Avastar-2 Changelogs

Note: For changes in Avastar-1 please visit the Avastar-1 changelogs page.

What the abbreviations and color codes mean:

Abbreviations:

New: New feature – Please report back if it works well
Imp: Improved feature – please report back if it really improves
Fix: Bugfix – Please report back if this solved the issue
Cleanup: very minor changes (for example: fixing typos in the user interface)

Bold face: Significant change

Green: No major issues known
Blue: Can be used, has known issues which have been fixed in a newer version
Red: Please do not use this revision, we recommend to upgrade to newer version
Orange: Instable version

All Posts

Avastar-18-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-oct-25)

Fix: precision was set too low. This causes incom[patible meshes with older Avastar versions
Fix: the conversion on load failed, possibly because of a change in the Blender Python API
imp: Rename weld normals to align normals in user interface (to make more clear what happens

Included fixes from Avastar-17-for-blender-292

Fix: meshes are not exported in restpose but in current pose, leading to distortions on import to SL

Included fixes from Avastar-16-for-blender-292

2021-10-18 20:35:36 +0200 wip: retarget: Several changes, still work in progress)
Fix: Add back correction for COG height above ground
Fix: rebind armature creates wrong meshes when meshes where bound with different bind shape
Fix: Weld Normals used old syntax (only relevant for Blender 3.0)
Fix: addon preferences: setting the flag for Locking Neutral shape has no effect
Fix: keep shape when rebinding, this issue may be related to the ‘baked gender’ patch
Fix: welding normals creates wrong normals when gender is set to male
Imp: add compatibility mode for male exports (avoid incompatibility with Avastar 2.79 and older)
Fix:the collada exporter always keeps the avastar rig selected after finishing,
even when it was not selected before the export started
Imp: Retraget: move the miror retarget and the retarget clean operators further up for better usability

Avastar-15-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-sep-23)

Fixes:

Fix: Avastar’s limit weight count keeps the wrong vertex groups
Fix: Migrate rig using the option ‘apply ro&scale’ creates a tracedump
Fix: Retarget tool now takes care of scale, rotation, transfer and bone roll (roll support needed for mixamo)
Fix: make sure a pose gets transferred correctly when the bone mapping tool (see new) is enabled
Fix: When binding/rebinding the bindpose mode is not preserved for each individual mesh
Fix: Make Avastar compatible with Blender 3.0
Fix: Weight “Copy from meshes” unintentionally used hidden bone group selection from “weight from bones”

Improvements:

Imp: Display calculated animation runtime in animation export panel
Imp: Export: check broken associations between vertex and vertex groups (experimental, probably not needed)
Imp: Avoid jumping to edit mode while exporting a mesh
Imp: improve organization of the retarget pannel
Imp: Allow collada exporter to export when the armature is hidden and/or located in a disabled collection

New:

New: Avastar pose library for retarget (wip, not yet used)
New: mixamo retarget preset has wrong bone mapping on the hands and arms
New: Add slider to control amount of simplification during animation export
New: Add color scheme for retarget bone pairs while interactive retarget tool is active
New: Added support for Animesh attribute in Rig preset
New: Added Skeleton type (to support Animesh Skeletons)
New: Added Animesh Skeleton Preset to the menu: Add-> Avastar -> …

Avastar-9 – Avastar-14 for-Blender-2.92

Please do not use these versions any longer. Please update to Avastar-15-for-Blender-2.92, see above.

Avastar-8-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-june-6)

New: Add option to copy weights only from selected bones
Fix: loading a shape from file does no longer work in Blender 2.93
Fix: When locking/unlocking all pose bones, nothing happens
Fix: Initial pose bone locks are wrong for the face bones
Fix:Walk cycle generator does not work when automatic visual keying is enabled
Fix:locking all animation bones also locks all deform bones
Fix: too many Animation bones are considered to be Lockable/Unlockable (in Pose Pannel)
Fix: Groin should be locked by default

Avastar-7-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-may-18)

Added support for mixamo animation retarget (assuming the mixamo rig is always the same)
Imp: Added hand structure bones as possible targets for the retargetmap
Fix: a comment was called with too few parameters, which can break the trasnfer of action data during animation export and animation transfer
Fix: if the user tries to assign ‘the current active bone’ to the retarget map when no bone is active, then avastar fails silently
Fix: The pivot icon in the Retarget map is slightly misplaced and barely clickable
Fix: exporting with bind shape resets the shape to white stickman
Fix: Unreported potential bugs due to bad code (it is unknown which bugs are fixed with those changes)
Fix Collada exporter: Mesh texture get node by name has a typo and can not work correctly

Avastar-6-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-may-08)

Fix: Update/Replace Avastar Rig fails when the armature has children of type EMPTY
Fix: New Avastars have the Shape Editor locked
Update: Avastar templates to newest Avastar version
Update: Avamesh to newest Avastar version
Fix: When selecting smooth weights when doing a copy weight from bone, the operation terminates with a stack trace
Fix: Animtion exporter does not use the correct values for the $fps, $start and $end vars

Avastar-5-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-may-01)

Fix: Clean weight groups removes mirrored weight groups created by Mirror Modifier
Fix: Option ‘Adjust volume bones to rig’ creates a tracedump in the blender console

Avastar-4-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-april-30)

Revert “fix: skeleton copy results in weird bone orientations” this approach did not work as expected
Fix:clean weights needs an armature to work

Avastar-3-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-april-21)

Fix: Pose bone selection changes without reason when switching workflows or switching between object modes
Fix: Adjusting avastar data on load can fail for (old) blendfiles caused by unexpected properties
Fix: Skeleton copy sometimes results in weird bone orientations
Fix: Clean weights actually does not clean anything
Fix: Smooth weights result in a trace dump

Avastar-2-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-april-05)

New: add smooth weighting after copy from meshes. Also remove obsolete functions
Fix: when migrating a rig, then also move unbound children of armatures
New:added filter to weight copy from meshes to show only the selected meshes
Revert: Remove support for Blender weight copy tool
Fix: Clean weight maps sometimes results in a stacktrace
Fix: snap attachment bones to rig (experimental feature) is broken
Fix: Bone use_connect state is not preserved when updating(migrating) a rig
Fix: developerkits with the character sequence ‘AVASTAR’ in the filename can not be loaded into the devkit manager

Avastar-1-for-Blender-2.92a (2021-march-15)

This is a bugfix release used for testing purposes. Please do not use in production!

Fix:Rig migrate tool never uses the bone groups from the new rig even when preserve bone colors is disabled
Fix: Blender crash when avastar tries to fix mesh in sculpt mode (might break other situations)
Fix:make Avastar weight copy tool faster (the old avastar weight copy tool is back but much faster than before)
Fix:rebinding multiple objects will rebind only one object and revert all others to previous shape
Fix:check tool ‘collada export can be done in this mode’ should allow export with hidden armature
Fix: do not apply transforms when importing rig from file. This needs to be handled by Avastar, not by the file improter
Fix: Smart Bone Connector potentially can destroy the rig structure when handling connected bones
Fix:Update avamesh to newest rig version
Fix: Tool Box User interface uses wrong references into Documentation
Fix:Update rig neeeds to also update animations (PelvisInv has been renamed to Tinker)

We also have a few improvements and a new Tool for finding bad weighted spots (no documentation yet)

Cleanup: Avastar custom Icons where too big
New: weight consistency checker (wip)
Imp: make copy bone weights much more efficient (10 times faster)
Imp: add explanation to hover text when collada export button is disabled
Imp: Select the just created armature as active object instead of reverting to old selections after reating or migrating an armature
Imp:add hover tooltips to the Avastar Presets

Release Avastar-for-Blender-2.92 (2021-02-25)

Fix: links to operator documentation
Fix: links to Help Documentation
Fix: Updated version numbers of Avastar Templates

Release Candidate Avastar-2.91-67 (2021-02-21)

New: Added Sparkle Shape based weight mirror copy to replace blender’s own weight copy tool
New: Cloth Template file (without Avastar rig)
New: separate IK settings in Rig Display panel into own sub section for IK Bone Groups
Fix: Copy Bone weights operator has outdated copy options
Fix: find unweighted vertices can result in a tracedump when the object selection contains non Mesh Objects
Fix: lower cheek bones go in wrong diretion when using the Face IK
Fix: (partial) links to Website documentation are outdated
Fix: create a warning when an object can not be made active instead of creating a traceback
Fix: Avastar internal fixes on loading a Blendfile must not be made on disabled collections

Release Candidate Avastar-2.91-66 (2021-02-15)

Fix: Armature pose bone visibility changes after rig replace and rig migrate

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-65 (2021-02-14)

Fix: Develoeprkit manager adds unnecessary extra armature modifier

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-64 (2021-02-11)

Imp: merge weights (undocumented feature) needs at least two bones to be selected in pose mode before it can do its job
Fix: Collada exporter creates empty collada file without warning when no meshes are exported
Fix: warning popup has outdated instruction for locating the rig inspector
Fix: apply bindpose during unbind fails when mesh has no shape meta data (can happen with rigs in older blend files)
Fix: unbind breaks parenting even when the break parent option is disabled
Fix:armature inspector displays senseless information when rig is not an Avastar rig
Fix: unparent sources breaks scaling, this has been seen in unbind and in update rig
Imp: Parent/child relationship can be kept intact when unbinding (option, default:break relationship like its done in Blender)
Imp: by default remove original meshes when freezeing an avastar mesh
Fix: armatures from old blendfiles forget some of their avastar properties during file open

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-63 (2021-02-06)

Fix: Update bind does not preserve original bindshape
Fix: avoid tracedumps when fitted mesh panel is open or when trying to rebind
Imp: visibility of icons and adjustments of icon colors

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-62 (2021-02-05)

This is mostly an update for improving (make it easier to use) the user interface

Fix: switching bones of bone pairs in Fitting sliders is now better displayed in user interface
Fix: when rebinding we now can preserve the original shape, or rebind to the new shape
Imp: Collada export issues are now reported more user friendly
New: Unbind can now disable unparenting (in operator redo panel)
Fix: Bone Locking functions (in posing panel) behave odd
Imp: Export Animations has misleading button label
Imp:Updated Button names for maintenance (avastar update)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-61 (2021-01-21)

Fix: Clean weightmaps does not clean maps when they contain only 0 values
Fix: Bindshape icon should only appear if bindshape is defined. Also bind_shape must be created when rebinding

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-60 (2021-01-21)

Fix: Typos in user interface
New: Added support for reset to bindshape in user interface
Fix: Animation settings are not correctly read from old blendfiles
Fix: remove empty box in user interface of weight copy tool
New: Change name convention for Avastar filename

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-59 (2021-01-21)

Fix: Weight Copy top Selected vertices does not work as expected
Fix: Weight Copy with the Smart Copy Map does not support copy to selected vertices
Fix: binding and setting bindpose partially broken
Fix: inconsistent behavior when fitted sliders are used after reloading a blendfile
Imp:Fitted mesh sliders are now significantly faster when fitting single vertices

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-57 (2021-01-21)

Fix: Fitting panel now works again as expected.
Fix: Disabled ability to use fitting sliders when mesh is in edit mode (needs documentation)
Fix: Make sure the mesh is updated when changing the fitted mesh slider valuess
Imp: Set shading type to SOLID when calling the fittied mesh preset
Imp: Hover text for fitting preset
Fix: Fitting panel: keep active vertex group after Smooth weights
Fix: Optimized FittingBone hover text
Fix: Fitted mesh panel: Keep active weightgroup seleted after fitting
Fix: Typo in fitted mesh popup text
Fix: Copy weight from meshes: mesh list display state not correctly set
Fix: Typos in hover text

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-56 (2021-01-16)

New: Added new Smart weight Copy tool
Fix: Weight copy: Clean maps does not work
Fix: Copy form meshes wrongly depends on which bones are selected
Fix: Last preset marker not set correctly for the Weight and pose preset
Fix: Smart Weight Copy tool now can also run with Blender < 2.92
Fix: Avastar now can be installed again on Blender 2.83 (lower releases probably work too)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-53 (2021-01-12)

Imp: make weight copy tools easier to understand
Fix: add back copy weights to selected vertices (needed because of a missing feature in blender)
Fix: Armature info falsely marks every rig as compatible to SL

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-52 (2021-01-12)

Fix:binding and weight copy panels now use same code
Imp: pose copy/paste buttons have misleading hover text

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-51 (2021-01-09)

Imp: Face weight Generator very confusing to use
Fix: make face IK insensitive to bone roll (needed for safe migration of bento rigs to newer versions)
Imp: mouth bones group bone color is too dark, changed to light grey
Fix:Avastar demo skin materials are too shiny

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-50 (2021-01-07)

Fix: face weight generator now preserves the selected bones and it displays the weight maps consistently
Imp: The Mesh Cleaner now cleans all selected objects instead of just the active object
Fix:face weight generator usage workflow broken

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-49 (2021-01-06)

Avastar 2.81-49:

Fix: Face weight generator usage workflow broken

Avastar 2.4-48:

Fix: Binding huge meshes becomes extremely slow and blocks Blender for several minutes.
Fix: Retarget adds the distance of source rig and target rig to the animation (COG location).
Imp: add Basic Avastar Preset, mostly used for Importing SL Animations.

