Release Notes for v0.9.4.1

And a little bit of what's to come

HueForge: Changes in 0.9.4.1

This update focuses on smoother rendering, better color matching, more reliable plugin installation, and several platform-specific fixes across Windows, Linux, and macOS. Primarily just a bugfix release.

Rendering and Performance on Windows

HueForge now handles the newer RHI rendering path more reliably on Windows.

The renderer no longer switches graphics backends mid-session, which should prevent one source of D3D stutter. Viewport animation is now capped at 60 fps and automatically pauses while dialogs or popups are open, reducing unnecessary GPU load.

There is also a new one-time informational tip for NVIDIA G-Sync and high-refresh-rate setups, since those configurations can sometimes cause visible stutter. This appears as an informational popup, not a warning, and can also be found later under:

Help -> Stuttering on NVIDIA

The newer RHI mesh renderer also now correctly uploads STL geometry.

Color Matching

This release adds a new OKLab color-match mode, along with a Standard Luminance model setting that includes an OKLab option.

Several color-match bugs were also fixed:

• Lab colors are now recomputed correctly when switching into a CIELAB color-match method. Avoiding blank or stale color blends when you first switch (without moving a slider)

• Undo and redo routing has been fixed.

• Color Match edit-image overrides now behave correctly when loading projects with them set opposite the user settings.

STL Import

STL import received several quality-of-life and correctness improvements.

HueForge now offers to align the layer height when loading an STL. Disabled and masked layers now stay correct when the base height or first-layer height changes, and HueForge now guards against a zero layer height.

Plugins

Plugin installation and loading are now much more reliable.

The failed-plugin dialog is clearer now too, with a plugin’s DLLs grouped into one entry instead of being shown as separate confusing failures.

Linux

The AppImage build has fixes for:

• Save Defaults path handling

• Opening external links correctly on systems with Qt UIs built in.

macOS

macOS received several startup and permissions improvements:

• Fixed permission-dialog focus and startup timing

• Improved folder-permission checks

• More robust translation and localization loading
  

Coming Soon!

First Class SVG Support. Load your SVG and HueForge will draw the outlines smoothly and allow easy manipulation of individual loop heights. Basic functionality is in, handling large numbers of loops or similar but not identical colors and merging them smoothly is still in progress. Resulting meshes are also VERY low triangle.

You still run with a Mesh Core, but it contains the merged loop colors and directly controls them so it’s fast to update with no color matching having to happen. Then simply apply your colors on the Color Core as usual.

Color Counter

If you missed my announcement, I’ve also added a fun little tool on the HueForge website. The Color Counter just drop your image into it and it will tell you how many unique colors it has. You will likely be surprised. All processing is done on your machine and no data is transferred to the store, and I never see what you count.

Let me know if you can beat my 1 million color image without cheating!

This might also be a hint at what I’m working on. Or maybe not.