Release Notes for Colorway 6.1v1

Release Date: 23rd March 2023

Supported Operating Systems

macOS: 11.x (Big Sur), 12.x (Monterey), 13.x (Ventura)

Windows: 10 64-bit (SP-1), 11 64-bit

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

Variations Import

You can now import Stored Variations from another project. Stored variations are found in the Variations menu. While active, it looks for a sheet with the same name as the currently active one and imports its Stored Variations. The items in the source and destination (current) projects are matched by their names.

Baked DCIs

You can now export a single selected Render Pass Group from Modo. Each enabled Render Pass from that group is exported as a prebaked DCI Look that can be later imported in Colorway as a variation (using the Variations menu). Baked Looks appear in Colorway exactly as they appear in Modo renders. You can still modify colors and materials of tagged parts, but because light passes are not rendered for the baked DCIs, the modified looks are shown in a semi-flat rendering mode (reflection and refractions can still be visible if you have requested their support in the Colorway Kit). Additionally:

The CW_MaterialID custom user channel can be assigned to tagged materials in Modo or subgroups belonging to those materials.

Custom user channels are interpreted by Colorway on variation import. If materials with custom user channels are found in the Colorway Material Library, the metadata of those Materials is shown in a Dynamic Table.

Colors assigned to materials in Modo are looked for in available Color Libraries on variation import. Any colors found have their name and ID taken from a given Palette and shown in a Dynamic Table.

For more information on baked DCIs, see Export Variations Created in Modo into Colorway within a Single DCI.

Search for Swatches in All Available Color Libraries

You can now choose to see (and filter by name/id) Swatches from all available Color Libraries or any subfolder of Color Libraries, such a palettes groups in a folder on a per-session basis.

Additionally, the Thumbnail Slider at the bottom of the Color Libraries window now updates to reflect the subset of the available, filtered Swatches.

Preferences Browser UI Enhancements

The Preferences Browser has been refreshed so that the UI matches the rest of Colorway. Additional improvements include:

  • Removed the Store Texture Layer settings per variation as default preference - now all new layers are stored per variation unless explicitly changed individually in their preferences.

  • Exposed UI for adding Python based LiveSources so you can add global Python LiveSource plug-ins without the need to edit text files and convert local Python LiveSources to global Python LiveSources.

  • You can choose to ignore, replace, or merge favorite locations when importing settings from file. If broken favorite locations are found after import, COlorway gives you the option fix the links.

Easier to Use Linked Sheets

Automatic, name-based linking of items placed on sheets has been removed, as it often led to confusion. Items now have to be linked explicitly with Linked Items, or with Linked Parts. Older projects have their name-based Linked Items automatically converted to explicit Linked Items on project import.

Linked Sheets are now only responsible for synchronizing stored variations between selected sheets. This is still enabled automatically if you are linking items places on more than one sheet.

Gradients Improvements

The Gradients tools have been improved in this release, including:

  • Names can now be assigned to gradient stops by clicking the pencil icon in the Gradient Editor to switch between the color wheel and the stop list view. While in the stop list view, double-click the gradient stop you want to name and assign it a name.
  • If a swatch from a Color Library is applied to a stop, its name is automatically assigned to that stop.

  • Swatches can now be assigned to a gradient swatch with a click instead of the previous method of dragging and dropping the swatch onto the stop.
  • You can now select which UV set of a given part should be used when the gradient is drawn. In the past, gradients would share a UV set or use the first available UV set. UV sets can now be chosen directly in the Gradient Editor, or from the Materials Properties panel. The mapping selected for the base color of a part is also used as a default UV map for newly created Texture Layers.
  • Note:  The DCI part containing the UV set you want to draw a gradient on must be selected for the UV Set Selection to be active.

  • Gradient and solid color swatches can now be viewed in Dynamic Tables in columns separate to the one that contains the swatch name, ID and color code.

For more information on gradients in Colorway, see Creating and Adding Gradients to Your Parts.