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-47 (2021-01-03)

Fix: Upgrade/migrate/repair reverts the rig to white stickman instead of the original shape
Fix: In Tool Box: fix limit settings for weight maps does nothing
Fix: Move COG into place after changing sliders or after migrating or replacing the rig

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-46 (2021-01-03)

Improved functionality:

Imp: hover texts for better reading and typo fixes
Imp: rewording of hover text for manage System meshes
Imp: Tool Box completely reorganized
Imp: Added panel descriptions for Retarget and Rigging when there is nothing to do
Imp: Face IK state can now be keyed for animation
Imp: IK pole target adjustment
Imp: add initial rotation to arms when switchiong to IK based animation
Imp: Target orientation adjuster now places target to more convenient place (on arms only for now)
Imp: Order of IK buttons in Rigging panel
Imp: Clear target weights now removes selected vertices from all weight maps

Fixes

Fix: Stacktrace when using the smart key tool on an empty action
Fix: Take care of unsupported data path when using the smart key tool
Fix: Weld Weights from rigged does not use the value changes from the Redo panel
Fix: Walk cycle generator operator is hidden when no meshes in rig
Fix: Walk cycle generator no longer creates new fcurves (it only needs to add keys to existing curves)
Fix: Blender crashed when adjusting shape sliders
Fix: Wrong operator description for bind to current pose
Fix: Avoid operator Tracedumps when no active object is in contect
Fix: Remove debug text from message boxes
Fix: System Meshes manager button label
Fix: System Meshes Manager did not correctly setup th eredo panel
Fix: IK Chain controls buttons did not work as expected

New and Removed

New: Added new workflow preset weight&animate
New: Walk cycle generator from Sparkles

Removed: Draw differences from edited Joints to Original location (will be added back later)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-45 (2020-12-30)

This release was never uploaded, all changes are combined with version 2.81-46 (see above)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-44 (2020-12-08)

Imp: (Binding) Allow binding only to visible bones. Alsoe the binding redo panel now allows an interactive binding
Imp: (Unbind) Show cleanup button only when there are properties to be cleaned up
Imp: (Export) make warnings/errors more readable when exporting to collada
Fix: (IK) Auto IK for tail and wings was missing
Fix: (Weighting) error when switching to Fitted workflow when a mesh is the active object
Update: (Versioning) library blendfiles and templates
Fix: (Anim Export) Proper update of animation settings
Fix: (Anim Export) reworded operator description for Action Synchronization in Animation exporter

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-43 (2020-12-08)

Imp: Smart Keying Tool has now a smart Redo Panel as well
Imp: use bigger shapes for the Wrist pose bones
Imp: use a proper Icon for the Smart keying Tool

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-42 (2020-12-07)

New:

Smart Avastar keying tool (HOT!)
Add 2 new Fixing tools in toolbox (for weight limit and remove doubles)
Add back export option for exporting with textures
Add new section to Shape Editor for showing only sliders which affect the active obejct (active object can be mesh or Armature)

Fixed and Improved:

Imp: error message now displays the bad bones when Avastar detects weights on animation bones
Fix: move imports for profiling tool to the tool functions in order to avoid issues on linux (reported by user)
Imp:allow Shape Editor to be displayed either in N-Panel or in Properties panel or both
Fix:typos in user interface
Fix: rebind only rebinds active object when multiple meshes are selected

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-41 (2020-11-07)

Fix: old rigs need to unlock the Torso when Migrating the rig

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-40 (2020-11-07)

Fix: improve hover tooltip for the bone lock option when exporting an animation
Fix: locking the Torso bone during animation import results in torso shifted
Fix: colorize Fitted Mesh bones icon in workflow panel
New: Added option for fully automatic mesh rebinding (Disabled by default, is a bit of an experiment)
Fix: Added handler for check dirty mesh on load (avoids issues when saving a blendfile while a mesh is still edited)
Fix: colorized eye icons in rig display pannel

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-39 (2020-11-07)

Fix: Make sure the COG is not moved when upgrading a rig (needs more testing)
Fix: Make sure that Avastar recognizes when a rig uses old PelvisInv instead of new Tinker bone (users reported tracedumps)
Imp: Colorise bone icons in rig display panel
Change: Make triangulation on export optional
Fix: Align IK to rig sometimes produces very strange shifts in the pose
Fix: Update gender only when really necessary to avoid automatic updatShape call

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-38 (2020-11-07)

New: Added ‘lock bone scale’ (for edited joint) This is the same as what SL does when uploading with bone scales locked
Fix: in Edit mode Clean all entries in deforming vertex groups for selected vertices before calling the weight copy tool

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-37 (2020-11-06)

Fix: workaround for Blender bug https://developer.blender.org/T82455
Fix: Support for bone constraints to other rigs (mentioned in Dioscord)
Fix: spine fold/unfol does not adjust the bones as execpted
Fix: remove trailing dots in hover text messages (does not match with Blender sandard)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-36 (2020-10-24)

Imp: Added automatic shape control for developer kits
Fix: When copy weight from meshes the tooltips for hide and select have been interchanged
Fix: Blender 2.90 compatibility break affecting armature freeze and pose as bindpose
Fix: Typo in tool tip
Fix: Avoid import of Avastar materials when only the Skeleton is added to the scene
Fix: Tinker animation does not translate correctly to avatar animation in SL (need to include mTorso when Tinker is animated)
Imp: Make ‘Sliders editable’ a property of the Rig (was a scene property)
Fix: SL rigs for developer kits imported from Collada files do not work
Imp: find asymmetries use center is now default
Fix: Handle rigs with outdated PelvisInv correctly

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-35 (2020-06-21)

fix: remove scaling by pixel size, that might have been one of those changes made in Blender 2.8
fix: When updating rig with mesh_repair, then all Avastar meshes must be replaced and the original meshes must be removed
fix:allow editing of Pelvis bone in joint edit mode
fix: do not show warning about export in neutral shape when using bind pose (the neutral shape export is enforced anyways in that case)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-34 (2020-06-14)

Fix: mix up flags for “use male shape” and “use male skeleton” causing distortions
Fix: Make report of Animation export more clean in Console
Imp: Added extra icon to Bind section in Skinning pannel for better reading
Fix: Make sure that when bind pose is used and sliders are active, then the rig is exported in neutral shape
Fix: create a warning message when spine bones are missing (instead of creating error entries in the console)
Fix: remove duplicate freeze pannel from Avastar tool_box
Fix: make sure the preserved(during collada import) bind matrix is always used also for export,
even when not using bind pose

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-33 (2020-06-14)

Imp: Print warning when trying to export a mesh with bind_data presets in other than Neutral shape
Fix: Animations in anim format broken (only works when hand morph is set)
Fix: Rebind meshes after fixing spine only if spine bones really have been adjusted
Fix: Dirty Mesh handling: marked meshes as dirty even when nothing changed.

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-32 (2020-06-07)

Fix: Line bones are not handled correctly when they have no parent (avastar is too restrictivce here)
Fix:custom gender icons do not show up in user interface (only after reloading addon, possibly blender issue)
Fix: when exporting an animation for an attachment, then allow to disable automatic hand morphs
Fix: log message creates misleading info
New: Added shape debug button to Avastat tools (maybe temporary)
Fix: make sure the rig properties are corectly updated after loading a blendfile
Fix: when loading the Shape editor also make sure the male switch is updated correctly
Fix: Handle situation gracefully when there is no active pose bone
Imp:Developerkit editor layout
Fix:export mesh without joint edits breaks when the joint edit map has been cleared

Daily build Avastar-2.81-30 (2020-04-24)

Fix: Fixed some links to document pages (wip)
Fix:Freezing single object does not use new name field.
Freezing multiple objects does not preserve active object
Freezing multple objects creates bad object names
Imp:remove Freeze&Bind operator from user interface
Fix:Extended BVH animations use mSpine 1/2/3/4 and not Spine 1/2/3/4 as bone names
Fix: The rig connection is not always preserved when updating a rig
Fix: Animation importer now takes care of the pose bone rotatiopn_type
and creates either quaternion fcurves or euler fcurves as needed
Imp:Binding now automatically enables show armature in edit mode
New: moved the Freeze Tool into the Skinning Panel
Fix:when calling the bone locator in the Joint Positions list widget, blender creates a tracedump
Imp: animation exporter: make tool tip more clear
Fix: internal error when baking a texture with the avastar texture bake tool
Fix:undo after adding a developerkit model undos 2 steps instead of just the developerkit action
Imp: Avatar male/female setting now more clear (and more like in the SL viewer)
Imp: Replace ‘load/save Avatar Shape to buffer’ by ‘Export/Import Avatar Shape to/from file’
Imp:Rename ‘Appearance Panel’ to ‘Avatar Shape Editor’
Fix: using icons during Addon init fails because icon setup is called too late in timeline

Daily build Avastar-2.81-29 (2020-04-19)

Fix:collada exporter forces Armature into Object mode
Fix:hand structure bones get not placed correct after apply pose as bind pose
Fix:Eyes and Alt eyes pose bones can be moved around with ‘g’

Daily build Avastar-2.81-28 (2020-04-17)

Cleanup: Make the check for dirty armature more efficient

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-27 (2020-04-16)

Imp: Added link to help page to export warning panel
Fix: Make sure that rebind Mesh also works when the armature is in pose mode
Fix: Shape keys are now synced when rebinding a Mesh
Fix: Take care to catch edits of Shape keys to indicate that a Rebind is neccessary
Fix: Custom Shape keys work again for Custom mesh
New: Added Auto Rebind option
Fix: Added improved error and warning panels for Collada exporter
Imp: Rebinding a Mesh no longer destroys shape keys
Fix:Added back missing selection for Render Type Selection during export (now apply modifiers)
Fix: Ensure Sliders get initialized to avoid issue while rebinding when sliders not yet enabled
Imp: Made rebind and Slider update a bit faster
Imp: Add optional pointer to website url when creating a warning or error popup
Imp: Changed Message text for Export warning

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-26 (2020-04-10)

Fix: Rebinding also needs to repair the Avastar metadata
Fix: add back auto IK constraints on limbs after bugfix in Blender 2.84.3
Imp:add alert marker to number of tricounts in mesh info panel when too many triangles in mesh

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-25 (2020-04-09)

Imp: Always reset gender to male before exporting
Fix: Enable Addon still fails when called from older Blender (< 2.83)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-24 (2020-04-08)

Avastar 2.81-24:
Fix: Allow binding of custom mesh to arbitrary Appearance shapes (needs a lot of user testing)
Fix: Only add avastar properties to meshes that are rigged to an Avastar Armature
Fix: Ffinger knuckles can not be unlocked for moving in pose mode
Imp: Indicate for freeze options that there are more ‘sub-options’ when selecting the base option
Imp: Added error IDs to some Message texts
Fix: When cleaning object the options ‘RigProp’ and ‘use_deform_preserve_volume’ are not cleaned up as expected
New: Add option to remove armature and all its children when freezeing object to static pose
Fix: Rebind and Freeze terminate with error if the mesh object is not contained in a Collection
Fix: Help document for rebinding has now its own page in the documentation
Fix: Various Avastar functions potentially crash Blender (cause: https://developer.blender.org/T75371 )
Fix: Update linebones crashing blender (same cause as above)
Fix: Crash in Freeze tool (same as above)
Fix: Weight maps get lost when freezing and exporting if mesh data has a data transfer modifier)
Imp: Tool tip for developerkit filepath
Fix: Disable unfinished support for Alph mask
Fix:When enabling IK the mesh gets distorted
~~Avastar 2.81-23:~~
Fix: Update rig with mixed avastar meshes and custom meshes does not handle the avastar meshes correct
Imp: Make Rig Transfer/Update tool collapsible
~~Avastar 2.81-20:~~
Imp: disable the data transfer modifier when exporting meshes (due to a bug in Blender)
Fix: converting an SL model to Avastar leaves the Meshes in a wrong rotation
Fix: The is_male option in the developerkit configuration panel is reset to female whenever a new developerkit model is loaded
Fix: Loading a developerkit with no SL head results in adding the entire Avastar mesh collection
Fix:install addon from within Blender uses an old API call
Avastar 2.81-18 daily build
Fix: avamesh textures broken
Fix: Freeze shape creates tracedump
Imp: check for dirty mesh now checks vertex locations

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-17 (2020-03-22)

Fix: Add Custom head mesh to Developerkit when option ‘with sl head’ is enabled
New: Allow to set male gender for sliders independent from skeleton gender
Fix: Bulk export of animations does not take into account the Basename template
Fix: (found with gianni devkit) update rig would rebind meshes with wrong transformations
Imp: rename panels to Rig inspector and Mesh inspector
Fix: loading new Avastar version from MAC fails with certificate error
Fix:Collada exporter rejects exporting meshes with empty material slots
Fix: New Mesh name is not always used when freezing and joining a set of meshes
Fix: binding a mesh to a shape that has changed the hover height of the armature, displaces custom meshes after first use of sliders
Cleanup: Remove currently not needed Assets from assets.blend
Fix: Creating an armature for a devkit should only create eyes and head mesh
Fix: Export collada does not apply modifiers
Cleanup: replace devkit by Developer Kit
Fix:Mirror Copy of weights only works when target weightmap exists
Fix: storing developerkit preset only possible when enabling ‘allow overwrite when loading of external presets’. This is a wrong dependency
Fix:height slider moves meshes to wrong location
Fix:Sliders must operate in Object mode
Fix: fitting sliders do not return object to its original mode
Fix: breath in/out is broken (Blender 2.80 change in python)
Gix: rebinding can cause an error, probably because outdated group object is reused
Fix: Freezing a mesh right after starting Blender sometimes creates an error in the console window
Fix: When freezing an object with KEEP original, the objects are wrong renamed
Fix: Bones are not always rotated as needed when transfering an SL Rig to Avastar
Fix: object selection from within the weightcopy panel and the skinning panel should not influence the actual select state of the objects themself
Fix: deleting an existing developerkit configuration fails with an error
Fix: the overwrite options for developerkit import and export are not used

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-7 (2020-03-08)

Imp: Reworked the developerkit panel
New: Added export/import Configurations to developerkit panel
Imp: Automatic hand rig configuration now uses whole finfer to define orientation of structure bones
Imp: Preserve Weights button now more clear labelled
Imp: Replace rebind/repair icon by a text button
Fix: login issues from Blender to machinimatrix on MAC
Imp: Possibly make updatShape a tiny bit faster
Imp: Automatic add location of hand structure bones to joint edits

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-4 (2020-03-04)

Fix: Logging in to Machinimatrix when on MAC (fix must be verified by user)
Fix: Issues with installing avastar
Fix: Add missing Avastar theme Preset
Fix: Update rig still has issues when hand bones are missing during Update Rig

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81-2 (2020-03-02)

Fix: Invalid Icon name causes tracedump when maitenance panel is open and user is logged in
Fix: Orphaned Armatures listed in Targetlist while retargetting a rig to Avastar
Fix: Rig Update fails when rig has no finger bones
Imp: User interface for the Weight Copy panel and the Skinning panel
Remove: Reference Skeleton Preset. (This preset can be created by users on demand)

Release Candidate Avastar-2.81 (2020-03-01)

