A new version of this nice script is out, here’s a short changelog:

• Save/load parameters functionality have been added
• generation time significantly reduced (sometimes it works two times faster than v0.3)

You can download it here. If you don’t know what it is all about read the full article.

Mariano has updated the Blender Library script with some nice updates:

Nicholas Chapman has been hard at work with updating his free unbiased raytracer Indigo (now version 0.5 released June 18th, 2006)

Main new features are:

• Experimental support for bidirectional MLT and bidirectional path tracing
• Measured complex indices of refraction for more realistic rendering of metals
• Image based lighting using HDR environment maps
• White balance setting for virtual camera
• Improved colours
• RGB and blackbody emission spectra
• Reverse gamma correction for textures

There is also an Blender exporter for Indigo, though at the time of this writing it is for version 0.4. I’m unsure if an update to the exporter is necessary, but if you’re an Indigo user, post a comment to tell us if it is!

Take a look at our last Indigo post for a more closer look at the program.

jms is at it again, with an update to his kml/kmz import scripts (version 0.1.7 released June 14th) for importing SketchUp And Google Earth files into Blender.

__version__ = “0.1.7, june 14th, 2006″ :
Force brute import for missed colors

jms has posted updates to his kml/kmz import scripts (version 0.1.6 released June 5th) for importing SketchUp And Google Earth files into Blender. I waited to post about this because I was thinking that jms, always working amazingly fast to update his scripts, would put out a new version again.

Since he’s let us catch our breath, I’ll post it now! Here are the changes from the site:

__version__ = “0.1.6, june 05, 2006″ :
Manage file with html code

Illusoft has released another update to their Collada 1.4 plugin for Blender (now version 0.2.65) with basic physics support. Be advised! You will need the latest CVS build of Blender to utilize the physics portion of the Collada script!

Here is the run down for this release:

export – export paths relative to collada file (GUI)
export – export Texture information from Material
import + export – store usersettings (from GUI)
export – export only current scene (GUI)
export – disable export physics (GUI)
import + export – physics, cylinder + cone support

Bugfix 0000040: Orthopraphic camera fails to export.
Bugfix 0000037: Cylinder and Tapered Cylinder need 2 radii.
Bugfix 0000031: Static meshes should always export a Rigid Body, with false

Chris Kulla has released his latest version (0.06.3) of Sunflow, the open source, platform independent (thanks to Java), photo-realistic rendering system as well as the Blender export script.

From the site:

A new version has been released which fixes a number of small bugs and adds a few new features and options.

The biggest feature change is to how color spaces are handled. Sunflow assumes linear color data like most renderers, but now offers methods to apply or unapply nonlinear color transforms from this data. At the moment only the sRGB standard curve is handled, more options might be provided in the future. Floating point textures/output images are assumed to be linear while 8 bit images are assumed to be in a non-linear colorspace. Likewise, the default framebuffer assumes your monitor matches the nonlinear sRGB profile curve and corrects the image accordingly for display. The advantage of this change is that the colors you specify during modelling/texturing will correspond to what you see in your rendered image, and the lighting calculations will be done in a correctly linearized colorspace. In older version, even when specifying a gamma of 2.2, the resulting images could appeared washed out or too light.

You may download the updated release and blender exporter from the downloads section as usual.

Go Pieter go! Illusoft has released another update to their Collada 1.4 plugin for Blender (now version 0.2.56) with the following feature additions and bug fixes:

Features:
import – Import file to new scene (GUI)
import – replace existing scene on import (GUI))
export – export triangles (GUI)
export – export polygons (GUI)
export – bake matrices (GUI)
Bugfix 0000022 – Import Extremely slow imports
Bugfix 0000033 – Export crash when importing polygons with more then 4 faces
Bugfix 0000032 – Export Select Error
Bugfix 0000021 – Export ID’s not unique

Since the version tracker has been posting about the Collada plugin a lot due to Pieter’s quick turn-around of features and bug fixes, I decided to graph it! Boy is he moving!