Texture Widget Redesign

The texture widget has been redesigned to unify its behavior on flat and 3D mapped textures. Its performance has been improved to allow UV based mode to work even when the handles are dragged outside of the part area. Additional workflow improvements include:

  • Double-clicking the scale/rotation handle reveals a pie menu that allows you to change the handle's behavior to scale, rotate, or both. This can also be toggled with the keyboard shortcuts present at the bottom of the hints status bar.
  • The scale handle can now be limited to modify just the width or height of the texture.
  • The translate handle can now be limited to textures only being moved along an X- or Y-axis.
  • The Center Selected Textures Here command can now be accessed via the context menus for both Texture Layers and SubMaterials.

For more information on working with textures in Colorway, see Using the Texture Widget Tool.

Texture Panel Redesign

The ability to view, select and reorder Texture Layers of selected parts within the Textures tab of the Material Properties panel has been re-introduced. Additional improvements to the Textures tab include:

  • Colors can now be assigned by dropping them onto layers shown in the Layers list.
  • Variants can be added to specific layers by dropping them on a given layer, or you can create new layers by dropping the variants to an empty area of the list.
  • The effect and UDIM tile of newly created layers are automatically detected.
  • Texture positioning can now be changed so that it is UDIM-based. The UDIM location can be entered manually or guessed automatically by looking at the last four digits present in the texture file name.
  • Variants are centered on the location or part they were dropped onto when new Texture Layers are created.
  • By default, the Effects Selection control now allows you to select a single effect. To select multiple effects at once, hold down Shift on your keyboard.

Features Enhancements

• ID 514739 - You can now add and rename Material Libraries using the Material Editor UI.

• ID 506972 - The font of palette item labels can be changed in the Text panel.

Bug Fixes

• ID 498882 - Windows only: Fixed broken splash screen.

• ID 500699 - Fixed random crashes when switching quickly between Material Library directories.

• ID 504984 - Fixed scaling of group items when resizing multiple selected items. Additionally, fixed group transform handles interaction.

• ID 505657 - macOS only: Fixed black letterbox that appeared when entering full screen mode on some monitors.

• ID 505849 - Tweaked Shape Style and Callout Item panels to look better at the narrowest width of the right-hand dock panel.

• ID 506414 - Fixed DCI edit mode save prompt dialog that appeared partially off screen instead of being centered on the screen.

• ID 506444 - Update combo boxes with images correctly when the theme changes.

• ID 506780 - Do not show missing palette warnings when activating s variation that doesn't use any dynamic colors.

• ID 506971 - Windows only: Shortcuts were not working when an undocked panel had focus.

• ID 506982 - Fixed color transfer when copying/moving textures between parts.

• ID 507389 - Material Library Editor: Fixed issues with keyboard input being disabled when the editor was opened from the Items Tree context menu.

• ID 507390 - Close project specific popovers (color/material palettes) when user toggles between opened projects.

• ID 507683 - Fixed issues with tooltips for the Material Library.

• ID 507703 - Windows only: Pressing Alt twice was stealing focus from input boxes.

• ID 507889 - Removed remnants of the Swatch Highlighting feature.

• ID 507898 - macOS only: Fixed undocked panels appearing on top of file dialogs.

• ID 508887 - Restored warning about not being able to add duplicate swatches (colors, gradients) to palettes.

• ID 509292 - Fixed crash on sheet removal undo+redo+undo or undo+redo+autosave.

• ID 512204 - Clicking the trash icon with a group of parts selected now ungroups the selection instead of removing the parent item.

• ID 512727 - Texture Widget: Shift-dragging textures from multiple parts to some other parts broke texture variant selection.

• ID 515374 - Color Libraries: Fixed some issues with libraries showing swatches and thumbnail scrollbar after all built-in palettes were hidden.

• ID 515377 - Items Tree: Immediately update error messages in reaction to isCropped state change.

• ID 517741 - Fixed errors when drag-moving swatches in large palettes.