Fix: when creating a reference rig, then the hand structure rig can not be adjusted (because no hand structure rig is available then)
Fix: Wrong placement of hand structure bones after slider changes)
Fix: Wrong preset for creating a reference Rig
Fix: Updating old Rigs breaks with wrong Theme id ‘THEME24’ (must be ‘THEME02’)
Fix: avamesh body is not a child of the armature
Fix: Updating old Rigs breaks with wrong Theme id ‘Theme24’
Fix: Updated Avamesh to newest rig version
New: Allow users to keep custom rig bone colors, or reset them to Avastar default colors (new option in update panel)
New: Protopet (work in progress)
Fix: Meshes are placed wrong during slider updates when the armature is not on ground
Fix: Copy weight from meshes does not use the selected meshes
Fix: “Reset to Restpose” breaks when used during editing a mesh object
Fix: set active collection to where the rig is located before updating (to avoid item mangling in collection set)
Imp: Allow user to decide if they want back Avastar meshes when updating
Fix: Rig update and Rig cleanup create wrong bone hierarchy for spine bones
Fix: Eye target size and distance should be based on eye distance instead of always be set to 2 meters away from eyes)
Fix: avoid scaling of Avastar meshes during update when Rig has a scaled Avatar_meshes container
Imp: Only reparent meshes for copy rig (update rig does not need this)
Fix: Developerkit manager: Avastar heads are not added to devkits
Fix: update breaks when meshes and Avatar_Meshes container are hidden in the viewport
Fix: Make sure that the hand rig is adjusted only when creating an extended rig
Fix: Avastar 2.80 does not recognize the rig type corretly
Fix: remove outdated rig attributes after loading an old Avastar rig from a blend file
Note for the experts: Fixing of Avastar rigs during loading does not work if the rig is appended or linked!
Fix: The Mesh Repair button resets the reference mesh instead of repairing it”
Fix: error during update rig when using ‘apply rot&scale’
Fix: COG Bone lost during Rig Update
Fix:parenting does not work as expected when Armature has location different from scene center
Fix: during update rig: objects are parented twice
Imp: Rig Update/Cleanup: apply scale&rotation only needs to run if mesh children actually have scale and rotation
Fix: Also removing Armature modifiers when unparenting a mesh from rig when updating a rig
Fix: Chid Meshes are wrongly scaled after updating rig (when apply Rot&Scale is selected)
Fix: do not apply Rot&Scale during rig update if no objects actually need this
new: Add Addon preference to disable “fix avastar data on load” (for emergancy cases)
Fix: Lock Torso location in Extended Rigs to avoid moving torso around with ‘G’
Fix: Make sure Spine bones are handled correctly when updating a BASIC Rig to EXTENDED
New: Added Avastar Support info button to maintenance panel
Renamed ‘Avastar Bento’ to ‘Avastar’
Fix: Objects are placed wrong when Armature has Object scale
Fix: retarget custom presets are now fully working
Imp: Hover tool tips for material baker improved
Fix: Create a new model from devkit only shows the Origin bone
Fix:Import animation sets all keyframes identical to last inserted pose
Fix: Adding a Shape Preset creates an error report
Fix: Creating a rig with the Developerkit manager used outdated data and failed”
Imp: Hand Structure Bones are now automatically placed (work in progress)
Known issue: the structure bones are replaced with every update,
hence if the structure bones have joint edits, the edits get lost.
Also there is a distance parameter that is fixed (for now) We might need
to make this parameter configurable depending on the hand topology.
Fix: Bind from meshes used hidden property from copy weights (causes weights to be ignored unintentionally)
Fix: Bind from Meshes did not always recognize select state in mesh list
Fix: create of default extended Avastar was broken. also update to Extended Avastar did not work properly.
Fix: toe hover is not calculated correctly when updating a Rig with Joints
Fix: Creation of a Basic Avastar creates a mixup with Extended Bones
Fix: enforce recalculation of the joint offsets for older rig versions
Fix: Eye bones are not visible after updating a BASIC Rig
Fix: When loading an old Avastar rig, the rigType is not recognized properly
Imp: make sure that reparenting a mesh will recreate the slider diefinitions
Fix: Make sure that changing a shape will redo the reference shape
Imp: take to not update sliders when Freeze is On (we are in the middle of an update)
Imp: do not update gender if already set correctly
Imp: Added better wording for hover tips
Revert: Added back removal of slider update function that was wrongly removed in previous update
Imp: Create Slider Data when it is not present (can happen during rig update and rebinding)
Fix: report when outdated rig was not displayed correct
Fix: apply Avatar Shape to rig causes subsequent odd issues
Fix: mark switch rigtype from 6 to 7 (changes in hand rig)
Imp: replace “invalid” by “undefined” in bone hierarchy report
Fix: preserve layer visibility during rig update
Fix: Fixed more issues with missing update shape after change
New: Added Reference Rig Preset (might be removed again later)
Fix: Loading shapes works, does not update the shape as needed
Imp: Warning in Avastar materials panel now rendered red with detailed hover text
Fix: wrong bone shape for hind foot bones
Fix: FootBall IK target for hinds at wrong place
Fix: IK Rig is shaking like crazy when posing
Fix: Torso can be posed at any location. Should be tied to COG.tail
Fix: Spine4 gets deleted when upper spine is unfolded
Imp: Make update sliders a bit faster when multiple meshes are involved
Fix: apply sliders after updating rig pose type (was missing)
New: Replace PelvisInv by Tinker
Imp: make spine controllers work on pure Avastar armature (without animation bones)
New: replace sum of weightmaps over all meshes by a list with weightmaps per mesh
Fix: wrong slider scaling
Imp: avoid unnecessary calculation when target is empty
New: Allow to configure if reset to SL Restpose will automatically lock appearance sliders
New:Added support for pure SL Rig (no animation ones, no IK bones, no constraints
Imp: Reworked Hand Rig structure bone locations
Fix: initial bone scale for Volume Bones was wrong calculated
Fix:IK Rig (stretchto now works as expected)
Imp:bone shape and size of FootBall bones
Fix: Location of footBall IK bones was wrong
Fix:foot pivot slider does not move the foot pivot
Fix: thumb controller behaves odd when IK is enabled
Imp: Make finger tips curl less when closing the hand
Fix: Create rig meta bones with correct data so that the Avastar rig can be constructed without extra fixing
New: Make avastar and sparkles licence GPL compliant
Complete Rework of the Rig structure
Fix:Order of slider sections reversed in user interface
Cleanup: Avatar definition files now match with the most recent viewer files
Fix: make animation panels visible (wip, animation retargetting does not work yet)
2019-11-01 Fix: Create Avastar was broken (fix for Avastar-2.80-25)
2019-11-01 Imp: Fitted Mesh sliders now behave much more intuitive.
2019-11-01 New: Added new Workflow preset for fitted mesh
2019-10-31 Imp: Fitted Mesh sliders are now more intuitive and have extended tool tips
2019-10-31 Fix: Fitted mesh no longer worked correct after recent Fix
2019-10-30 Fix: Selecting the bone partner from the Fitting panel when the active Mesh is in Weight Paint mode, resets the Armature to Object mode
2019-10-30 New: Add selection for eye bones
2019-10-29 Imp: Material baker should not show Avastar materials for custom meshes
2019-10-29 Fix: red rebind button does not appear after editing a custom mesh
2019-10-29 Fix: warning popup missing when trying to edit a system mesh
2019-10-28 Cleanup: updated the templates to avastar-2.80
2019-10-28 Fix: Face IK can not be unselected
2019-10-28 Fix: remove broken constraints when uploading an old avastar (they get recreated when updating the rig)
2019-10-28 new:Face Controllers now can be enabled/disabled like all other IK Controllers
2019-10-27 new: make materials selectable only in material or rendered shading mode
2019-10-27 13:10:26 +0100 fix:speed improvements, small tweaks on the user interface
2019-10-26 Imp: Display of rig info panel better left aligned
2019-10-26 Fix:Face weight generator breaks with wrong mode error
2019-10-24 Fix: sliders unnecessarilly called callback handlers (Sliders veryt slow)
2019-10-24 Fix: fixed Tracedump when addon is reloaded
2019-10-21 Fix: Hands with up axis Y (namely Belleza Hands)
2019-10-21 Fix: Wrong hover tool tip ‘Armature Maintenance’ now is ‘Rig Inspection’
2019-10-20 Fix:object parenting and object version tag not set when using devkit manager
2019-10-20 Fix: bone hierarchy display breaks when active object is a mesh
2019-10-20 Imp: added colorful facerig
2019-10-20 Fix: convert from SL to Avastar (needed for devkit manager)
2019-10-19 Fix:linebone length after editing the Target location
2019-10-19 Fix:Objects can not be reparented after binding (rebind button always red)
2019-10-18 Fix: Adjust Custom shapes for Face IK, make constraints symmetric to avoid differences between rest position and pose position
2019-10-18 Fix: Lip weights for Bento head
2019-10-18 Fix: repaired face IK bone rolls and optimized constraint values
2019-10-17 Fix: Handling of Avastar Materials
2019-10-16 Fix: wrong reference in module after cleaning up the program
2019-10-16 Fix: Store armature with joints broken after fixing freeze tool in 2.80-10
2019-10-16 Fix: Reparent custom mesh has no effect
2019-10-16 Fix: Fitting does not work because of 2.80 conventions (missing text=… in UI layout call)
2019-10-16 Fix: added missing new parameter as_name (for recent commit)
2019-10-16 Fix: Removed obsolete buttons for Hierarchy check tool. that is now in the Rigging Inspector panel
2019-10-16 Fix: freeze tool broken after recent commit
2019-10-14 fix:2.80 syntax: Added named parameter for creating new Vertex Group (compatibility issue)
2019-10-14 fix:avoid error when pole angel can not be calculated
2019-10-14 fix: When downgrading rig from extended to basic, the missing face rig bones cause an error
2019-10-14 fix: reworked the removing of temporary objects (possible fix for Blender crashes)
2019-10-14 fix:Added missing CustomShape for Chin bone
2019-10-13 new: Added IK Face
2019-10-12 fix: Report Extended bones in BASIC rig as Issue (rig check tool)
2019-10-12 fix: Welding can not find weights on eyelashes
2019-10-12 fix: compatibility issue: armature rig properties not recognized in old blend files (fixes Slink)
2019-10-12 fix: Fitted Mesh presets have wrong Python syntax
2019-10-11 fix: update from Basic to Extended now fixes all Spine bone locations and Hierarchy
2019-10-11 fix: show valid and illegal deviations in the rig when using strict bone hierarchy check
2019-10-10 fix:cleanup weightmaps now working reliably when only armature is selected
2019-10-10 fix: show bone hierarchy moved to rig Inspection pannel and made more user friendly
2019-10-10 imp: cleanup weightmaps is an armatuyre tool AND a mesh tool. Adjusted the Avastar Toolbox accordingl
2019-10-10 fix: removed unnecessary placeholder for redo pannels for Avastar workflows
2019-10-10 fix: Check hierarchy broken
2019-10-10 fix: fitted mesh presets updated for Blender 2.80
2019-10-10 fix: animation export for .anim format broken
2019-10-09 fix: make avamesh developerkit compatible to avastar-2.80
2019-10-09 imp: rename pannels and adjust pannel order
2019-10-09 fix: adjust tooltip for update rig warning popup
2019-10-09 fix: add PelvisInv to Leg IK bone group (make it yellow)
2019-10-08 wip: make pelvisInv an IK Bone
2019-10-08 fix:pelvisInv rotation goes wrong when lower spine is unfolded
2019-10-08 fix:fold/unfold spine did enable/disable correctly
2019-10-06 fix: wrong/misleading text in description for apply pose to rig
2019-10-06 imp: changed icon for bone list in Appearance sliders
2019-10-06 imp:added description function for Apply IK operator
2019-10-03 imp:freeze shape now removes original meshes by default
2019-10-03 new:Added copypaste pose icons back into 3D View header
2019-10-03 imp:Slider support (going faster now)

Release Avastar-2.79 (2019-07-14)

Update: templates to newest rig-version
Imp:Avastar login screen makes more clear when you are actually logged in
Fix: Do not triangulate when mesh is already triangulated
Imp: Cleanup and enhance the Addon preferences user interface
Fix:Links into documentation
Imp: Added link to documentation to devkit integration panel (Addon preferences)
Fix:typo in messages
Fix: sliders for leg length, heel height and platform height did not change location of upper body and head
Fix:rig update broken when rotation in objects
Fix: when apply rot&scale during rig update, then freeze only non avastar meshes
Fix:reparent only custom meshes
Fix: unbind_from_armature does not preserve all object select states
Fix:53515 collada export in animesh mode now can be disabled to preserve compatibility with older releases.
Fix: export of rigged mesh blows up file size by exporting unused normals data
Fix: automatic addition of LOC entries was broken becasue of wrong treatment of structure bones
Fix:first finger bones are wrongly marked as structure bones
Fix: tool tip for animation export name template description
Fix:Export of NLA Strips does not use export name template
Imp: reworked layout of collada export panel
Fix: export without joints
Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-50 daily build (2019-05-19)
Fix: Clean weightmaps did not consider modifiers (for example mirror)
New: Allow adding customer own bones to an Avastar rig (to add additional animation bones for example)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-49 daily build (2019-05-16)

Imp: make the fold/unfold spine buttons more intuitive

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-48 daily build (2019-05-16)

Fix:53487 too many deform bones assigned to controller

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-47 daily build (2019-05-14)

Fix:wrong tail location of mPelvis when calculating joint offsets
Imp: message panel for informing about out of date rigs

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-46 daily build (2019-05-01)

Fix:rig shift when switching between male and female (wrong hover calculation)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-45 daily build (2019-05-01)

Update:avamesh
Imp: make sliders fast again
Imp: Only transform origin to root_bone if their location differs (saves time)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-44 daily build (2019-04-29)

Fix: new created Quadified meshes react to mesh changing sliders only after once reset to default pose

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-43 daily build (2019-04-29)

Fix: Do not check for rebinding when sliders are disabled
Fix: preserve selected and active bones during rig update

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-42 daily build (2019-04-27)

