Materials editor provides an option to load and save individual material files. This was generally used by game formats that store materials as external files, so one was able to update or change materials without bothering with loading the model file itself.


However, it was a demanded option to be able to manage/access material files from the rest of supported game formats and/or be able to configure newly-created material to be game-ready.
An ability to save material (or several materials) from ZModeler in a native format with no loss of configuration data was the solution I have chosen. Now, you can Load/Save multiple materials as "ZModeler Materials Library" files (.zml) files, using "Load..." and "Save..." buttons in Materials browser:
(read full story...)

ZModeler application and all its binary modules have been signed with my personal code-signing certificate. This gives significantly higher score for an application in Microsoft SmartScreen Filter. In particular, this should resolve issues with automatic updates when Windows Defender deleted downloaded files before they were installed.

Also, for security measures license server will not provide validation for previous builds of ZModeler in automatic mode (automatic online validation). You can still install license key and apply validation in old versions manually.

ZModeler3 engine have been upgraded to DirectX11. Since this version is incompatible with previous builds, it is unavailable via automatic updates. You can download and install this version into a different folder manually. No more updates will be made for ZModeler 3.2.1 on DirectX9 engine. Also, mind the minimum OS requirement for ZModeler 3.3.0 is Windows 8.1. Mind the backward-only compatibility of .z3d files - you can open old files in ZModeler 3.3.0, but you can't open newly saved files (saved in 3.3.0) in any older version of ZModeler.

As this have been causing problems for some users already, I state this here explicitly:
Do not unpack ZModeler 3.3.0 files into the folder of your current ZModeler version!
Create a new empty folder for ZModeler 3.3.0 (perfectly not on a system drive) and unpack files into empty folder. You can copy your ZModeler_profile.xml file from an old installation to retain your preferences and settings. (read full story...)

GTA V: Glass crash data guide.

Updated: May 2022 (see below)

Vehicle model usually includes a set of glass objects (windscreen, rear windscreen, door windows) that can be crashed with several shots or during impact with other objects. This includes rendering of shatter-glass effect on glass objects and involves making of holes that can expand up to boundaries of the window. The technical background of this process is hidden inside the game and shaders code, and the data required for this logic is stored inside *.yft files. The data is not explicitly bind to the object itself, instead it just defines the boundary limits for the crash glass holes. The image below shows an original windscreen (orange) with original crash boundary data (red) and a modified windscreen (orange: it's moved aside and rotated), while crash data still makes crash holes in this object with original boundaries: (read full story...)

It is ten years passed since ZModeler3 have been released to the market. Today I post the news my customers will dislike for sure, but this is the only option to keep the project running and evaluating. It is about a year since I have moved from Russia to Slovakia and now I have to finally adjust the financial setup of the project. (read full story...)

Got some cute update for ZModeler3 released.

Since I've been making this all on a laptop device, I can't make a video guide, so a brief forum guide topic will be added later.

It took a really long even though the main decode work was done years ago - you've seen animations in OpenIV already. Another major step was done in CodeWalker that is able to decode YCD files to XML. To my surprise I haven't found a "YCD from XML" recreation feature there, as this would make the task much easier (an XML import/export). (read full story...)