• ID 518159 - Fixed issues with drag-move or removal of multiple variations if the selection contains indices both in 0-9 range and 10-99 (or even 100+).

• ID 526775 - UI: Fixed crash that occurred when a combo box popover content was resized.

• ID 526784 - Color Libraries: Do not disable thumbnail slider when search filter is active.

• ID 527088 - Improved performance of switching between Color Libraries and Colorway start up.

• ID 528530 - Fixed undo breaking DCI assets when undoing an operation that resulted in that DCI being loaded.

• ID 531932 - Windows only: Destroy Preferences window after it is closed to allow for graceful termination of Colorway.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Fixed few sources of deadlocks when switching between Material Libraries while thumbnails for the previous one are still being generated.

LiveSourceBrowser: Fix refreshing list of global repositories.

Fixed crashes in Python 3.9 LiveSources and custom scripts.

Fixed random deadlock on project load.

Unify color format stored in Canvas .cway file swatches and .jpl palettes.

ItemsTree: Fixed infinite loop of scrollbar visibility change when the tree height is equal to available panel height.

Canvas: Prefer selection of first visible sheet when opening a document.

KPI: Improve import time for huge external palettes into a Colorway project by cloning the children before adding the cloned palette to its parent.

Material Library: Fixed errors when switching between List and Tree view modes.

Fixed random deadlock when loading projects.

Fixed random deadlock encountered during DCI Variations import.

Improved default ordering of the Dynamic Table columns.

Fixed errors when trying to create texture layer via a Table Item Part selection.

Fixed a few random deadlocks when adding multiple texture layers via drag and drop, loading images, or trying to fix broken texture layer variants.

Known Issues

• ID 513074 - [TextureLayers][SVG] Centering TextureLayers/SubMaterials at the mouse cursor doesn't work correctly if the given SVG path has a transform applied to it.

• ID 502850 - [VectorTools] Vertices will not appear if parts are merged.

• ID 493642 - [Kit] UVs renamed with batch commands or scripts are not updated in the Colorway Kit UI.

• ID 493080 - [VectorTools] When separating parts from an SVG, the item tree collapses.

• ID 488355 - [Kit] Select a Texture First error message appears when rendering some projects.

• ID 476532 - [Licensing] Selecting Cancel on license login does not return to the previous screen.

• ID 473212 - [KPI][Performance] Applying materials to multiple selected parts across several sheets may be slow and get slower with each subsequent material added to the stack.

• ID 466994 - [KPI][SourceBrowser] Colorway may freeze when accessing a folder containing many files.

• ID 466698 - [KPI][Palettes][MDI] Switching between projects with large local palettes is slow.

• ID 454790 - [DynamicTable] Automatic font size is not filling all available empty space.

• ID 440699 - [TableItem] Setting textures to display as images does not update dynamic table tags.

• ID 440055 - [Kit] Colorway Kit doesn't see diffuse color with Modo procedural textures.

• ID 432009 - [Kit][Texture] Textures seen though transparency might be distorted and this effect increases with multiple layers of transparency.
As a workaround, enable mPath in the Kit.

• ID 408993 - [Kit][Deadline][Multi UVs] Multiple tagged UVs are not rendering in Deadline.

• ID 405372 - [Canvas] Hidden sheets are not skipped when using the mouse wheel to change sheets.

• ID 401807 - [Canvas] The context menu when dropping colors can be clipped if the window is too small.

• ID 396513 - [CrashReporter][Qt] Crash reporter is not appearing for all crashes on Windows.

• ID 394303 - [TextureWidget] The texture widget behaves erratically when non-uniform scale is applied at the part level.

• ID 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.

• ID 390699 - [Colorspace][Mac] The correct swatch is not picked when using the macOS color picker in the AdobeRGB colorspace.

• ID 386980 - [Colorspace] There is a minor difference in RGB/Hex values when a color swatch is added from the color picker into a palette.

• ID 105803 - [Kit] Intensity >1.0 for luminous materials causes tint to be incorrect.