mostly written in Rust for better performance.