Improvements:

• Color management with ICC color profiles is now supported for Base Color/Diffuse/Specular 3-channel images, in JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats. Current color profile is listed as a tooltip over the filename at the bottom of the editor area.
• Better handling of alpha channel. Opacity editor and its tools now offer a choice of either opening the color/grayscale or the alpha channel. Maps that contain an alpha map are now opened as Untitled to avoid overwriting the original file. Combined color and alpha images can be exported with the Export preset "Color and Alpha".
• Better map type detection from filenames, even in names with repeating terms similar to map types, like "metal7_metallic.png".
• Guides now work with modal dialog windows, allowing for more contextual help. Most guides were updated to take advantage of this and provide fine-grained help.
• Added related video tutorial links to the relevant guides.
• Added export presets "Corona 7+" and "Color and Alpha".
• Keying tool's Guide Mix setting has been renamed to the more intuitive Shade Mix.

Fixes:

• Fixed an error where in some cases saving a file would quietly fail without an error being shown to the user.
• Fixed a problem with Hi-DPI screens where the Transform tool would not display the guide grid when the switch was enabled.
• Fixed bug in Extract 3D Maps menu: Opacity type was enabled even when not extracting that map.

Improvements:

• New map export functionality, packing and exporting maps to popular 3D apps and renderers like Blender, Unreal, Unity, 3ds Max, VRay, Maxwell, etc. Also includes generic file-based presets which can be customized.
• New guide explaining map exports.
• Extract Roughness tool now uses an improved algorithm for better quality extractions.
• The splitter between Editor and Tools areas now has more sensible behavior when resizing: the editor area expands, tools do not (up to a certain size).
• When saving multiple untitled maps, the Save Maps window now automatically enables "Set Automatic Filenames", which is the most common action.
• Other minor improvements.

Fixes:

• Fixed bug where PixPlant would hang during launch, if the Windows environment variable QT_ANGLE_PLATFORM was set to "d3d9".

Improvements:

• New Physical Size Info support: edit and include DPI information in saved maps, allowing their real world size to be preserved. This information is optional and can be set in the New Map window and in the Transform tool. DPI information can be set in file formats that support it: PNG, TIFF, JPEG, BMP.
• Updated Tiling Preview setting below the Editor area, which now allows previewing of the repeated texture, to spot noticeable visual artifacts. Also includes the previous Tiling Borders preview. The Tiling Preview mode is now shared amongst all editors.
• Paint tool now benefits from the new Tiling Preview modes: you can freely paint outside the central map and the stroke wraps around automatically.
• 3D Preview's Plane model was split into a Wall Plane and Floor Plane models, which are easier to use for the two common scenarios, walls and floors.
• Updated image input/output component with more recent file format libraries.
• Added related video tutorial links to Guides.
• New Guide about Physical Size Info.
• Other minor improvements.

Fixes:

• Fixed a crash when reading TIFF files with IPTC information created on a mac.
• Fixed crash occurring when viewing a Guide that opens editors of a 3D Workflow other than the current one.

Fixes:

• Solved a Tiling Synth tool bug, in the Base Color/Diffuse editors, where certain darker images would be generated with grid-like artifacts. This fix should also slightly improve the quality of generated textures in general.
• Fixed an issue when previewing an Opacity texture in the Plane model, where the backside opacity would appear overlaid, even when no Displacement map was present.

Improvements:

• New map type for both workflows: the Opacity map. Full tool support as in other editors, including custom extraction functionality.
• 3D Preview now supports rendering of opacity maps with fully transparent or opaque values (cutting at the 0.5 middle level). Created maps can be displayed with full transparency, in any way supported by your final renderer. When an Opacity map is active, 3D Preview's models automatically display with their back faces visible, which is more intuitive.
• New Erode-Dilate functionality for the Adjust tool of the Displacement, Opacity, Metallic editors. These morphological operations can be very useful for feature contraction and expansion in these map types.
• Tiling Synth tool can now save the active Seed Image with Seed Wizard operations and Seed Scale already applied.
• If a Windows TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) error occurs, PixPlant now opens the FAQ entry on how to increase the timeout, before quiting.
• Increased activation serial display in Activate and About windows to 9 characters, for easier license identification.
• Close map button's current/all maps option now implemented as a menu, to save one click and for consistency with the rest of the user interface.

