1.18.0 Beta Released

Hi All-

Custom hair is still coming along, but it looks like it will take another week or so to complete. Rather than make you all wait, we decided to release 1.18 as is in Beta form, and will followup with 1.18.1 with custom hair and bug fixes from bugs discovered in 1.18.0 Beta. All focus will be turned on custom hair now and nothing else will be looked at other than bugs until it is completed. I know this feature has been promised for a long time, but it has been one of the most challenging to complete. Thank you for understanding.  In the meantime, 1.18.0 is probably our biggest release ever, so we think you will be pleased! 

Important: to get this update, you must have the latest version of the updater and choose a new beta opt-in checkbox. If you don't wish to participate in the beta, just keep running 1.17.0.6. 

To get 1.18.0, just run the updater you have in your existing VaM install directory and it should update the updater if it is not latest. Then once you opt-in to the beta you should see option to download 1.18.0 version. If you don't yet have the updater or you don't see the beta check-box, you can get the latest updater HERE. 

Another important note: 1.18.0 comes with reorganization of directories to pave the way for a future packaging system. 1.18.0 comes with an automatic migrator that will move files for you to their new locations and any scene or preset references you have to those old locations will be automatically fixed on load of that scene or preset. But if you decide to go back to 1.17.X versions, it will not be able to move files back or fix references back. Therefore it is recommended you make a copy of your existing install directory, and then run the updater on the new copy. Or make a back-up copy of your Saves/, Import/, Textures/, and Custom/ directories 1st, and then run the updater.

Highlights:

• First the numbers: 36 new features! 9 items of content.18 tweaks. 14 bug fixes
• 6 new female skins, lots of morphs, and appearance presets from our new highly-rated and up-voted community partner Ren! (check out his Patreon for access to more looks, skins, and source textures here: https://www.patreon.com/RenVR )  
• 3 new male skins
• 200+ new morphs and new ability to use the other gender's morphs for even more options
• 100 new female sign and moan sounds commissioned from PixieWillow ( https://www.patreon.com/PixieWillow ). We expect to commission more custom sounds from her work in future releases.
• Clothing tagging, filtering and sort system
• Morphs re-categorized for better organization. Filter, favorites, and sort system added for quickly finding what you need or what is being used.
• Huge focus on usability. Many changes based on community feedback and requests.
• Leap Motion: can now control Person hands and fingers either remotely or through possession

Some Screenshot Highlights:

Preset browser improvements and support for subfolders for better organization. New "Keep Open" option allows quickly trying out different presets (Ren's presets included in this release are shown here)

New clothing filter system shown here:

Custom clothing tagging for better organization of your custom content:

The new morph filter system helps you find morphs or see what is active:

Person can now grab clothing with their hands:

Full Release Notes:

Features:

• Clothing: management overhaul. Added filtering and sorting: https://trello.com/c/37uJocw8
• Clothing: added custom clothing tag system: https://trello.com/c/TuGTdhEn
• Morphs: new category system: https://trello.com/c/Ga3Rh9l6
• Morphs: added advanced filtering system to quickly find morphs: https://trello.com/c/OLHGcMJc
• Morphs: added ability to use other gender’s morphs
• Morphs: added favorites system
• Morphs: added more preset options – can choose what types to save/restore
• Morphs: added some set-all and set-visible buttons: 0, default, animatable, etc.
• Morphs: added ability to disable some of the other auto-corrective morphs: https://trello.com/c/RII9aZsK
• Presets: added support for sub-directories
• Presets: added Person appearance presets
• Presets: Person general presets now have more control of what is saved/stored
• File Browse: Added sort options to all browsers: A-Z, Z-A, New To Old, Old To New
• File Browse: Added directory display options: Show First, Show Last, Intermix,
  Hide
• File Browse: Added ability to keep file browser open for quickly trying out different presets, textures, etc.
• File Browse: Added suggested path group support which allows params to share a default location. Makes things like texture browse much easier
• Usability: Added back button to hair and clothing UI to get back to previous UI
• Usability: Added “Open In Creator” button for all custom clothing items to make it quick to edit them: https://trello.com/c/O7j6CzBB
• Usability: Added new toolbar tool for quick cycle selecting person atoms
• Usability: Added “Set All Controlled Controllers Enabled For Record”. This one’s for you Timbo!
• Usability: Moved directories for better organization. Added auto-migration tool to assist: https://trello.com/c/dNN0lJlf
• Usability: Added disable controller navigation toggle for when you want to lock navigation in to match real world setup
• Usability: Added animation record mode start/stop shortcut key (spacebar)
• Usability: UI side can be set for VR as a user pref. This moves the tabs stack to one side or the other
• Usability: VR UI now has angled side-panels for easier viewing and interaction
• Usability: Added “Load In Clothing Creator” button for all custom clothing, to allow quickly making modifications without having to track down the item in the file browser
• Leap Motion: merged hands system with VR hands system
• Leap Motion: ported to new finger system to allow remote control of Person hands
• Leap Motion: added hand possess, including finger control
• Person hands can now grab clothing (with or without possession)
• Added vsync option for desktop to limit framerate
• Added texture loading UI popup that shows texture load progress
• .assetbundle and .scene file browse for CustomUnityAsset can now show jpg thumbnails
• Added “Snap To Pose On Restore” for pose presets – enabled by default as it works better than old slide-to method
• Texture support added to many atoms
• SteamVR – added button in User Prefs VR 1 tab that allows opening the controller bindings on desktop browser where they are MUCH easier to edit