Fix: Sliders behave wrong when armature has object scale
Fix: The Update tool falsely mixes up Pelvis and aPelvis (attachment bone) during Rig update
Fix:preserve rotation mode of pose bones during rig update

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-41 daily build (2019-04-25)

Fix: M010 Warning was not correctly referenced (resulting in a tracedump insteda of message text)
Fix: Rig update creates tracedump when bones are not assigned to any bone group

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-40 daily build (2019-04-13)

Fix: create warning when textures with unassigned images are exported instead of tracedump
Imp: Added check for outdated reference meshes

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-39 daily build (2019-04-09)

Fix 53442: collada exporter fails to export when unassigned material slots are defined

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-38 daily build (2019-04-09)

Fix: 53435 use bind pose creates wrong bind pose matrices

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-37 daily build (2019-03-31)

fix: 52948 report meshes with odd material settings in mesh info box

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-36 daily build (2019-03-30)

fix: 53064 BVH creates wrong pelvis location when COG is not animated

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-35 daily build (2019-03-30)

fix: updated templates to newest Avastar version
new: add option to link or attach Avastar assets
simplify: Quickfix after editing mesh. Now only one button for reparent armature in appearance sliders

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-34 daily build (2019-03-29)

fix: 52127 Added a check for COG Bone is retargeted to avoid tracedump

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-33 daily build (2019-03-29)

fix:52946: Slider definition changes after rig update

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-32 daily build (2019-03-27)

new: Retarget presets

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-31 daily build (2019-03-27)

fix: for ticket 52960 (does not work)

Bugfix Release Avastar-r 2.5-30 daily build (2019-03-21)

fix: weight copy from sources without weights creates stack trace
fix: 52895: Wrong extended material count when object has more than one material

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-29 daily build (2019-03-10)

fix: Objects get no slider update when they only depend on indirectly changed bones( e.g.: eyes when height changes)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-28 daily build (2019-03-10)

fix: toe location should be taken relative to Obejct and not relative to world
fix: Take care to disable automatic slider updater while updating sliders

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-27 daily build (2019-03-09)

fix: Export UV Textures OR material textures
new: Add option to triangulate before exporting

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-26 daily build (2019-03-08)

new: Added added button to reset collada exporter defaults

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-25 daily build (2019-03-07)

fix: switch between pose&anim and skin&weight does not retain visual bone rotations
imp: typo in Button hover description

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-24 daily build (2019-03-07)

fix: correctly handle materials with textures that have no image assigned
wip: Added location fix for height changing sliders
wip: optimizing slider updates.note: this checkin has issues with bad placed armatures when updating rig

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-23 daily build (2019-03-05)

fix: Using CTRL-Z after creating new Avastar can result in broken weights for subsequent Bento avatar creations
refactor: speed up mesh updater a tiny bit

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-22 daily build (2019-03-03)

fix: upgrading when sliders disabled fails on first attempt after opening Blender

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-21 daily build (2019-03-02)

fix: Add support for repairing reference meshes during avastar copy
fix: 52647 copy avastar rig creates an error
wip: new slider update tool to improve speed

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-20 daily build ()

fix: 52615 sliders get inresponsive after calling rebind(repair) (since 2.5-13)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-19 daily build (2019-02-22)

imp: Error panel now contains a button for Copy/Paste info to external text editor
Imp: 52540 animation exporter now exports NLA strip when the active action is part of the strip

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-18 daily build (2019-02-14)

imp: Added log.info to the BVH exporter
imp: (wip, needs testing) use mPelvis as Avatar root for BVH animations instead of COG (makes more sense)
fix: Added back missing site end markers to BVH export

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-17 (2019-02-12)

fix: reset animation is not correctly created when another action is already in place
fix: added missing offset from origin to mPelvis (wip, need to check BVH as well)
feature: Allow on the fly switch to bindpose without shifts in the Rig
imp: rephrased tool tip for apply_as_restpose()

Bugfix Release Avastar–2.5-16 daily build (2019-02-11)

refactor: Removed translation module from Avastar (preparing for blender 2.80)

Bugfix Release Avastar–2.5-15 daily build (2019-02-11)

cleanup: internal cleaning up (preparing for blender 2.80)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-14 daily build (2019-02-11)

various fixes: this was an exhaustive try and error approach to make sliders more stable
fix: Added default connection information for special bones (structure bones, cog, pelvisInv, etc)
new: Advanced current rig version from 5 to 6
fix: when reconfiguring the rig display then all selected objects where processed, although only mesh objects can be used here
fix: Links to online documentation
fix 52283: collada exports non deforming bones having weight maps, even when the ‘only deform bones’ option is set
remove obsolete adaptive correction
fix: Restshape value for arced eyebrows slider was wrong defined
fix: remove joints in edit mode does not remove meta data
fix: Apply as restpose no longer adds odd offsets when use bind pose is enabled
new: Add option for resetting shape sliders to rest position
feature: change link from asset.blend to append (so that blend file are sharable)
fix: armature_bake: disable automatic shape update while baking

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-13 daily build (2019-01-20)

fix: rework of the Rig Update tool
fix: Copy from Avastar to Avastar
improve: change apply_shape_sliders operator label from ‘Bake to Meshes’ to ‘Freeze&Rebind’
fix: restore_reference_bone_roll must fix the bone tail after changing the bone matrix.
fix: get_custom_bindposition() can not work with joints when using it while calculating the joints (illegal reference to self)
fix: 52166 animation export with automatic eye animation settings
fix: disable eye targets while updating rig configuration from edit and from apply pose
changed Extened bone color from purpe to pink
fix: createAvastar() changed the active object

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-12 daily build (2019-01-10)

fix: wrong api call to add__to_list while setting up dependent animation curves for eye bones

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-11 daily build (2019-01-09)

fix 51223: BVH Start of animation did not handle mPelvis bone location correctly
imp: Support weighted attachment bones with developer kits
new: Add a cut feature to get a text representation of a devkit manager preset

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-10 daily build (2019-01-08)

fix: avoid zero bone length for COG bone during copyrig from SL to Avastar
fix COG for conversions from SL to Avastar

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-9 daily build (2019-01-03)

new: Add new experimental option to optionally force POS joint locations even on Pivot Rigs (very questionable)

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-8 (28/Dec/2018)

Fix: Ticket 51840 Pos Joint Type does not work in Rig Cleanup Tool
Imp: Added Joint type to report for exported rigs
Fix: Make Collada Rig (bone) export parameters more flexible and consistent
Imp: Added option for exporting Rig exactly as is (For exchange with other 3D tools)
Imp: Make Reloading of Addon (F8) more robust
Fix: Ticket 517171 Animation causes rig distortions
New: Added default pose library for Avastar testing (wip)
Fix: BVH Exporter does not place avatar at correct location when exporting with Translation
Imp: Unlock Pose bones: changed default setting from ALL to Selected (as this is more often wanted)
New: Add a button to switch to Avastar’s advanced mode when exporting to Collada
Fix: Always export using the white stickman shape for rigged Avastar meshes
Imp: Generate a infotext in operator redo panel after generating the restpose anim
Imp: Added generators for LSL script and Reset Animation
Fix: Propagate bone scales of foreign rig’s bind pose to the Avastar rig when transfering from a collada import
Fix: Appearance slider’s bonelist dropdown was broken
Imp: Make exporting with partially broken rigs more robust
Imp: Added used Rig version to error panel

Bugfix Release Avastar-2.5-1 (12/Nov/2018)

Cleanup: remove bone repair option (rigs are always repaired when updating/cleaning up)
Fix: 51347: eye target status is not preserved when updating a rig
Fix: tracedump when updating rig without attached meshes
Imp:make the rig more robust against broken internal data
Fix:51276 tool box – vertex tools: do not take most recent edits into account when called in EDIT mode
Fix: Unrigged objects do not export
Fix: IK Pivot slider does not move the pivot point for legacy armatures

[include path='/avastar-2/release-changelog/2-5/'] not found!

Update Avastar-2.4-76 (daily 24/Oct/2018)

Fix: Ticket 51004 (thanks to HunniHope) Update mesh always by using
initial bindpose (and not its current pose) to avoid odd object scaling
when updating in arbitrary shape
Fix: Ticket 51066 (thanks to Bloodsong) Bone roll not synchronized
with deform rig when bone has no joint offsets

Update Avastar-2.4-75 (daily 22/Oct/2018)

Fix: Ticket 51044 Important (thanks to HunniHope) Mesh shrinks on export when Fitted mesh Bones are used for shaping
Fix: Ticket 51040 (thanks to Bloodsong) static mesh reports produce a tracedump

Update Avastar-2.4-74 (daily 18/Oct/2018)

Warning: Please no longer use this version. Please update to Avastar-2.4-75 (see above) when you work with fitted mesh.

We found a few glitches in the last release candidate. Avastar-2.4-74 fixes them. We decided to upload a new release candidate for those who want to participate in the tests.

Fix: Freezing an Avastar mesh removes global Avastar Shape definitions: ctrl-z messed up the Avastar meshes
Fix: Apply as restpose sometimes creates unexpected results when “use bind pose” is disabled
Fix: Show store joint positions button only in edit mode
Imp: Display of mesh selection box for binding with weights from meshes is now more intuitive

Important: when you switch the “use bind pose” on a custom rig AFTER you have called the “Apply as Restpose” function, then you may see odd Bone shifts. This is unfortunately correct behavior.

Update Avastar-2.4-73 (daily 07/Oct/2018)

Important: This update is feature complete for Avastar-2.5. We propose you download this version and make some serious stress testing.

Fix: Bind armature – Weight from Meshes: Allow to toggle object hide_select in the widget list
Fix: Use neutral slider settings as reference when calculating bindpose matrix (fixes most issues with Male models)
Fix: apply armature scale also when bind_pose is used (needs check)
Fix: export meshes always in restpose shape with male disabled to avoid mismatches (especially for male shapes)
Fix: typos in hover text fields

Update Avastar-2.4-71 (daily 30/Sep/2018)

Important Fix: 48356 Export to Collada unintentionally applied a small intentional pose offset on the elbows into the exported mesh
The Problem shows up when:
- The appearance sliders are enabled
- and you have enabled “use bind pose”
- and your rig is currently not in its restpose
  If you do not want to download this fix, then you can workaround this issue by resetting the pose to restpose (ALT-R ALT-G) before exporting.
New: Added precision limiter to Collada exporter (for debugging purposes, off by default)
Imp: Weight Copy Panel: more meaningful option labels and descriptions (Include -> Show) and (visible -> all listed)
Imp: Error message now contains information about Avastar version and Blender version

Update Avastar-2.4-70 (daily 23/Sep/2018)

Fix:devkit manager create male devkit character shows distortions
Imp: weight copy, Section Enabled deform bones:
Renamed button ‘Mesh eyes’ to ‘Alt Eyes’ (since we mean the bone here and not the meshes)
Imp:50641 Improved hover tooltips and user interface display in weight copy Panel
Fix:collada: export mesh without appearance sliders
must ignore the use bind pose option
Also the exporter must use use restpose scales
Fix: devkit manager: avoid stacktrace when input file not available
or filename is empty (unreported issue)

Update Avastar-2.4-69 (daily 20/Sep/2018)

Fix: Convert rig from SL to Avastar parents volume bones to the animation rig
instead of parenting them to the deform rig (unreported, affects developer kit manager)
Imp: Cleaned up some logging statements
Fix:bind shape matrix needs rotation to SL orientation.
Fixes odd placement of attachments when Origin not in <0,0,0>
Fix:inconsistency: eye target checkmarks must be enabled when new Avastar is created

Update Avastar-2.4-68 (daily 18/Sep/2018)

fix: enforce Avastar structure bone hierarchy when updating from an old armature

Update Avastar-2.4-67 (daily 18/Sep/2018)

fix:50434 Collada Exporter Export of basic Mesh fails (empty bone set)

Update Avastar-2.4-66 (daily 17/Sep/2018)

New: 50405 Animation Exporter: Added support for animations with modified animation skeleton (green bones)
Note: When your Animation rig has a modified topology, then you must in general export “with translation” enabled.

Update Avastar-2.4-65 (daily 16/Sep/2018)

Fix: 50395 make Pelvis unselectable by default (similar to structure bones)

Update Avastar-2.4-64 (daily 16/Sep/2018)

Fix: IK Bones:Sometimes the yellow lines between a Bone chain and its IK Target are not placed correctly (unreported issue)
Fix: 50354 Collada: support export of rigged models with armature not in center

Update Avastar-2.4-63 (daily 15/Sep/2018)

Fix: Rig Converter: Preserve bone hierarchy of animation rig when calling Cleanup Rig

Update Avastar-2.4-62 (daily 15/Sep/2018)

Fix: 50127: Animation Exporter: removed move of mPelvis to <0,0,0> by reference frame
Fix 50127: Animation Exporter: bvh animation export now only exports necessary bones
Fix: 50295 Collada exporter: create empty weight maps for unweighted bones in parent hierarchy (SL needs that)
Imp: Silence export log
Imp: 50332 Clarified the message for Weight copy from other meshes (weight copy tool tip)

Update Avastar-2.4-61 (daily 23/Aug/2018)

Fix: context sensitive documentation links
Cleanup: adjust_origin is no longer needed after recent fix with animation offset
Fix: arms and hands are hidden when creating basic armature without Meshes
Fix: Wrong offset calculation for animation transfer. Also may fix import SL Animation operator

Update Avastar-2.4-60 (daily 23/Aug/2018)

Fix: Animation transfer must use root bone (assigned to the COG) for an animation transfer
Fix: cleanup menus when avastar is disabled to avoid tracedumps
Cleanup: Started adjusting links to website (work in progres)

Update Avastar-2.4-59 (daily 23/Aug/2018)

Fix: Weight Copy meshes – could not be selected. probably fixes also 49853
Fix: Rig – lower green spine placed wrong
Fix: Rig Display – display animation spine also affected deform spine, display deform spine did nothing
Imp: Added numbered messages and added info to website)

Update Avastar-2.4-58 (daily 21/Aug/2018)

Fix: instead of enable/disable spine bones now use an operator for reset spines

Update Avastar-2.4-57 (daily 20/Aug/2018)

Fix: Rig Update from older Rigs does not place the Hand controller bone correctly
Imp: Spine handling now split into Display (Rig Display panel) and fold/unfold (Rig Config panel)

Update Avastar-2.4-56 (daily 18/Aug/2018)

Fix: Avastar Templates use outdated Rig version

Update Avastar-2.4-55 (daily 18/Aug/2018)

Fix: 49426: Setting Bone Lock for animation export breaks mPelvis orientation when pelvis has no rotation in first frame
Imp: 49577: Groin can now be enabled during initial binding
Imp: make Log statement more clear
Fix: 49670 Fitting presets no longer work
Imp: Apply Armature Scale by default when exporting a rigged mesh

Update Avastar-2.4-54 (daily 12/Aug/2018)

Fix:unbind and rebind do not work nicely when rigged mesh is not parented to Armature
(armature modifier in mesh that is not parented to the armature modifier)
Fix: Apply armature scale now works even when no joint edits are defined.
This makes creating tinies and giants work again as documented
in https://avastar.guru/reference/tinies-and-giants/
Imp: Added more Log statements to blender console
Fix:bind redo panel contains too many options
Fix: 49447 binding to bones must not include the Collision volume bones
Remove: Alter to Restpose
Fix: F8 to reload the Addon now works a bit better than before (still need to restart blender after upgrade)

Update Avastar-2.4-52 (daily 09/Aug/2018)

Feature: also use volume bones for weight copy (on demand)

Update Avastar-2.4-51 (daily 05/Aug/2018)

Important: Please update if you are on 2.4-46 or newer!