Fixes:

• In the Base Color and Diffuse editors, when using the Copy From tool, opening from a file or pasting from the clipboard would read an image without sRGB gamma correction.
• In the Keying tool, selecting a guide from a file or clipboard would use an image without sRGB gamma correction.
• Solved bug in the Metallic map Extract tool, where using the Select drop menu to open or paste a source image would not work.
• In the Preferences window, Maps tab: Automatic Name fields now disallow invalid filename characters, that would later produce errors when saving.
• Lowered Model Rotation animation to 30 frames per second for better performance when editing.

Improvements:

• Paint tool's Clone operation now works with all open maps in parallel, which is very useful for retouching materials. This is controlled in its Apply To setting.
• 3D Preview's IBL Environment maps can now display unfocused, to help the user focus in the 3D model (pun intended). The four levels, from slightly unfocused to hazy, can be selected in the 3D Preview > Environment menu. The IBL environment can also be made invisible in this menu, so the Environment switch was removed from the bottom of the 3D Preview area.
• Added model rotation animation in 3D Preview: toggle with Ctrl + Shift + R, or in the 3D Preview menu.
• New built-in cloth model: a traditional fabric over an invisible sphere scene. Reacts to texture proportions and supports parallax and vertex displacement mapping.
• Map size settings in the New Maps window and in the Transform tool, now include a Powers of Two switch to only allow sizes like 1024, 2048, 4096...
• In the 3D Preview, the model's vertical rotation (right mouse button) was improved to be more intuitive.
• All tools that have an Apply To option now default to "All Maps", a setting more oriented to material editing.
• Default 3D Preview displacement tessellation is now set to 256. Added new maximum of 1024. This can be changed in the Preferences window, Rendering tab.
• First letters of activated serial are now displayed in the About window for easier identification.
• UI switch settings with two options now also toggle on their left label.
• More sensible default values are now used for Paint tool brush colors.

Fixes:

• Fixed Undo system bugs in Offset, Paint and Transform tools that could produce wrong undo/redo operations.
• Other minor Fixes.

Improvements:

• A new automatic straightening mode has been added to the Tiling Synth tool, designed to correct seed photos that include moderate perspective distortion. This correction can be quite helpful to improve automatic tiling. This perspective automatic correction is not enabled by default (the previous rotation correction mode remains the default) and you'll need to enable it in the Preferences - Tools tab. In a future release, perspective correction will be set as the default. The detected straightening control points can also be manually applied in the first step of the Seed Wizard with the new "Set Control Points" setting.
• Tiling Synth tool now includes a more sophisticated Equalize Brightness functionality. The setting is now a slider and it's much more effective in removing shadows and producing a more homogeneous seed image (which means better tiling). Also, the Equalize Color setting has been removed, due to lack of interest: it was not commonly used by most (all?) users and such kind of color balancing functionality is better suited for a graphics editor.
• The Seed Viewer in Tiling Synth tool now allows all removed parts to be deleted at once by clicking outside the Seed Image.
• Larger control handles in the straighten step of Seed Wizard.
• Delight tool was improved to avoid color anomalies in darker areas with little or no color information.
• Added a check to avoid saving multiple maps with the same filename into the same path.

Fixes:

• Fixed slowdown when opening a Seed Image on some machines.
• Solved multiple license activation error which could occur when hardware changed.
• Removed Multi-Generate resize warning when opening multiple seed images, which resulted annoying.
• Default DPI setting for new maps is now being properly used when saving.
• Due to necessary changes in the licensing system, PixPlant may request activation, even on already activated installations. This should only happen once: simply click Activate in the launching window.

Improvements:

• Tiling Synth tool: improved image straightening detection and correction. More seed images will now immediately tile, without the need to run Seed Wizard.
• Tiling Synth's Seed Wizard: improved fisheye/barrel lens distortion correction, more sensitive at small distortion levels.
• Tiling Synth tool: faster Multi-Generate seed image analysis.
• AO Extraction from Extract 3D Maps now limits maximum Ray Distance stored from previous time, to avoid initial long running extractions.
• Added explicit support for opening WEBP format images. Saving is not supported due to the format's 8-bit limitations.

Fixes:

• Fixed Paint tool bug in high DPI screens where the circle cursor would appear with wrong radius.
• Solved Seed Wizard pattern editor bug when selecting the pattern rectangle.
• Several minor tweaks and fixes.