Content:

• 6 new female skins from our new community partner Ren!
• 3 new male skins from DAZ store
• 200+ new morphs, many from Ren’s collection
• 100 new female sigh/moan sounds from a custom commission with PixieWillow (check out her Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/PixieWillow
• Many new clothing items (both female and male): https://trello.com/c/VR3EzXpl
• Lots of new built-in presets found in MVR subdirectories for Appearance, Morphs, Clothing, and Hair. Includes many fabulous appearance presets from Ren to go with Ren’s skins.
• New atoms: ISCube & SkullQueenSword
• More texture options added to existing male skins 
• Improved materials & additional textures for existing clothing items

Tweaks:

• Morphs: scene loaded (transient) morphs are no longer immediately saved to AUTO directory. They are now only put in the AUTO directory if you save a scene or preset that uses them.
• Morphs: name text is now auto-sized to handle long morph names
• Morphs: custom morphs move to Custom/[atom]/Morphs – part of directory reorg and future plans for packaging system
• File Browse: All file browser now have search field active
• File Browse: Directories in file browsers now also get sorted depending on sort option
• Usability: Clicking already selected item on popup now closes it
• Usability: Preset browse now just shows the preset name for more clarity
• Usability: Added edge to UI panels to help prevent accidental clicks just outside causing deselect
• Usability: file browsers now remember scroll position per directory
• Usability: Skin selector now shows alternate display name and UV set name
• Usability: pointer and select raycast origin are now the same and grab (overlap) origin adjusted to be in a more natural grab position
• Usability: SteamVR – if pointing at something, teleport and grab navigation are disabled to allow selection without accidental navigate
• Usability: Monitor UI Scale and Offset are now saved with preferences
• Usability: Preset browsing now hides “Preset_” part of path and “.vap” extension for more clarity
• If texture is set on Person, the dropdown texture selection options are disabled if they use the same region
• Added UnityEngine.ImageConversionModule.dll and UnityEngine.IMGUIModule.dll support for plugins
• When possessing with right or left motion controller or leap motion hand, the model is now hidden automatically
• Duplicate morphs found in custom area are now reported and moved to MorphsConflicting folder

Bug Fixes:

• General Presets on Person now stores scale correctly
• Fixed issue where obj exporter was exporting the hidden materials and triangles
• Fixed issue with main UI appearing distorted on desktop when it was auto-opened
• Clothing now works properly on femaledummy and maledummy
• Fixed issue with skin preset load causing distorted faces due to not reseting morphs properly on new skin
• Fixed issues with conflicts between skin materials texture group selection and textures when using presets
• Fixed issue with directory browser not opening in proper default directory in a lot of cases
• Fixed scene load hang when loading a skin that has not yet been loaded and the save file used renderQueue on the iris material
• Fixed for AUTO morphs not being available after saving a preset that used them
• Fixed issue with saving scene with custom morph loaded from a local appearance import directory resulted in save with bad morph reference
• Fixed oculus desktop mode toggle key not working
• Fixed so retake of screenshot for custom clothing item now properly updates the thumbnail
• Fixed issue with hitting “T” key while in animation record mode
• Fixed SteamVR bindings always getting reset back to default bindings
• If you read all the way to here, I'm impressed!