Release Notes for Colorway 6.0v1

Release Date: 21st April 2022

Supported Operating Sytems

macOS X:10.14 Catalina and above

Windows: 10 64-bit (SP-1), and above

Colorway Hardware Requirements

A stable internet connection is required for login-based license installation.

 

 

Minimum

Recommended

CPU

Dual-core processor

2.5+ GHz quad-core processor

RAM

4 GB

16 GB

Hard drive space

4 GB

16 GB

Display

1280x720 pixel resolution

1920x1080 pixel resolution

GPU

2 GB RAM, Vulkan 1.0

4 GB RAM, Vulkan 1.0

 

Colorway Kit for Modo Requirements

 

Minimum

Recommended

Modo Version

14.0v1

15.0+

CPU

Intel processor(s), Core i3 or higher

2.5+ GHz quad-core processor

RAM

4 GB

16 GB

Hard drive space

10 GB

250 GB

GPU

1 GB RAM, OpenGL 3.2

2 GB RAM, OpenGL 4.4+

New Features

Vectorized PDF rendering

Users can now choose to export sheets to PDF in a vectorized format. This allows to minimize the size of the PDF file while improving readability of text. The vectorized text can be selected and modified in PDF editors.

Note:  Some Colorway effects like Item level blending (Add/Multiply) are not supported in the vectorized format. If a project requires use of such effects, users should stick to the old, rasterized PDF format.

Note:  Fonts might slightly differ between the rasterized and vectorized PDF format.

Improved Control Over Multipage PDF Export

Users can now choose to export a single PDF file per exported project, sheet or variation.

Exporting Selected Variations

Users can now choose to export just the selected subset of Stored Variations. If multiple sheets are being exported, variations from the other sheets will be matched by their name.

Auto-save restore point is not being saved just before the export operation.

Improved Texture Removal Dialog

We have simplified the Texture Layer Remove dialog so it is much less verbose and it now remembers the last choice selected upon dialog reopen.

We no longer deselect Texture Layers if the user has canceled the removal.

Safe Mode

Users that experience issues with Colorway can now start it in Safe Mode that will use default settings and disable all plugins. If the Safe Mode resolves the issue, on closing Colorway users can choose to revert their usual settings to those from the Safe Mode session.

There are additional shortcuts available on Windows desktop and in the start menu for starting Colorway in the Safe Mode. There is also a dedicated Safe Mode app for Mac that needs to be placed next to the regular Colorway application.

Users can manually choose to run Colorway in Safe Mode by passing --safemode argument from command line.

Custom Item Tree Colors

Users can now color-code items and parts with custom colors in the Items Tree. The option to assign this Editor Color is available in both the context menu and the global Items menu.

Users can select items/parts with the same Editor Color with the use of the new “Select Same > Editor Color“ action. Ensure that you have proper scope of the search selected before using this action (e.g. “Search in the current sheet”).

Vector Tools Improvements

  • Users can now modify complex paths (both straight lines and curves).
  • Users can add/remove points to/from complex paths (hold Shift while clicking to insert new points).
  • Added ability to translate entire parts by dragging the shapes.
  • Added copy/paste parts actions to Part context menu.

Sheets Enhancements

Users can now change Sheet background color from its Display properties panel. (Previously users had to drop the color onto the given Sheet node in the Items Tree)

Flat SVG Rendering

Added “Flat” option in the SVG Item Display properties panel to control whether Bump Maps or Specular Highlights get rendered for a given Item.

Items Tree Improvements

Users can now drop SubMaterials and TextureLayers from items tree onto Parts in the viewport. Dragged objects will be either moved or cloned depending on the optional modifiers being pressed (shown on the Hints Panel at the bottom of the screen).

Materials Library Updates

If the project that is being opened refers to one of the hidden Material Libraries, its Materials will be loaded and used correctly, but the Library will still be hidden from the interface. Materials that are hidden (deprecated) in such a project will have a warning message shown next to their name in the Items Tree.

Users can now easily check/uncheck all Color and Material Libraries in preferences.

It is now also possible to select multiple Color Libraries in the Preferences to toggle them on/off.

Grouping Parts into One Cell

Users can now group multiple DCI/SVG Parts in a single Dynamic Table cell. If they toggle the Collapse Part Groups option on the Table Properties panel, all Parts belonging to a single unmerged Group will be grouped together in the Table.

Show/Hide Items Per Variation

Users can now show / hide Items per Variation. This is the default behavior of the eye button from now on. Users can right click on the eye button to show / hide a given item in all Stored Variations.

Import Resources by Dropping Them onto the Items Tree

Users can now drop resources from Finder / Explorer / Live Source Browser onto the Items Tree like they did with the Viewport. Newly created items will be z-ordered between the items they were dropped at.

If the user drops a resource that can be added as a Variant to the Item or Texture Layer below the cursor, the typical Import Resource context menu will pop up on mouse release.