Fix: 49360 binding, apply restpose, weight copy: weight copy options not properly recognized.
Imp: Log statements in Blender console (for binding, weight copy and apply as restpose)
Imp: Tool tip for Copy from Meshes

Update Avastar-2.4-50 (daily 05/Aug/2018)

Fix: 49360 Bind to Meshes is broken
Fix: Mesh Info Panel does not work properly when onbly an armature is selected.
Imp: Mesh Info Panel: Disable Refresh statistic button when auto refresh is enabled

Update Avastar-2.4-49 (daily 04/Aug/2018)

Imp: Support arbitrary Bone Hierarchy on green Animation rig (can be reorganized as you like)
Fix: wrong user interface layout for display of meshes that need repair (rebind)
Imp: Automatically retag Object revision for objects with no revision (from older Avastar releases)
Fix: Avoid tracedump and empty user interface when binding while appearance sliders are not initialised
Cleanup: removed trailing dots from various messages to conform to Blender desription rules (no dot at end)

Update Avastar-2.4-48 (daily 31/Jul/2018)

Fix: Binding and weight copy user interface only visible when Appearance sliders are enabled

Update Avastar-2.4-47 (daily 30/Jul/2018)

Imp: in weight copy – options section: rename label to ‘copy from visible’
Fix: Panel info for binding and weight copy
Fix: Binding panel: replaced ‘Weights’ by ‘Strategy’ (similar to the weight copy panel)
Fix: Unbind does not preserve object select states
Imp: Tooltips for weight copy operator
Imp: Remove ‘AVASTAR’ from the list of bind options (can now be done with the Meshes option)

Update Avastar-2.4-46 (daily 28/Jul/2018)

Fix: Mesh Info only works properly when at least one one object with more than 8 materials is detected.

Update Avastar-2.4-45 (daily 28/Jul/2018)

Fix: 49173 Weight Copy tool behaves odd when using copy from Meshes
Fix: tracedump when checking if active objects needs rebinding

Update Avastar-2.4-44 (daily 27/Jul/2018)

Fix: Symmetry groups generator was broken
Fix: 49113 Freezing an object does not preserve the user’s Scene settings for freeze (fix the fix)

Update Avastar-2.4-43 (daily 26/Jul/2018)

~~Fix: 49113 Freezing an object does not preserve the user’s Scene settings for freeze~~
Fix: 49114 Material check on export has been removed (no longer needed)
Fix: 49112 speed up user interface for Mesh Info Panel (allow user to enable auto update)
Fix: tracedump when setting the option to automatically add mirror bones during weight copy
Fix: Freeze operator broken (after recent reorganization in the code)
Fix: 49058 Face Generator could not find its operator
Fix: Scaled Armatures break sliders

Update Avastar-2.4-41 (daily 22/Jul/2018)

Imp: Minor Optimization for shape calculation
Imp: Move weight copy section from Skinning Pannel into its own Weight Copy panel
Imp: Dirty Mesh flag now much less annoying

Update Avastar-2.4-40 (daily 20/Jul/2018)

Imp: Quickfix Button for Dirty Mesh now much less aparent and no longer annoying
Fix: Quickfix Button for propagating Mesh Edits to Appearance Sliders now takes Slider values into account
Fix: 48997 Quickfix after enter Editmode and switch back to Object mode breaks appearance sliders
Fix: Cleanup does not remove ‘original’ custom property when cleaning up a mesh that was bound with an older version of Avastar

Update Avastar-2.4-38 (daily 20/Jul/2018)

Fixes:

Fix: Updating an Avastar Rig to current release does not preserve bone deform flags
Fix: Developerkit manager does always set up axis to Z even when configured for Y

Update Avastar-2.4-36 (daily 19/Jul/2018)

Fixes:

Imp: No longer disable the Appearance sliders when mesh reference is flagged for refresh (appearance sliders and skinning
Imp: Reworked the export Error panel

Update Avastar-2.4-34 (daily 18/Jul/2018)

Fixes:

Fix: Developerkit customization in avastar preferences panel is now initialized
Fix: Support Deverloperkits with UP-Axis = Y (This actually is a workaround for an error in the blender importer)
This is a fix for Belleza Bento Hand Developerkits

Improvements:

Imp: Renamed ‘Warning’ to ‘Hint’ and ‘might have issues’ to ‘could be optimized’ to make the messages less frightening
Imp: Up Axis label can now be set in User interface (Only Y up and Z Up are supported)
Imp: Warning Message after Export more descriptive
Imp: For binding and weight copy tools: enable face and hand bone groups by default

Update Avastar-2.4-32 (daily 13/Jul/2018)

Fixes an issue with the Rig Transfer tool for conversions from SL to Avastar

Fix: Wrong Bone conversions when transfering an SL Rig to Avastar
Imp: The maintenance feature (download from Bledner) gives more precise infos when login failed

Update Avastar-2.4-30 (daily 08/Jul/2018)

Fixes:

Fix: (Weight Copy) include/exclude eye bones did not do anything
Fix: (Binding) Feature was broken (since 2.4-28)

Improvement:

Imp: (weight copy) Make AVASTAR and COPY use the same environment (only differs in the set of weight sources)
New: (weight copy) Added object selection list widget to define weight sources
Imp: (Weight Copy) Automatic reparent target mesh(es)after creating new weight maps
Imp: (Weight Copy) Reduced Weight copy redo panel to only be used for FACEGEN
Imp: (Weight Copy) Add use_x_mirror for all weight strategies

Update Avastar-2.4-30 (daily 08/Jul/2018)

Fixes:

Fix: Show only Basic weight groups when Rigtype is not EXTENDED (to keep consistency)
Fix: (weight copy) Added missing selection for eyelashes
Imp: (Weight Copy) Reworked Info text for Add to Scope
Fix: Add a warning message when dirty mesh object is detected without armature assigned
Fix: Rig Update does not update Armature modifiers to updated armature
Fix: Rig update moves system mesh container to wrong hierarchy level
Fix: 48579 Armature enabled on all visible layers after upgrade

Improvement:

New: (weight copy) Add number of selected bones, show a warning when no deform bones are selected
Imp: (Weight Copy) Use more convenient defaults for with weight settings
Imp: (weight copy) improved user interface
New: (Weight copy) Add with hidden meshes to mesh selection panel
Imp:Make Log statements for Weight Copy Tool less verbose and more clear
Imp:Make more clear that weights are taken from the Avastar Meshes

Update Avastar-2.4-29 (daily 05/Jul/2018)

Imp: changed ‘update mesh’ to ‘refresh mesh’ in Appearance sliders and Skinning panel to avoid confusion
Fix: Weight map Control panel (strategy Weights from Avastar was wrong implemented)
Fix: added missing tagging of Avastar Meshes

Update Avastar-2.4-28 (daily 05/Jul/2018)

Improvements (tooltips):

Imp:Tool tip for rebind operator (2.4-28)
Imp: Add more information to Operator parameter description
Imp: Messages for tooltips
Imp: more descriptive message for Weld to weights operator
Imp:cleanup long tool tips a bit (better reading)
Imp: warning messages after exporting a collada file
Imp: minor adjustments in operator description for better reading
Imp: Display(log) usage of deform layers by layer name instead of layer index
Imp: Make user interface labels more intuitive

Improvements (functionality)

New: Added a smallest minimum weight for checking zero weights
New: Add mesh repair button directly into the appearance slider panel
Imp: create a warning instead of a tracedump when avastar meta data is broken
New: Tag meshes with avastar revision
Imp: weight generation pannel (wip, weight from avastar head does not work yet)
Imp: Added warning when a mesh MUST be repaired after a rig upgrade
New: Add addon revision number for meshes
Imp: discard hard setting of rig display settings when reconfiguring the rig display (could be wrong, needs testing)
ui: moved Update Weightmaps operator to top of panel
Imp: Weight map generator now allows to define the set of generated Weightmaps before calling the operator
Imp: Allow to enable/disable generation of symmetric Weightmaps

Fixes:

Fix: Use unbind when only the armature is selected now unbinds all visible bound meshes
Fix: Hip compatibility mode does not take care of the attachment bone and the Collision Volume
Fix: when avastar meta data is corrupt, create a warning instead of a tracedump
Fix:Exporter exports unnecessary empty weight groups when not all meshes of the skeleton are weighted
Fix: cleanup avastar data created a tracedump

Update Avastar-2.4-27 (daily build)

Improvements:

Imp: BVH Loop Calculator takes into account that first frame plays 3 times.
Imp: handling of the BVH reference frame (with reliable support for locking bones)
Imp: Simplify generation of BVH animation exporter
New: Add user interface for new BVH SL Import options
New: Add option to set The Offset of the Pelvis bone when exporting BVH. (Experimental)
New: Binding tool now preserves Original Mesh shape (precise binding)
New: Option to restore original mesh when unbinding (no longer needed since 2.4-20)
Imp: updateShape only once when updating Rig and Mesh(es)
Imp: Make binding of hands optional (2.4-18)
Imp: The binding redo operator now allows interactive binding (2.4-18)
Imp: snap tool now displays maximum snap offset found during snapping (2.4-14)
Imp: adjusted the value ranges for the bind resolver to allow zero tolerance
Imp: Separate creation of weights for SL Eyes and Mesh Eyes
New: Added option to disable specific parts of the skeleton during binding (needs more testing)
Imp: Shortened Name of bone weight section selectors(wip) (2.4-9)
Imp: spine bones are only added to weight from bone when unfolded (2.4-8)
Imp: Added option to disable synchronization of deform bones with animation bones
Imp: switch between workflows now much faster
Imp: Bone constraints now begin with AVA (should be backwards compatible) (2.4-6)
Imp: Silence Blender console when smooth by weight
Imp: Removed left over debug print messages
Imp: Naming of buttons and Tooltip for the Bind pose operation

Fixes:

Fix: Handling of location of the animation (wip)
Fix: Unwanted offset when importing an Avastar BVH animation back to blender
Fix: 48268 Spine bones where are not correctly handled when unlocking rotation
Fix: 48183 Optimize (cleanup) animation data after importing an SL Animation.
Fix: 48210 Restpose adds z translation of COG when using file -> import -> SL animation
Fix: Switching Spine bone deform status changes the length of the Pelvis bones in unexpected ways (2.4-20)
Fix: take care for the case when no shape transform exists for a bone
Fix 48006 Binding to spine bones now depends on the spine visibility. (2.4-18)
Fix: Generate weight from bones causes tracedump when called for already bound mesh (2.4-17)
Fix: reverted fix from 2.4-15 (2.4-16)
Fix: locking bones when in weight paint mode did not work as expected
Fix: Typo in user interface
~~Fix 47708: Bones are now bound precisely(2.4-15)~~
Fix: Setting the PEC Sliders to 0 causes a divsion by zero issue when calculating the Rig scales
Fix: 47421 export error when corrupt weight maps in mesh (probably needs a fix in Blender) (2.4.13)
Fix: snap to mesh results was depending on mesh topology.
Fix:Update Rig removes the deform flag from the mBones (2.4-12)
Fix:reconfigure rig display does not work when bone deform filter is enabled in rig display
Fix: When fitting sliders are moved to extreme values we get false error messages in console
Fix: Export Skeletons without Bind Pose was broken
Fix: Creation of Basic Avastars broken after fixing issues Spine bones in 2.4-8 (please update!)
Fix: Typo in the weight generation function regarding usage of volume bones while doing automatic weights from bone
Fix: Urgent bugfix – Creation of Avastar rig was broken in 2.4-7 (please update!)
Fix: Switch between pose preset and deform preset does not take volume bones into account (2.4-7)
Fix: Improve Avastar behavior when trying to enable fitting panel for a mesh that has already fitted mesh data (2.4-5)
Fix: IK Constraints only work with the Blender default language (2.4-4)
Fix: Export with bind matrix data now enforces export as female in white stickman mode
Fix: Weight Inspector: prepared for changes in
Fix: Freeze Mesh creates a trace dump (only on Blender 2.8) when user selects to delete original mesh
Fix: IK Align tool did not align correctly (2.4-2)
Fix: Set IK Target Orientation for right leg was wrong (typo)
Fix 46850: Error exporting a cube with Avastar fails (2.4-1)

Update Avastar-2.4-0 (bugfix release)

Fixes:

