[Goo Engine] 3.6.0 NEW BUILD!! NEW FEATURES (Patreon)

We've completely refactored the code this time around, but it's finally ready! Here's Goo Engine 3.6 a little bit earlier than even the official 3.6 release, to make up for skipping 3.5 hehe. Feel free to take a dive into all the new native 3.6 features, as well, which will all be included in this update!

Don't worry, we'll be releasing another build as soon as the official build releases to push any bug fixes, etc!

What does refactoring mean?

Basically, we've reorganized our code to fit "on top" of the native blender build, which makes it easier to update in the future. Before, we had our code sort of interspersed throughout and made it difficult to keep track of all the changes. This will reduce the change for errors when updating.

New Features??

Yes! We have a ton of new features that we've added since the last build, as we developed several of them during our latest production, as well as in preparation for our next one. I hope these are useful to you!

RELEASE NOTES FOR GOO ENGINE 3.6

Rendering Tools

ViewLayer Specific Sample Override

This is a feature that exists in Cycles, but we've brought it over to Eevee
It allows us to override the sampling per view layer, giving us more efficient renders for characters, while keeping the environment high quality

Custom Holdout Behavior

Actually a feature we added years ago but forgot to mention despite how important it is to our workflow. Holdout in native Blender has never worked for semi-transparent objects. So we added functionality to allow alpha maps and Alpha Blend to automatically work with Holdout. This gives us the ability to use semi-transparent shaders in our FX and rendering workflow.

NOTE: Holdout refers to the "masking" shader in Blender, and can also be enabled for entire collections via the outliner per ViewLayer. What we're referring to specifically here is the outliner setting for ViewLayer collection holdout.

Animation Tools

Viewport Line Width

A visual update that can increase visibility of selection outlines and armatures. Great for animators for enhanced visibility in a busy scene. Can be found in Preferences > Interface

Overshooting Poselib Interactive Blend

Allows for animators to apply poses onto an existing rig, but blended past 100% so you can exaggerate poses on the fly.

Grease Pencil (GP) Updates

GP Texture Modifier Randomize Options

Natively, the GP texture modifier repeats the same texture over each stroke, which makes for very noticeable patterns. We added a true randomization offset to make it more "useful" for making messy strokes.

Example scene (by Soranin)

Context-based GP Smoothing for Thickness and Strength Modes

While in GP Sculpt mode, the smooth brush will now smooth different attributes depending on which brush you have selected rather than having to set the smoothing options in the Tools tab

Add "Autoclose Stroke" Option for GP Strokes

NEW GP feature we added that makes it easier to draw enclosed shapes. Autoclose is now an option at the top bar while in Draw mode. It shares an icon with Automerge for now, but is a separate setting.

GP "Use Lights" Setting Off by Default

By default, the "Use Lights" setting used to be On. This made it less predictable at times, since most of the time we want full control over the highlights of our GP outputs. So we simply changed the default to Off.

Visual Updates

Renamed "Eevee" Render Engine to say "Eevee (Goo Engine)" for clarity

It's finally officially named Goo Engine!!

Embed Version Warning Popup

Just a quality of life option if you don't want to see the Version Popup warning, which tells you that it was made in a custom branch of blender if you open it in a native branch of blender. Default is on, which is recommended. Can be found in Preferences > Save & Load

Renamed Github branch to goo engine

It's ALSO finally officially named Goo Engine!!

As usual, all Essential Goos and above can download the ZIP file the next post! Available for both Windows and Mac! Thanks so much for your support to help make this fork possible!

REMINDER:  Be sure to check out all the new native 3.6 features to understand the full scope of this update! Including Viewport Compositing and Simulation Nodes! Enjoy!!