We have also improved Material drag and drops to only show the drop cursor when the objects behind it actually accepts material drops (are parts)

Miscellaneous

Colorway Kit now works in both Python 2 and Python 3 mode

Viewport: Fade out sheet names when zooming out the viewport

Fixed Issues

  • 453282 - Dock: Fixed button highlights after opening right dock collapse panel context menu
  • 504377 - [Kit] Properly import Looks with Texture Layers from the latest versions of DCI/LKS files

    • Fixed exporting textures to LKS format from Colorway

  • 496221, 501452 - [Kit] Some parts could be rendered at the wrong scale if render resolution has been changed after passes were generated
  • 456578 - [Kit] Do not auto start Modo's Preview after completing DCI rendering
  • 487297 - [Kit] Fixed some issues with bundling render passes
  • 435134 - [Kit] Do not render lights that are in a hidden group
  • 472241 - [Kit] Update Colorway Kit UV map list each time the user renames or deletes a UV map
  • 492327 - [Kit] Fixed error when rendering passes in one step
  • 370702 - [Kit][Deadline] Added counters to the Deadline Render tab that show available and used Deadline workers.
  • 456491 - [Kit] Added scroll bars to the Colorway Kit UI
  • 491165 - [Kit] Fixed missing logos and other transparency/refraction issues on some models rendered using Light Passes (requires use of latest Modo)
  • 489325 - [Kit] When rendering a DCI using Render Passes, the DCI has sometimes failed with an UV error
  • 488658, 494097 - [Kit] "Render Pases" button was not enabled after building passes
  • 481204 - [Kit][Deadline] Fixed Deadline Render tab on MacOS
  • 487166 - [Kit] Fixed DCI rendering errors in some cases of using Real World Scale feature
  • 505047 - 'Use Original Materials' flag has been reset for existing linked items if a new item has been added to one of the linked sheets and in result was autolinked with the existing ones.

    • Note:  The flag may still reset if the newly inserted items forms a new linked items group with a single existing item.

  • 502834, 499685 - MDI: Improved dragging opened projects tabs:
    • Ensure that the tabs stick to the mouse

    • Ensure that the tab is being moved to the back when user quickly dragged it behind all of the tabs

  • 495968, 504708 - ItemsTree: Tweaked the hot spot of the dragged SwatchAssignments so they don't appear to be disconnected from the mouse cursor.
  • 499140 - Redesign layout of Material panel checkboxes to dynamically change their layout to fit the panel width in optimal way
  • 481018 - Fixed undesired minimization of maximized Colorway window on Mac when user opened Preferences
  • 469007 - Hide tool selection popovers when they lose focus + hide vector tools popover when the right dock is being collapsed
  • 504886 - EXE installer: Do not create desktop links if user has checked the “Do not create shortcuts” option
  • 505043 - TextureLayers: When adding new layers, try to guess effect on file base name only and only fallback to guessing effect based on its full path (its directory) if the first guess fails
  • - Try to navigate to the last MatLib/EnvLib folder when opening file dialog to select a new one
  • 499802 - MaterialLibrary: Undock Material palette when adding Materials to it
  • 499802 - ColorLibraries: Undock current palette when adding new colors to it, just as we do when we add them from Color panel.
  • 505052 - VectorTools: Automatically set drawn vector lines/arrow's fill color to transparent and expose fill color to panel
    • Expose marker end properties to all open paths (i.e. including paths with more than two points)
    • Added ability to close/open paths
  • 504994 - RecolorEditor: Fixed and optimized 'Assign Preview Colors' option
  • 503978 - Do not assign SubMaterial multiple times to a LiveMaterial if multiple linked parts are selected (on the same or linked sheets)
  • - Fixed operation of the "Select Same (Alternative)" submenu
  • 504990 - GroupItem: Fallback to working variation when calculating children local or opaque bounding boxes (ContactSheets applied invalid cropping if the state of any group has been missing)
  • 505048 - PlaceTool: Show import menu at proper position (top-left corner of the bbox)
  • 505054 - Fixed “distorted” aspect ratio mode of rendering DCI items with 'Scaled DCI' quality option enabled
  • 499497 - VectorTools: Fixed hiding of cursor when hovering rotate icon and shape edit tool is active
    • Fixed issue where resize handle cursors would be drawn together with custom cursors
  • 501283 - ItemContextMenu: Properly remove multi part items if just their part is selected
  • - Linked Items Engine: Link part metadata and collapsed state only between parts with the same name to give people more flexibility with configuring items and dynamic tables
    • Do not link part visibility state at all (users can now hide a given part from one item but leave it visible in the other, so they can have multiple tables showing different subsets of parts).
  • 501477 - Refactored viewport selection code to allow selection of items that belong to a different sheet than they are placed above
    • Fixed random issue with not being able to select items beneath the top level ones
  • 493068 - Workaround for QML rendering issues with antialiased Rectangles with Matrix4x4 transformations applied to them
  • 502952 - Use placeholder text for naming new sheets if user hasn't provided any name
  • 503871 - New Project: Fixed styling of Preset Name field for Modo theme
  • 502387 - Preferences: Fixed white border at the bottom-right and slight offset to the top-left of Material Library Preview on Windows
  • - Fixed few issues with Snapping Engine
  • 503494 - Fixed few issues with the exe uninstaller:
    • Show proper icon in the Add / Remove Programs dialog.
    • Show an estimate of the Colorway size in the Add / Remove Programs dialog.
    • Use a unique uninstaller registry key between different build numbers.
  • 501310 - TableItem: Fixed crash when exporting all Variations of a Table Item to a CSV file if any of the Stored Variations had no state stored for the Table Item.
    • Show warning message if such Variations are encountered during the export
    • Show update button for active Stored Variation if we know that it lacks some of the states
  • 500042 - ContactSheet: Fixed issues with rendering Variation names for zoomed out or rotated Contact Sheets.
  • - PaletteItem: Swatches were not extracted if Palette Item referenced a hidden Item.
  • - Added missing Item context submenu for CalloutItems.
  • - Fixed QML error when right-clicking on a sheet label in the viewport.
  • - Fixed a few potential sources of deadlocks.
  • - Do not apply item tint to item mask in Mask Preview mode.
    • Added '-' (undefined) channel to Item Mask channel selector to allow turning the mask off without resetting its handle.
  • - Fixed positioning of masks applied to cropped DCI files.
  • 484120 - Show "New Sheet" and "Consolidate" dialogs on top of grayed out viewport + hide View menu when they are being shown.
  • - Unified the look of dialog buttons across all of the dialogs + fixed/unified handling of Esc and Return/Enter buttons.
  • - Fixed a bug where sheets would not have unique z-indices after being copy-pasted.
  • 493786 - Fixed random issues with loading Color Libraries on Colorway startup.
  • - Fixed submaterial removal logic to properly clear multiple SubMaterials (only odd numbered ones were removed with context menu actions).
  • - Do not show the secondary background color slot on the Callout Item Panel.
  • - Import Resources context menu bug fixes.
  • - Fixed issues with dropping images at the sheet after moving the dragged image over a DCI/SVG part.
  • - Some minor cleanup of context locking (decrease chances for deadlocks when dealing with SVGs).
  • - Fixed "Layout To Contact Sheet" shortcut as it collided with the Line tool one.

