0.91

Features:

• Blender 4.2 support
• Blender 4.2 "extensions" support
• Added Vic3 materials presets
• Updater support for split download packages

Bugfixes:

• Shader nodes update to support Blender 4.0 (see #86)
• Custom normals update to support Blender 4.1 (see #92)

Full Changelog: 0.9...0.91

Thanks to @Tetrino for putting up some fixes for download to support Blender 4.0 & 4.1 while I've been delayed! Much appreciated. ⭐

0.9

Features:

• Blender 3.3 support
• Maya 2022 (Py3) support
• Mesh LOD support (CK3, I:R)
• Export "selected only" now works for locators
• Export mesh and anim now have some debug options

Bugfixes:

• Fixed Blender addon registration errors
• Blender no longer creates placeholder images
• Blender ignores unused material slots
• Animation export/import support for on-uniform scale (CK3)
• General file import speedups and export code optimizations

This release is way overdue and some of these fixes should have gone out much earlier. Apologies, I will try to manage this better in future.
If you've been using the bugfixes branch, feel free to move back over to this release.

0.8 release

Lots of changes, some fixes and UI improvements!

• Blender 2.91+ support, sorry this took a while to actually release... I should have just hotfixed the last download instead.

• Exports without a mesh are now supported to allow for example Stellaris ship frames to be created. (deselect "export mesh")

• Importing a mesh now joins materials together for shared nodes by default, instead of importing materials as distinct meshes.

• Skin weights export won't error when having more than 4 influences per vertex (eg after copying skin weights in Maya). It now prunes low weight influences if neccessary and renormalises.

• UV channel export won't error when having more than 4 UV channels on a mesh. It now only tries to export the first 4 channels.

• The Maya UI has been entirely remade from scratch. This works a lot better overall as it now looks nearly identical to the Blender UI so will make writing wiki pages far simpler. I no longer saw the point trying to make the Maya half of this tool look simliar to the offical Paradox exporter.

Known bugs/issues still being worked on:

• Blendshape support is not consistent: this feature was only added for Imperator and Crusader Kings 3, but as I don't own those games it's taking time to investigate why.
• Blender animation import is slow: this is a known quantity and will be fixed in the next release.

Bugfix release

Bugfix release since the last version (0.71) inadventently broke export of locators that were parented to bones. Sorry!

Also managed to make some small optimisations to read/write speed, likely only noticable on larger files/complex meshes.

Bugfix release

Minor fixes and improvements done since the last release.

• CK3 materials support.
• Locator transform support (newer titles support scaled locators).
• Filter export to selected meshes only.
• Misc bugfixes.

Note: this is the last release that will support older versions of Maya. Next release will be Maya 2018 and Blender 2.8 or newer.

Blender 2.8 release

Lots of changes, fixes and improvements!

• Blender 2.8 is now supported by default, older versions are now unsupported.
  (to be explicit - Maya is also still supported, for version 2015 and newer)

• Included presets for Imperator shaders, updated other presets.

• Remembers the folder for your last import/export action.

• Checks for new releases of the tool and displays a download button for the latest update.

• Mesh export has been optimised, it is now 25%-40% faster to process and save.

• And lots of bugfixes for: importing skeletal models (Stellaris portraits), tangent export for mirrored UVs, blendhsape compatible mesh export (Imperator portraits).

Beta release

• Both Maya and Blender now support mesh and animation import/export. As such I'm calling this a beta release.
• More functionality has been added since the last version, such as manually setting the export order for meshes (as this is sometimes used for z-ordering).
• But some things remain work-in-progress.

Blender supported

This project now works as both a Maya tool and a Blender addon.
Both support importing meshes/animation and exporting meshes. Animation export work is ongoing.
Mesh export speed has been improved significantly since the last release.

Mesh export supported

Mesh file export now works and supports geometry, materials, locators, bones and skinning.
Loading .mesh files is now much faster due to optimised loading of skin data.

Animation import supported

The .anim importer is now working, allowing you to add animation at a starting frame. This currently just overwrites and replaces any existing animation, so can't be used to build clip files yet.