Silo 2.1 Beta Available

[NewsHottie]

Forum: CG News
Posted By: jamchild
Post Time: 06-30-2008 at 07:13 PM
Text:

Hi all,

Just wanted to drop in and let everyone know that Silo 2.1 is nearing release, and is now available as a beta to all currently-licensed users on both Mac and PC. This is a big update to Silo and is free to everyone who has purchased Silo 2. During the beta period, we actively listen to and participate with users on the forums, so beta testers have a significant impact on the final version. All licensed users can start using the beta release of Silo 2.1 by downloading it from our user forums, at: http://silo3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15176.


Silo 2.1 features a host of improvements over Silo 2.0, including major new features as well as bug fixes and workflow improvements to the existing tools. A few of the interesting advances include:

- A new, powerful UV mapping toolset and workflow, including several new types of unwrapping, UV preservation even when you add or change geometry, new UV layout and editing tools, and more. Unwrap per face, per planar region, using LSCM, or using XYZ coordinates. New commands to nudge, flip, and rotate UVs. Export custom UV maps.

- A new Surface Tool, which in combination with Surface Snapping lets you quickly draw new polygons over an existing mesh. This can be used to re-topolgize a high-resolution mesh, create new objects which follow the form of an existing object (belts, hair, etc.), and so forth. Its context-sensitivity lets you do a lot with a single tool.

- For 2.1, we have put an emphasis on fixing those annoying little bugs in common tools (e.g. the Slide tool, the Cut command, etc), which can add up to make a big difference in workflow.

- New ability to place your own custom primitives in the Create menu (a nice human body and head are included in this menu with Silo 2.1) - simply add model files to the Primitives folder in your installation directory.

- Improved import and export, including saving and loading UV data with Electric Image .fac files.

- Better falloff calculation for surface-distance-based soft selection.

- Tiff export for images and maps.

- Improved memory performance.

Soon we'll be moving from beta to full public release where everyone can try it out with the demo period/learning version/free file converter (same deal as the 2.0 download currently on nevercenter.com). Enjoy!


Best,
Tom Plewe
President, Nevercenter

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