Known Issues

  • 488544 - [Canvas] If an image spans 2 sheets it is not possible to select the image from the second sheet
  • 504984 - [Canvas] Grouped items won’t resize when resizing multiple selected items at the same time
  • 405372 - [Canvas] Hidden sheets are not skipped when using the mouse wheel to change sheets.
  • 401807 - [Canvas] The context menu when dropping colors can be clipped if the window is too small
  • 386980 - [Colorspace] There is a minor difference in RGB / Hex value when color swatch is added from color picker into a palette
  • 391834 - [Colorspace] There is a minor discrepancy in RGB value between colors applied to parts and the same color in the rest of the application
  • 390699 - [Colorspace][Mac] The correct swatch is not picked when using the Mac OS color picker in AdobeRGB colorspace
  • 396513 - [CrashReporter][Qt] Crash reporter is not appearing for all of the crashes on Windows.
  • 454790 - [DynamicTable] Automatic font size is not filling all available empty space.
  • 488355 - [Kit] “Select a Texture First” error message appears when rendering some projects
  • 493642 - [Kit] UVs renamed with batch commands or scripts are not updated in the Colorway Kit UI.
  • 408993 - [Kit][Deadline][Multi UVs] Multiple tagged UVs are not rendering over Deadline.
  • 440055 - [Kit] Colorway Kit doesn't see diffuse color with Modo procedural textures.
  • 414523, 427416 - [Kit] DCI files can sometimes have Modo material colors burned into its textures (cleaning Modo settings seems to resolve this issue).
  • 105803 - [Kit] Intensity >1.0 for Luminous materials causes tint to be incorrect.
  • 432009 - [Kit][Texture] Textures seen though transparency might be distorted, this effect increases with multiple layers of transparency. Enabling use of mPath in the Kit solves this issue.
  • 480669 - [Kit] There might be some rendering issues when rendering DCI files using mPath in Modo 14. We advise using Modo 15.
  • 473212 - [KPI][Performance] Applying materials to multiple selected parts across several sheets might be slow (and gets slower with each subsequent material added to the stack)
  • 466698 - [KPI][Palettes][MDI] Switching between projects with large local palettes is slow
  • 466994 - [KPI][SourceBrowser] Colorway will freeze when accessing a folder with many files
  • 476532 - [Licensing] Selecting Cancel on license login will not return to the previous screen
  • 396246 - [Preferences][Import] Importing another user's preferences file does not update the source browser correctly.
  • 440699 - [TableItem] When setting 'textures' to display as 'images' the dynamic table tags will not update
  • 394303 - [TextureWidget] The texture widget behaves erratically when non-uniform scale is applied at the part level
  • 502850 - [VectorTools] Vertices will not appear if parts are merged.
  • 493080 - [VectorTools] When separating parts from an SVG the item tree will collapse.