Improvements:

• Adjust tool in the Normal editor now includes an Invert button to invert the implicit surface.
• Seed Wizard's straighten step: clicking near a control point now snaps to it, to avoid initial modification. The last selected control point can be fine-tuned with the cursor keys. In Outside Image selection, control points can now be moved outside the view.
• Seed Wizard's pattern step and Pattern editor: a nearby mouse click now snaps to side lines, to avoid changing position on the initial click.
• Pattern editor: tiling quality indicator is now more stable.
• Displacement editor's Extract tool: now includes Range control when extracting both from Shading and Normals.
• When Save is clicked, the Save Maps window no longer selects all files for saving (including those without changes), which was wasteful. However, clicking Save As keeps selecting all maps for saving, which is the intended action.
• New file replacement check method: only the filenames changed by the user are checked for already existing files and a confirmation is requested, for both individual file and Automatic Filenames saving. This is safe and avoids the user needless confirmations.
• Added Open Maps selection setting to New Maps window, which selects only the map types currently open.
• 3D Preview object rotation now bias towards horizontal rotation, which is more intuitive. Light intensity setting now increases smoothly.
• 3D Preview and editor viewer's key shortcuts changed, for Fit and Reset.
• IBL environment maps: replaced Studio map and added Dusk map, with an overall dimmed tone, better suited to see Lights effects .
• Assimp 3D model library updated to 5.1.5. Added Preview support for glTF 3D models.

Fixes:

• PSD format is now only supported for opening image maps. Since saving an opened PSD file could not keep source's layers and other meta information, this could result in information loss.
• Solved issues related opening and saving of unsupported file formats, which now behave as expected.
• Fixed a bug when running in plug-in mode, that would allow closing of the master image being edited.
• Solved Keying tool bug where a previous selection would be kept after starting a new one. Also fixed a bug causing area selection issues.
• Fixed shortcut keys bug that would not work in some contexts.
• Solved a bug causing instability, when interrupting a busy tool to change editor or close the app.
• Remains of the map saving bug from build 5.0.38, which could still occur in some rare occasions, is now definitely solved.
• Other minor fixes.

This release corrects a bug that in some cases prevented map saving, due to a conflict with settings of a previous version.

Improvements:

• Displacement editor now supports 3D viewer mode for all tools.
• "Enable Tiling Borders" is now supported in the 3D viewer mode of the Displacement editor, for all tools.
• Displacement and Normal Extract Tool: improved detail control when extracting with the From Shading method. Added Range control setting, important for flat relief extractions, like from textiles.
• In the Displacement editor 3D viewer, Paint tool brush cursors now apply at the bottom of the surface (at height = 0) which is more intuitive and stable than following the existing surface relief.
• Added PBR Validate key shortcut (Ctrl+B), useful for quickly checking invalid values.
• Offset tool: Pressing Ctrl locks offset to either horizontal or vertical.
• Open Maps window now sorts detected map types by editor tab order (Base Color, Metallic, Roughness...).
• Improved image map type auto-detection by considering known map types first.
• Better editing marks visibility in Keying and Transform tools.

Fixes:

• Tiling Synth Tool: fixed bug that prevented seed images larger than maximum map size (which is set in the Preferences) to be loaded. Seed images of any size can now be loaded.
• Fixed a bug in the Normal Check-in tool, where some changes by other tools would not disable it.
• Other minor fixes.

Improvements:

• Keying tool: Softness setting now briefly displays the mask, like other settings in the group.
• Keying tool added to AO map.
• Displacement and Normal Extract tools: increased sensitivity of Surface Scale and Fine Detail settings.
• Adjusted UV proportions of Ball model so that texture elements have a size similar to other models.
• When saving multiple unnamed files with automatic filenames, the format now defaults to a lossless image format, which is safer.
• Seed Wizard/Pattern window: grid lines are now more visible.
• Adjust tool: solved an issue in the order of application between Intensity and Contrast: contrast is now applied first, which is more intuitive.
• Other minor improvements.

Fixes:

• Tiling Synth tool: solved a bug that could crash PixPlant when generating to a selection.
• Adjust tool: fixed a bug in the Saturation setting, that caused a jump when increased from 0%.