Fix 46694: Location not correctly exported to BVH
Fix 46777: set z rotation limit for all finger 2,3 bones to [0,0]
Fix 46777: incorrect pose bone limits for finger1 bones on left hand
Fix: Exporter reports wrong bone types during export
Imp: Added more print statements to collada exporter.
Fix: Blender reported a bad internal state “DAG zero… not allowed to happen!”
Fix: Export of armatures fails when sliders are disabled
Fix: Mesh distortions with’use bind pose’ in appearance sliders
Feature: improve Replaced the Settings Tab by a Workflows tab
Imp: Better hand mesh for avamesh
Fix: Snap To Mesh Operator creates Trace Dump when called in Object Mode
Fix: 43400 export of finger bones does not work (Collada exporter uses wrong rig type during export)
Fix:backup and restore select state during rig update and copy did not work correct
Fix:copyrig did add deform flag to the Animation bones. Should add to the deform bones
Mesh Cleanup now cleans up everything except the fitted mesh (unless purge is set to True, then everything is cleaned)
Imp:Warning panel stays now on screen until user clicks somewhere
Imp: unbind now removes everything except the fitted mesh information
Change: Removed the purge option (is now always false)
Change: Moved the freeze option down into its own line for better visibility
Fix:processing of restpose was not correct for some functions
Fix: system mesh container was wrong placed when slider height changes
Fix: Thumb0 rotation does not close the thumb: HandThumb0 roll was falsely aligned to the thumb bones
Fix: Object cleanup did not remove the Avastar property groups from Mesh objects

Update Avastar-2.3 (bugfix release)

Important bugfix update: This update fixes a serious issue with sliders and Rigs having joint offsets. It should now be safe to bind and export meshes to any slider settings (before you had to use the white stickman icon to make sure the meshes behave correct in SL)

Fixes

fix: Tracedump when sliders are applied to system meshes with deleted mesh definitions
fix: Rigs with Joint Offsets are now treated correctly with sliders
fix: Finger links tails pointing to wrong locations when rig has joint offsets and appearance sliders are used
fix: The fix reference meshes option on Rigs with joint offsets caused distorted meshes
fix: Add avastar when appearance sliders are disabled creates a distorted rig
fix: Fixed boob weights on avamesh, limit weights to max 4
fix: UV maps of avamesh upper body and head
fix: Devkit presets using file names with special characters in them
fix: Update to Avastar-2.2 did not handle the hand structure bones correctly
fix: Outdated tooltips

Improvements

imp: Delete Avastar meshes now can delete meshes selectively
imp: Devkit manager now also can rescale the imported rig (needed for Rigs coming from Maya)
imp: Convert to bind pose now handles visibility and selectability of bound meshes properly.
imp: fixed some issues with the avamesh weights near the armpits
smoothed the elbow mesh,
removed some ridges and valleys on the stomach and breast.

Update Avastar-2.2

Major new Developments:

Avamesh is a ready made rigged character for Second Life. Avamesh is not a replacement for the system character. But you can use it as a starting point for your own creations.

Avamesh…

If you use many developer kits then the Developer kit Manager is for you. Here you can configure your devkits for single click access (no kidding). Important: We ship Avastar only with the Avamesh devkit (see above). You still need to obtain other devkits from their creators!

Developer kit Manager…

We added a new option for creating a system character mostly made with Quads (polygons with 4 edges). This feature has previously been included in the Sparkles Addon. Now it is included in Avastar.

Avatar with Quads…

find and fix asymmetries on mesh
Snap selected verts Vertices on other meshes

Vertex Tools…

Hand structure bones are made for easier hand animations. We also added a thumb controller bone (the small circle inside the wrist bone in the image) which allows to rotate the thumb around the long axis of the wrist bone.

Avastar Bones…

Warning: Shapekey presets are an experimental feature currently of very limited usage. If your Mesh object contains shape keys then you can save a set of key values for later reuse.

This feature is only available in Experimental settings. You find the documentation in the tool tips.

More Improved features:

Collada:
– The exporter now uses a more precise method to export meshes when the rig contains presets for bind pose. Some well known examples for rigs with bind pose presets are Belleza and TMP.
– Use maximum available precision for exported float data (to fix issues with characters on sky platforms (SL precision problem with character animation)
Delete joints: Previously it was possible to change some settings in the operator redo panel. But we found that a change in the redo panel sometimes creates very unpredictable results. That’s why we have removed the redo panel for this function.
Rig Update: Added the possibility to change the joint type ( POS / PIVOT ) during a rig cleanup/update
Skeleton:
– Removed the bone roll from the Foot/Hind Bones. this seems to have been wrong all the time.
– Modified the HIP Bone Roll to 0. Added Compatibility button for backward compatibility with older projects
Rebind after mesh changes:
Added Rebind icon to unbind button (Skinning Panel). This is needed for sliders to work correctly after editing the mesh
Rig Convert : Root bone/Origin mismatch now moves the origin to the root bone by default.

Changes on User Interface:

Moved Rig Conversion tool from the Tools panel into its own Rig Convert panel.
Added a Quickfix button in the Rig Convert/Update panel when Avastar detects an Armature/root bone mismatch.
The rig version is now displayed in the Rig Convert panel.
The transfer presets selector only appears when the active object is an armature.

Documentation issues:

Improved tooltips for Synchronise shapekeys to sliders, Collada options.
Renamed Main and Legacy Rigs to Extended and Basic
Fixed outdated links to documentation

Bug fixes:

Stacktrace when reporting issues during export of models with references to unavailable images
Sliders behave odd (reverts a change from a few months ago, needs further check)
Weld normals uses the wrong function call to the welding function
When snapping mesh to other mesh objects now ignores invisible meshes
Keep structure select mode untouched when switching between pose preset and weight preset
Auto Slider Adjust causes tracedump when calling bind mesh repair
Auto slider adjust when rig was edited
Check bone hierarchy needs to allow green bones parenting changes
Exporter shows tracedump when called in Basic Settings mode
Preserve gender flag during rig conversion/update
Changed report URL from blog.machinimatrix.org to support.machinimatrix.org
Typo in slider subset listings casued error when trying to reset Fitting sliders to default
Rig Updates for male rigs have wrong scaling after updating the rig.nual for vertex tools

Fixed in Avastar-2.1.1

Fix: typo in Fitting slider subset. Caused error when reset sliders to default.
Fix: Rig Updates for male rigs have wrong scaling after updating the rig.
Fix: Sliders behave odd (reverts a change from a few months ago, needs further check)
Imp: Replaced old System Mesh Edit Warning popup box by generic info panel
Fix:Pointers to online manual for vertex tools
Imp: Added Rebind icon to unbind button (Skinning Panel)
Fix: system meshes where no longer treated by the appearence sliders as expected
Imp: use maximum available precision for exported float data
to fix issues with characters on sky platforms (SL precision problem with character animation)

Fixed in Avastar 2.1.0 (Avastar-2-1)

fix: tool help pages
imp:change default settings for the retarget options to better match ‘old’ user expectations
imp:move transfer pose into the pose setting panel
imp:animation retarget now checks for changes in Avastar/rig setup on every fire
imp:Add fix rotation and fix scale buttons to the warning panel when bind is rejected

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-54 (Avastar-2-RC16)

fix: Allow importing an animation to an Avastar even when no Avastar is available on the Scene
fix: an Exception that results from not initialised data when importing without having an Avastar in the scene
fix: The ‘with translation’ checkmark was not taken into account during retarget
fix: Typo in a variable name slipped in unintentionally (Broke binding)
imp: Always remove an already existing action when retarget an animation
to avoid polution with left over keyframes from an older retarget session on the same action.

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-53 (Avastar-2-RC15)

fix: animation retarget now also works when imported animation uses an arbitrary pose in the reference frame
fix: anim exporter assumed to see a keyframe on each exported frame for each exported bone
imp:Remove unneeded extra box from animation pose pannel

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-52 (Avastar-2-RC14)

Most importent fixes:

The animation BVH Importer / retarget tool now works also for translation
The Animation BVH Exporter now exports Translation information correctly

More fixes:

BVH exporter now iterates over the frameset and uses the pose data directly from Blender
Note: possibly breaks “make seamless” and “simplify animation”, please test if possible.
Imp: Keep bone selection and pose limit status intact when retargeting
Imp: Split TransferMotion and TransferPose into 2 panels
Fix: Hand simple IK setting (Simple IK and Constrained IK for hands now differ)
Fix: Armature retarget tool for translation animation support
Fix: A label typo in the retarget system
Imp: Tweaked on frame update to be a bit faster
Imp: Readbility of rig version info
Fix: Lock states for pose bones was not calculated right for bones without IK constraints
Imp: Lock/unlock pose bone translation should not reset the rig to restpose by default
Fix: Remove unused button for applying rotation during copy/update rig
Fix: Alter to Restpose now marked as deprecated and moved to ‘Experimental’ settings

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-51 (Avastar-2-RC13)

Improve: Rig update now only when Avastar version info AND rig version differ
Improve: Avastar documentation now uses the avastar.online site
Fix: Make sparkles shape key support compatible to Avastar-2
Fix shape key support on custom meshes (need to be checked)
Fix: Autosnap bones gives wrong results when bones are connected
Fix:Fitted Mesh weights have been calculated wrong during bind and update shape,
giving odd issues when sliders not at neutral shape
Fix: When adjusting Avatar Center, Pelvis takes precedence over mPelvis.
Only when Pelvis is not defined use mPelvis. If mPelvis does not exist, then report an error
Imp: fitting presets now applies to all selected mesh objects when in object mode
Imp: appearance slider pannel – now show affected bones.
Also display if a slider is active (at least one of the related bones has weights)
Remove: Special settings for Shape Key support. We no longer need that information
Remove: Appearance slider type. We now have either appearance enabled or disabled
New: Add property to purge all avastar data when unbinding a mesh (not used yet)
Improve: tool tips for appearance sliders
Improve: corrective shape keys can now be created for every bone (experimental)
Improve: snowflake is now disabled by default for updating Avastar rigs
Fix: bone hierarchy checker now also works when spine is unfolded
Fix: binding models with fitting slider values now preserves the previous fitting slider settings

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-50

Avastar 2.0-50 was unintentionally tagged (but it actually had no changes)

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-49 (Avastar-2-RC12)

fix: Welding Normals was broken
imp: Unbind more stable also when blender fresh started (and some vars not yet exist)
fix: Manuellab eyes bone location more acurate
imp: Added weighted bones Filter (MAP) also to armature

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-49 (Avastar-2-RC11)

fix: Remove spine control buttons from the rig config panel (now in rig display)
imp: Add check for Correct Bone Hierarchy to Collada exporter
imp: Replace exception throwing by a better check on existing bones and reporting failures on the console
fix: Treat avastar mesh container correctly during armature update
fix: Treat all meshes included in the Avastar mesh container as avastar meshes
imp: Allow disable sliders from meshes which are not bound to an Armature
fix: Disable export with joints when appearance sliders are disabled (export joint locations as is)
new: Added spine controll buttons to Rig Display (copied from Rig Config)
fix: Update rig with shapekey drivers breaks the driver’s association to the armature
imp: Potential exception when trying to create mirror weight groups when context object is not a MESH
imp: Update rig no longer freezes meshes by default

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-48 (Avastar-2-RC10)

Fix: Added back missing conversion template for TMP
Fix: Shape updates should reset preserved shape file when sliders are removed from armature.
Fix: Shape file should keep untouched when sliders are removed from Mesh object
Fix: update rig of male characters applies male shape twice
New: Added tool for synchronizing shapekeys with appearance sliders
Fix: Welding when more than 1 welding candidate close to vertex
Fix: apply Rotation&Scale during export does not do anything

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-47 (Avastar-2-RC9)

fix: Some constraint data (space info) where not preserved during update when bonelock was disabled
fix: Shape key support
fix: enable https support from blender to Machinimatrix (update check/videos/login)
fix: Binding meshes that had left shape data from previous work (bone_morph, neutral_shape, original) breaks vertex locations

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-46 (Avastar-2-RC8)

fix:Binding meshes correct even when old shape data (bone_morph, neutral_shape) present
Attempt to fix import of bvh animations with translation (does not work yet, wip)
mark frozen avastar meshes as such so that we later can reactivate them (unfreeze, does not exist yet, wip)
imp: Improved report when all verts are weighted (was misleading)
Added addon support for apptemplates in avastar+sparkles
fix: freezeing when armature is invisible does not work
fix: legacy avastar contains a subset of the extended bones
fix:Allow binding when armature is in pose mode
prepare usage of apptemplates instead of simple template files
imp:Make default skill level expert
imp: make animation importer more robust (actually the issue here was caused by an unrelated change in blender (apptemplates)
fix: Manuellab 1.4 fixes to get character parts separated
fix: Manuellab 1.4 face bones (eyes) matcher changes
imp: Options Alignment: options during rig update now all in one box
fix:enable reasonable visibility of bone display layers after copyrig finishes
fix:export of static mesh now always uses only the rotation matrix
removed: obsolete rig shape display control panel
fix:Disable timeline synchronize when importing animation
imp: Create logmessage when unregister fails

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-45 (Avastar-2-RC7)

fix: Workflow presets now store joint edits when necessary
fix: (critical) Detect modified rig also when no active bone is defined
for example when bones are selected by using border select
imp: Renamed some operator labels on the User interface:
- Panel rename: Skinning -> Skinning Panel
- Panel rename: Panel Presets -> Workflow Presets
- Renamed the workflow presets
new: Allow to customize the startup user interface settings (basic, advanced, expert)
new: Allow to customize the startup mode for new rigs (edit, pose, object)

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-44 (Avastar-2-RC6)

fix: wrong parenting of spine bones when folding/unfolding
fix: switch from ‘Bone edit’ to ‘Pose & Animation’ created unexpected poses (very confusing)
new: Use custom icons for rigging panels (mostly to colorize animation bones/deform bones)
new: Added support for rest_mat and bind_mat used
to import foreign collada based devkits
Note: works only with upcoming blender 2.79 and newer
fix: labels and hints
fix: Eye targets enable/disable buttons missing, Alt Eye Target missing
imp: Better tool tip for Quadded Avastar preset (in addon preferences)
fix: In Add-on preferences – The documentation buttons now point to the correct locations

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-43 (Avastar-2-RC5)

