1.12 Released! New UI and Plugin System (Patreon)

1.12 is a very technical release with a lot of core framework changes, so the impact of many of the items listed here might not be immediately obvious. The most obvious outward change is the UI overhaul. Many of the other changes won’t be apparent until modders and advanced creators get some time with them. Now that the core is in much better shape, I plan to spend more time getting back to content oriented features like hair sim, clothing sim, and other primary focus on the Person atom.

Highlights:

• Alpha Feature: Plugin system. Dynamically load and run code to make VaM do things it doesn’t support out-of-the-box!
• UI overhaul
• Triggers and animation: hundreds of new animatable properties and several new trigger types and options
• Sim Hair V2 improved collision and you can now move hair with hands

Download:

Updater method (2.5GB total download if updating 1.11 install directory). Extract zip to existing 1.11 install of VaM that has no mods installed (important) and run VaM_Updater.exe. If mods are installed the updater will fail. For this case or a clean install with full download, extract zip to new directory and run VaM_Updater.exe. Download attachment or Link 

Full download (6.7GB) zip alternatives:

• WeTransfer 
• Mega 
• Direct 

Release Details:

Plugin System

• Load c# code or managed c# dll files dynamically. Template and a couple of samples provided. More info and documentation coming.
• Register new variables in dynamic code that get saved/restored in scene json file. These plugins act as true extensions to the core system.
• Custom UI support
• Quick and easy UI builder from code without the hassle of making a UI outside of VaM and importing it
• CustomUnityAsset can now automatically load a neighboring dll built from Unity using assembly definitions, meaning you can import custom behaviors that were developed with the asset in Unity
• CustomUnityAsset now finds embedded UI canvases and registers them so they can be interacted with properly. Also added ability to toggle these found UI elements on and off.

UI Overhaul

• New vertical tab design and nearly every panel was redesigned. 
• New system is easily scalable and customizable to make future UI changes easier
• Complete trigger UI redesign to make it much easier to manage lots of triggers 
• Long popups are all scrollable and have been moved to provide maximum viewing area
• Slider text can now be selected to allow typing in specific numbers
• Color pickers now have usable RGB sliders and values can also be typed in

Triggers

• Collision trigger: added Atom filter to only consider or exclude specific atom
• New AnimationStep triggers: OnActive/Transition/OnInactive. Often easier to adjust a timeline of triggers with this over AnimationPattern triggers.
• AudioSource: added volume based trigger system
• 100s of new parameters on the trigger/animation system. Lots more things are targetable

Other

• New Atom physics params: drag, friction, and bounciness
• Play mode changes to align this mode with long-term vision to make play mode the mode to run created scenes in with minimal fuss and complexity. In future you should be able to make “games” that run in play mode and not really know it is VaM under the hood other than the main menu.
• Play mode UI removed to pave way for future release that will support custom play mode UI.
• Tons of new furniture and prop atoms
• More interactable elements on environment atoms
• Installer/patcher now use https downloads

Many, many more tweaks and bug fixes. Please see https://trello.com/b/LDlEpfvk/virt-a-mate-public-plans for more details