Imp: Silence some warning popups when no meshes to bind or no weights to copy.
Fix: parenting now also works when origin is not at center
Fix: Freeze tool now works also when rig is in pose mode
Fix: origin movement of custom meshes duriong slider update
Fix: rename Control Bones to Animation Bones.
Fix: Unparent Armature now always done in Object mode
Imp: Order of Buttons for deform bone flag settings changed
Imp: Now Basic and Extended Bones are grouped together
Imp: Remove ‘hide deform bones button’. This is now automatic
Fix: Defrom group display now shows immediately which
deform bones where enabled/disabled in the rig Config
Imp: Use custom icons for rig display panel
Fix: Addon Name is now Avastar Bento
Fix: Bone display does not update correct after reloading file
Imp: Added warning for when local camera/local layers are enabled.
Imp: Presets now also work correct when mesh objects selected
Imp: Store joint edits now allows to specify the snap direction
Fix: Hand postures where not exported
Fix: Memory leak when smoothing by weight (fitted mesh issue)
Imp: Show last selected UI preset (marked with a small yellow dot)
Imp: Loading shape into active object when active object is an Avastar rig
Fix: Removed wrong placed error icon from Appearance panels in object data properties
Fix: When updating an Avastar rig the source rigtype should not be editable
Imp: New tooltip for source rig type
Fix: When uploading an XML Shape the rigtype setting was only shown when Sparkles was installed

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-42 (Avastar-2-RC4)

Fix: When transfering a non Avastar rig with source rig type avastar, you end up in a mess.
This patch creates a warning message instead.
Fix: Update Rig sometimes breask when source rig has no animation_data
Imp: Allow to export Rig as is (must use neutral slider shape)
or export with joint offset calculation (slider independent export)
Fix: When unlocking control bones the unconnected bones (fingers) should also be relocatable
Imp: Add option to reset rig to restpose (default now) after unlocking control bones (operator redo panel)
Imp: Importing Animations with Translation components now work nicer
Imp: The Avastar Animation importer now defaults to EXTENDED Rig
Fix: Switch between animation and skinning did not preserve the Bone pose
Imp: New Avastar characters now use stick mode by default (not octahedral)

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-41 (Avastar-2-RC3)

fix: checking for zero weights when multiple objects are selected could create a stack trace
imp:Added update of constraint information for regular avastar constraints.
User constraints are not yet preserved (post avastar-2)
fix:take care to move custom _meshes into place when sl sliders are disabled but used for armature changing (odd actually, why would one want this?)
fix: Change default settings for apply_pose and check for joint edits from False to True
fix:When sliders are disabled in Rig Update then they did not always get disabled on all meshes
fix:make rig spine folding less finicky when some of the spinal bones are missing
Spine fold must be initialized upon Creating a new Avastar character
fix: NLA Export shows misleading user interface
Retarget: Lowes Global: Fix a python error that shows up since Blender 2.78
probably due to stricter checks for wrong/not/possibly not initialized variables
fix:Use correct frame information when exporting animation
fix:Create animation data for Armature if not yet exist

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-40 (Avastar-2-RC2)

Fix: Active Animation did not export

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-39 (Avastar-2-RC1)

Imp: now using scene properties for NLA export.
Imp: Disable export settings when no action defined, but NLA exists
Fix: Take care to only export location channels when necessary (for .bvh)

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta38

fix: Fixes with joint offsets in the template files
imp: Preserved disconnected bones (could be done intentional by user)
fix: Update used outdated data ending with unexpected scaling of meshes
fix: Do not export Translation channels when there is no translation in the animation (for .anim)
fix: Update did not keep meshes properly connected to armature
parenting got broken and armature modified not assigned correctly
fix: Update with no meshes selected and apply meshes enabled no longer creates an error
rem: Slider offset display is no longer needed
fix: Keep human avatar feet on earth again when height sliders are used
fix: Eyes no longer float around when height slider is used
fix: Export of single animation did either not export anything or a random action

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta37

Fix:avoid jumping of rig during update and enable sliders
Fix:Added missing features to rig to rig copySliders would distort shape when Rig not placed at Center of 3D View
Imp: When copy from avastar to avastar, then keep the rigtype and do not touch the dummies in the targets
Fix: take relative object orientations into account when copy armatures
Imp: Added list of copy source and targetrs to armature copy panel
Imp:the animation exporter now allows exporting when origin is animated and user interface in Expert mode
Fix:bulk export: now only can select directories in file selection window
New:Added frame_start/end and fps to AnimProps (to support Bulk Export)
New: Bulk export now exports the entire action frame range individually for each Action
Fix: Trimming animation size was one frame too short

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta36

imp: behavior when switching between bone display presets
fix: slave bones (IK) no longer automatically add LOC channels
imp: Export animations with translations is now disabled by default
new: added undo to bone constraint lock/unlock operators
fix: 37993 Location data was exported although with translation was unchecked

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta35

add utility functions adjust_slider_displacement() (not working) and display_slider_displacement()
experimental (not working) adjust slider offset
bone lookup in edit joint display widget was broken
hip length was not recognized as bone slider
Why do we delete the shapesliders and then add them back during update? makes not much sense
avoid updateShape when male option is not set
fix: Always preserve shape sliders during update
added only_meta as option to update function (experimental)
Sliders can now only be attached/detached for armature
Detach shape sliders now uses operator (for redo).
Bones without joint position are now guaranteed to be exported with the definition from avatar_skeleton.xml

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta34

Sorry, forgot to set the Tag, information got lost. Changes are listed above (see 2.0-35)

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta33

fix: Copy bone constraints for avastar constraints (assume the user constraints come after avastar constraints)
fix: Do not set the Posing Preset during upgrade
fix: Use the longest ik chain if a bone is referenced more than once as ik root
fix: Unlock Rotation should mute constraints and not enable them

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta32

imp: Joint offsets are only taken from the Deform bones and the COG.
imp: Make the store joint edits always visible when in experimental mode
fix: make snap collision volumes and snap attachment points optional during rig update
wip: remove apply of stored shape when disconnecting a mesh from the sliders (needs more testing)
new:remove joint offset data during update when sliders are disabled
fix: Modifed startup Log level from DEBUG to WARNING
fix: Use spine improved bone controllers
new: Added support for custom bind pose to support TMP and other developer kits with non standard bind poses (needs Blender 2.79)
imp:Added armature properties to store the spine fold state for upper and lower spine
do not auto update library objects
fix for the welding modifier that is needed after a blender fix (check daily builds after 27-01-2017)
fix:partial shape reset did no longer work after adding fast exit from updateShape when recursive called

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta31

clean: updated templates to 2.0-31
fix: IK Settings are now preserved during Rig Update
new: Add store joints to plain vanilla rig (clean up from damage)
new: Initial support for working without shape sliders
fix: Some Rigs broke during upgrade
experimental: fully disabled sliders for creature makers

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta30

initial support for working entirely without shape sliders (work in progress)
fix:create a warning when slider shape data is broken, instead of stopping the updateShape
fix: export mesh destroyed mesh Normals
imp: avoid error display in console when creating new Avastar without action
imp: Animation export is now disabled when Origin is animated
fix: Export animations with references to bones outside of current rig failed

Fixed in Avastar 2.0-beta29

Keying Origin should not be exported in Animations.
Export animation with references to bones outside of current rig failed
Export only deform bones with parent hierarchy did not export correctly
Export collada exported mesh always in current pose
The exporter now takes care of the “Use Bind Pose” option:
Use Bind Pose disabled: Export in Restpose
Use Bind Pose enabled: Export using current pose as bind pose
IK Bone alignment can be now disabled from the user preferences
Volume bone scaling was wrong calculated(work in progress)
Cleaned up labels in Update Tool panel
Added new panel display options to addon preferences:
– Show Appearance Slider Panel
– Show Collada export panel
The preference setting for Alter to restpose was removed (we no longer need it)

2017-01-06 Avastar-2.0-25

Fixes found during first testing phase (todo)

2016-12-31 Avastar-2.0-24

This is a major rewrite of the Avastar Core functions in order to support a true Bind Pose. All attempts to keep with the system in Avastar-2.0-23 lead to major problems.

Changeset (todo)

2016-09-19 Avastar-2.0-23

2016-09-19 fix: issues with renaming rigtype to rigType
2016-09-19 fix: remove bones from slider-bone map
                if scale and offset both are (0,0,0)
                which means 'defined but no influence'
                which actually is a mistake in the definition files

2016-09-19 Avastar-2.0-22

2016-09-19 imp: Added selector for rigtype to the shape import tool
2016-09-18 new: Now you also can customize the add -> avastar menu entries
                to create a rig based on POS attributes in the skeleton definition
                check the Avastar adoon preferences panel
2016-09-18 fix: improved printing of slider to bone mapping
2016-09-17 imp: Single Joint offsets can now be removed from the user interface (Appearance pannel)
2016-09-17 new: Added ability to only delete one single joint offset (needed for user interface)
2016-09-17 fix: Migrate from foreign rig to Avastar now also
                supports the migration of joint positions
2016-09-17 wip: retargeting tool progress counter now shows 
                the timeframe on which it is currently working
2016-09-16 new: Added improved display of joint offset bones
2016-09-16 fix: Added spine visibility to EDIT Preset in rig display panel
2016-09-15 !!!: Improved Rig Update and Rig Transfer. (made naming consistent):
                Now use BASE instead of CLASSIC for the old style rig)

2016-09-15 Avastar-2.0-21

2016-09-15 new: BVH Animation Importer with multi file import
2016-09-15 imp: new avastars are now created with EXTENDED Rig by default
2016-09-14 fix: symmetry issues in lad definitions(found by Cathy and Vir)
2016-09-14 fix: connectiontype for structure bones 
                now also connected (needed for retargetting)
2016-09-14 new: added extended boneset for retarget tool(wip)

2016-09-12 Avastar-2.0-20

2016-09-12 new: Added checkmarks to enable the eye target focus points
2016-09-11 new: Added option to enable eye target constraints(wip)
2016-09-11 imp: avoid exception when copy modifier properties during rig update
2016-09-11 fix: Export data when skeleton is not visible
2016-09-11 imp: cleanup rig_control pannel, moved functions to Avastare-tools
2016-09-11 imp: replaced Sync by Snap in the user interface (easier to understand)
2016-09-11 imp: beautified the joint list display a bit
2016-09-11 fix: maintain order of modifiers after freezxing
2016-09-11 imp: renamed button to Snap Base to Rig (from Sync Base to Rig)
2016-09-11 fix: avoid exception when rig transfer actually did not
                transfer anything (paranoid, should not happen)
2016-09-11 imp: improved button label for rebuild joint info
2016-09-11 fix: Remove heel height calculation from rig update tool
                no longer needed? needs testing

2016-09-10 Avastar-2.0-19

2016-09-10 fix: Handle situation where pole target bones
                are not available while auto fixing pole angel
2016-09-10 fix: upgrade tool for Avastar characters
2016-09-10 fix: typos in code, no function changes
2016-09-09 fix: center view to selected joint offset (joint display)
2016-09-09 fix: improved joint offset display(wip)
2016-09-09 fix: adjust rig operator failed when attachment bones where not defined
2016-09-08 imp: Make avastar more safe against deleted bones
2016-09-08 imp: joint display pannel now used to focus on bone
2016-09-08 fix: display height only when needed bones are available
2016-09-08 imp: support for Focus on Bone
2016-09-08 new: added export of full parent bone hierarchy
                skeleton is defined more robust
2016-09-08 fix: only fix parent bone tails if parent bone exists 
                fixes issues when intermediate bones have been deleted)
2016-09-08 fix: calculate pelvis hover now returns 0,0,0 
                when reference bones (pelvis, toe) have been removed
2016-09-08 add: snap tools now also available in the transfer tool 
                having all high level rig tools at same place
2016-09-07 imp: avastar inplace transfer now more robust.
                Changed default settings for the upgrade tool
                now by default meshes are not rebuilt
2016-09-07 imp: make tool tips more understandable

2016-09-06 Avastar-2.0-18

2016-09-06 upd: updated templates to alpha-8
2016-09-06 new: Added Shape drivers for eyebrows (for Bento)
2016-09-06 new: add mesh repair option to rig transfer tool
                for repairing avastars
2016-09-06 fix: partial remove joints now deletes only joints from selected bones
2016-09-05 fix: unify usage of panel properties for tool shelf based
                collada exporter and file -> export -> Collada
2016-09-05 imp: armature upgrade tool now supports upgrading
                joint offsets and synchronizing the object origins
2016-09-05 new: support functions for origin synchronization of multiple objects
2016-09-04 new: added support for deleting unwanted bones during rig upgrade
2016-09-04 new: added support for snap control bones to sl bones
2016-09-04 imp: rig update panel layout and functionality
2016-09-04 imp: reduced label sizes
2016-09-04 fix: now collision volume animations can also be exported
2016-09-04 imp: improved update tool (based on tests with toodledoo)
2016-09-03 new: added new avastar selection functions (needed for upgrade tool)
2016-09-02 fix: Bone restpose location needs to include joint offsets,
                otherwise get distortions on meshes
2016-09-02 wip: discarded the structure bones from the joint calculations
                they are placed automatically anyways
2016-09-02 fix: joint offset calculator now works based on the current shape
                fixes shifting of skeleton after calculating offsets
2016-09-02 imp: fixes a precision issue when applying 
                the joint offset calculator repeatedly
2016-09-01 new: Added get_toe_offset from origin function to support
                custom rigs with modified origin and modified pelvis
2016-08-31 fix: Added back custom shape for Torso
2016-08-31 wip: improve support for edited mPelvis bone (wip)
2016-08-31 imp: joint offset calculations now works for system characters
                with arbitrary shape key settings.
                Note: not yet working for custrom rigs
2016-08-31 fix: joint offset list was wrong formatted
2016-08-28 new: Use REGULAR_BONES for joint edit calculations (wip)
2016-08-28 new: Added list of regular bones for joint edit calculations
2016-08-28 fix: manual avastar update tool was broken after recent changes
2016-08-28 fix: improved joint edit calculations for custom rigs
2016-08-28 new: convenience operator for stepping away 
                from bind pose to joint editor (wip)
2016-08-25 fix: Applying bind pose could refuse to delete 
                the cached rig data (text block) because of 
                link count (not sure what's up here)

2016-08-25 Avastar-2.0-17

2016-08-25 upd: templates for avastar 2.0-alpha 7
2016-08-25 fix: Layout of armature info pannel
2016-08-25 imp: Order of Avastar pannels
                appearance now on top, info pannel now at bottom
2016-08-25 new: Added convenience operator for converting
                Avastar mesh to custom mesh on the fly
2016-08-25 imp: Volume bones now deforming by default
2016-08-25 fix: joint offset calculation now based on the mBones,
                makes it much easier to keep the rig geometry intact
2016-08-25 imp: take care to export also unweighted bones in the middle 
                when they have joint positions. Otherwise we can get distortions
2016-08-24 fix: the hover attribute was used for toe offset and origin hover.
                Separated this into the 2 attributes 'hover' and 'toe_hover'
2016-08-23 fix: spine controller now preserves spine state when shape changes
2016-08-23 fix: calculate bone positions now more robust
2016-08-23 fix: avoid asymmetric shift of skeleton due to hover calculations
                not sure if that works out in general
2016-08-23 fix: unweighted bones with joint positions are now treated
                like weighted bones and also exported to collada
2016-08-18 fix: for joint offset calculator with arbitrary slider settings
                still issues near hands when sliders not in SL restpose
2016-08-17 imp: Added log info for exported bone sets
2016-08-17 fix: joint position support for restpose
2016-08-14 fix: joints now defined relative to original joints (wip)
2016-08-14 fix: Avastar now has a precise restpose
                SL Restpose Skeleton.
                Various edits to better suport joint offsets(wip)
2016-08-14 fix: Issues with eyes in lad definition
2016-08-13 fix: for eye scaling
2016-08-06 fix: delete all joints operator now really deletes all joints
2016-08-06 new: now deleting orphaned joint entries 
                when bones are deleted, no longer throws an exception.
2016-08-06 new: add option to only remove selected joint offsets
2016-08-06 fix: joint position now takes current joint offset 
                into account (to get wysiwig behavior)
2016-08-04 fix: avoid raising error when rendering
2016-08-04 upd: version number of template files

2016-08-04 Avastar-2.0-16

2016-08-04 fix:sliders did not work for eyes and finger tips

2016-08-03 Avastar-2.0-14

This is still a work in progress update. But we have hope
that most of the big issues have been fixed.

Super important

The Rig Update Tool has not yet been updated!
We keep this task for the very end after all other
known issues have been fixed.

Important changes

Avastar alpha-5 uses the most recent release candidate Skeleton
We have separated the Rig Display panel from the new Rig Config Panel. The idea was to make things easier.
More complete support for Sliders with Joint position.
IMPORTANT: Please edit joint positions only when the rig is in SL Rest pose (white stickman icon in Appearance sliders) Otherwise the joints move around in unexpected ways. Once you have finished your joint editing, you can use the sliders to check how the model behaves later in SL.
The easiest way to edit joint positions is to work in pose mode, then in the tool shelf -> Avastar -> Rig Config “Snap Rig to Pose”. This automatically calculates the joint offsets. this step is needed to support the sliders
You now can edit the Rig (in Edit mode) and calculate the joint positions at any time:Tool Shelf -> Avastar -> Rig Config -> Store Joint Edits
Remove Joint edits tool works reliable only when the sliders are in SL Rest pose (white stickman icon)
The Collada exporter no longer provides the “with joints” option Avastar now can do the export without advise. We added a few moree options into the advanced section of the Collada exporter to get more control over what exactly gets exported (most usage for tool exchange stuff, not so important for Export to Target (Second Life)

Known Issues

Joint position editor creates odd results when used when thE sliders are NOT in SL Rest pose (white stickman icon)
rig Update tool does not yet work (see above)
Animation importer does not yet know about the Bento bones
BVH exporter has not been updated to support Bento Bones
We have disabled most of the face and hand meta rig stuff as we first want to get the rig itself working

Changeset

2016-08-03 upd: temnplate files
2016-08-03 rem: Execute Rig Update upon Startup (not reliable yet)
2016-08-02 imp: removed debug statements
2016-08-02 fix: volume bones wrong placement when joint positions defined
2016-08-01 fix: reset rig with keep pose
2016-08-01 wip: Joint position fixes
2016-07-31 wip: joint position handling
2016-07-27 new: Add Translate option to headMatrix
2016-07-26 new: start fixing joint position support with sliders
2016-07-26 fix: bake pose to rig now also creates joint offsets
2016-07-23 upd: removed joint editor options: Store joints now always syncs and stores for all bones
2016-07-23 fix: adjust rig to pose now enables sliders
2016-07-22 wip: joint position fixes for usage with sliders
2016-07-22 wip: temporary discard hand rig
2016-07-18 new: more export options for the collada exporter
2016-07-17 upd: Skeleton definition release candidate
2016-07-17 imp: Tool tips for Mesh Info Panel
2016-07-09 fix: updating an Avastar with meshes flagged as System mesh but shape keys removed (happens in snap rig to pose when snapping with meshes is enabled)
2016-07-09 fix: NPE in display Avastar rig with Bone Map filter (after reloading a blend file)
2016-07-09 imp: display of Mapped groups now updates correct when fitting sliders are edited
2016-07-08 fix: Display of Weight Mapped bones Filter now sensitive on Select and deselect of objects
2016-07-08 fix: IK Target for Alt Eyes was not generated
2016-07-07 new:updated bento angel and updated face weights
2016-07-07 imp: added Eyebrows support (Cathy Foil)
2016-07-06 imp: lower cheeck slider based on scale
2016-07-06 imp: lower+upper lips parented to corresponding teeth
2016-07-06 imp: lower lips parented to lower teeth
2016-07-06 fix: for jaw bone location
2016-07-04 imp: Nose size now scale only, other nose sliders added more scale, reduced translation
2016-07-04 imp: Head Length slider (teeth now use scale instead of offset)
2016-07-04 fix: broken Eyes Long Head slider
2016-07-04 exp: WIP experimental definitions files (proposal for final setup)
2016-07-04 imp: avastar no longer uses pos for joint positions (turned out to be wrong)
2016-07-04 imp: Snap rig to pose now allows to rebind the meshes to new restpose without distortions (modifies the mesh)
2016-07-04 fix: merge weights to active vgroup now switches viewport to active group (avoids visual annoyance)

2016-06-29 Avastar-2.0-13

2016-06-29 fix: classic skeleton was setup wrong
                now takes the definition from skeleton_2

2016-06-27 Avastar-2.0-12

Important changes:

custom meshes no longer create shape keys when sliders are enabled
Sliders now also work when your mesh is in edit mode
The joint position editing is almost ready to use (see note below)
Updated weights for the head mesh. Eye lids now should work much smoother
All recent changes to the skeleton and lad are included

Known issues:

When you create a new Avastar character, then its head reacts to
the sliders as if it is a custom mesh.
The joint position editor has difficulties with the bone end points
of the leaf bones (bones at end of bone chains)
When you edit a mesh (add/remove verts) while sliders are enabled,
this can lead to very odd behavior when you change back to object
mode. Best is to disable sliders when you attempt to add/remove
verts. Moving verts around should be ok. Don’t forget to bake
changes into the mesh before you leave edit mode.
when you disable/enable the sliders it can happen that the eyes
pop out of the face. When that happens, then in most cases it
is sufficient to enable the sliders again. Then the eyes snap back
where they belong.

Note for joint position editing:

The joint position editor is not strictly necessary to define joint offsets. For now an alternative way is :

disable sliders and keep them disabled!
Edit your skeleton as needed
when you export, then export without joint positions. This will
export the skeleton as it is. SL figures out on its own which bones
need to get joint offsets.

when the joint position editor is ready it will become possible to use the sliders AND define joint positions.

Detailed change set:

2016-06-27 imp: updated templates and assets library to newest version
2016-06-26 imp: preset for skinning now checks if object 
                is in edit mode and sets show weights if applicable
2016-06-25 fix: removed mesh_id property from frozen objects
2016-06-25 imp: Added warning popup when editing Avastar Meshes
2016-06-25 fix: ensure that bento heads do not get polluted 
                with unnecessary weights from mHead
2016-06-25 imp: updated Skeleton and lad files to newest version
2016-06-25 imp: replace shape keys by own shape system 
                to avoid inter dependencies with blender shape key system)
2016-06-25 imp: enable translation animation export by default
                now officially supported by SL
2016-06-25 imp: tooltip for animation export options
2016-06-21 imp: make user interface more stable when DRIVERS are missing
2016-06-21 imp: take length of mEye bones from avatar definition files (only for avastar-2)
2016-06-18 new: collada exporter now cooperates with joint offset editor
2016-06-17 new: Added joint position editor (work in progres)
2016-06-05 fix: export correct bone connect info (only usefull for reimport to Blender)
2016-06-01 imp: display pannels for joint position editor
2016-06-01 new: Added export option for rawdata export (tool interchange)
2016-05-29 imp: improved tooltips
2016-05-29 imp: remove weight groups tool can now be used for any MESH object
2016-05-29 imp: improved spine controller, various small display improvements
2016-05-29 new: added collada options 
                layer, roll, tail support, only useful for reimport to Blender
2016-05-23 fix: joint position editing optimizations, Added new Spine fold/unfold options
2016-05-17 fix: issues with feet bones

2016-04-18 Avastar-2.0-11

2016-04-18 fix: tweaked fully fitted to keep deform flag for base bones
2016-04-18 wip: make rig update more stable
2016-04-18 new: Added minor tweak in log message
2016-04-17 fix: Added missing info box for Collada exporter
2016-04-17 fix: rig version update now copies material settings
                for avastar meshes and adjusts the shape after update

2016-04-17 Avastar-2.0-10

2016-04-17 fix: Added missing info box for Collada exporter
2016-04-17 fix: rig version update now copies material settings
                for avastar meshes and adjusts the shape after update
2016-04-16 imp: added verbose tool tips
2016-04-16 imp: reordered the collada panel,
                added description tooltip for new add mPelvis bone option
2016-04-16 fix: No longer use filename as name for exported Mesh objects
2016-04-16 new: Added option to enforce export of mPelvis for partial rigs
2016-04-15 new: Export only Weighted Bones for EXTENDED export (bento)
2016-04-14 fix: Added constraints for hinds and spine bones
2016-04-14 fix: Allow animate Avastar sliders
                although not very useful because 
                the sliders reset the rest pose on every frame)
2016-04-13 imp: Improved weight maps for Extended head
2016-04-13 imp: Added most recent Extended Avatar definitions (release candidate)
2016-04-13 new: added parameters for find > 4 weights
                now can run on unbound meshes, and can specify weight limit
2016-04-06 fix: allow to create new Avastar on other layer
                even when active Object is not visible 
                fighting usability annoyances
2016-04-05 new: Added new Bento Angel for bento release candidate
2016-04-05 new: Added Rig repair option to Tools pannel (experimental)
2016-04-05 new: Added weight source 'extended weights'
                copies prepared weight data from assets.blend)
2016-04-03 wip: allow Avastar to run on Blender 2.75 (needs more testing)
2016-04-03 new: Added sliders for extended bones (facial expressions)
2016-04-03 exp: weight map control pannel 
                now also shows up for Avastar Meshes
                not sure if this is a good idea though)
2016-04-03 imp: weight counter now also works on non rigged mesh. 
                Extended weights now works for all extensions found in the assets.blend
2016-04-03 fix: Added teeth bones to meta ik rig
2016-04-02 fix: bone weight copy from avastar templates
2016-04-01 fix: Always get the correct lad file for the skeleton type (basic/extended)
2016-03-24 new: Added rig presets editor to Addon Panel
2016-03-20 fix: Wrong assignment eyes and spine to bone layers and bone groups
2016-03-20 new: added max number of exportable bones 
                LL limitation: max 110 weighted bones per mesh

2016-03-20 Avastar-2.0-9

2016-03-20 Added rig version check pannel
2016-03-20 imp:Tooltips in the addon configuration panel
2016-03-20 new: Added animation cast tool to Sparkles
2016-03-18 wip:animation cast operator (will go to Sparkles)
           Create video from Viewport frame by frame
2016-03-13 fix:Reset to default shape lost active object

2016-03-02 Avastar-2.0-8

2016-03-02 imp: Replaced templates with new avastar-2 templates
2016-02-28 exp: Added support for automatic 
                weight fixes when exporting Extended Skeleton to Main grid
2016-02-27 new: Added support for convert Manuel Lab to T-Pose
2016-02-23 imp: adjusted fitting presets
2016-02-22 imp: Updated Rig Presets
2016-02-20 new: Added extended support for ManuelLab 
                works with manuellab 1.1 or newer
2016-02-18 new: Added apply pose on unbind (Snowflake icon)

2016-02-10 Avastar-2.0-7

2016-02-10 fix: Bento Avatar create broken 
                version incompatibility with blender 2.76 and older
2016-02-09 imp: Added Rig Create Panel
2016-02-05 imp: Improved Addon Preferences pannel
2016-02-05 imp: Avastar is now much more friendly to Rigs with missing Bones
                good for update Rig function)
2016-02-03 imp: take care of occasional issue with import of xmlrpc.client
2016-01-31 wip: added face rig mouth part
2016-01-31 wip: added alternative Avastar skeleton proposal
2016-01-25 imp: selection of bones in Fitting Panel 
                now consistent with Blender's selection state
2016-01-25 his: blender 2.77 api change (Nasty, hopefully not seen by user)
2016-01-22 fix: test for non avastar rig during 
                collada export, improved error messages.
2016-01-22 fix: Fixed a possible problem with unweiughted verts during export

2016-01-13 Avastar-2.0-6

2016-01-13 imp:(un)lock constraints panel now has selector for:
                Selected, Same Group, Visible, All
2016-01-10 imp: make separation between the Bone Constraint Pannel
                and the Bone Deform Pannel more clear
2016-01-10 fix: UI less User Panel Jumping up/down
2016-01-10 fix: bind with keep now auto enables fitted mesh bones when necessary
2016-01-09 fix: strange error in animation export (probably outdated data, 
                fixed by making local copy of animation data)
2016-01-08 imp: move groin to separate layer
2016-01-07 fix: Documentation links
2016-01-07 new: add face rig (wip)
2016-01-07 imp: long text for shape not found
2016-01-03 imp: updating Avastar always creates failure (blender restart needed).
                This fix makes it a bit less troublesome (wip)
2016-01-03 fix: gracefull enable/disable of deform flag when control bone is missing

2016-11-11 Avastar-2.0-2.05

Release notes are not yet available