2.6 Release Notes

Release date: XX XXX XXXX

Beta Build

Cavalry 2.6 is currently in beta and subject to change. Installers are available to download via your account (Beta tab).

Beta builds are available to Professional licences.

Updates

The New label indicates an update in the most recent version.

New Features

General

Color Management

Color Management is 'opt in' and currently considered a technical preview.

• New Enable Color Management for Scenes. See Preferences.
• New Pre-Comps now 'flatten' their contents removing the visual unpredictability experienced by some users in certain circumstances. Flattening Pre-Comps means they behave more like an image so while the original Composition remains fully editable, adding a Deformer to a Pre-Comp will act on the 'image' rather than on the paths contained within it. Be aware this is a significant technical change and so there may be minor changes in appearance to some legacy scenes.
• Manipulator - A new experimental 3d-like Viewport manipulator for the Select tool. It's used with the new Lattice and Lattice Controller and can be optionally enabled for use with Shape Layers.
• File > Reduce Scene - Remove any unused Compositions and Assets from the Scene. Hold Shift when running the command to print a report to the JavaScript Console (WiP).

Shapes

• Rectangle Pattern Shape - now out of Experimental Features. See Enhancements.

Behaviours

• Lattice - Deform Shapes using a flexible grid of control points.
• Four Point Warp - Deform Shapes using a four corner warp with bézier handles.
• Path Relax - Move path points away from each other.
• Path Average - Smooth Path points by averaging their positions.
• Mesh Solver - Connect deformers to create drawing machines or iterative effects like differential growth.

Utilities

• Unicode Array String Generator -
• Unicode Offset String Manipulator -
• Lattice Controller - Manipulate the position, rotation and scale of multiple lattice points.
• Forge Dynamics:
  • Buoyancy Field - Create fluid containers within which dynamic bodies will float or sink based on their density.
  • Path Field - Apply path following forces to dynamics bodies.
  • Vortex Field - Apply spiral forces to rotate dynamic bodies around a centre point.

Effects

• Distort Edges Filter - Distort the edges of a Shape using a Shader.

Scripting

API

• isReferenced()

Script UIs

• New New onAttrConnected and onAttrDisconnected Application Callbacks.
• New New List widget.

Enhancements

• New Gradient along a Path now supports tapered Strokes.
• New A new Spread attribute for the Inner Shadow Filter.
• New Sub-Mesh can now position pivots by aligning them to the bounding boxes of the child-meshes.
• New It's now possible to search for 'Backdrops' in the Dependency Graph.
• New The background UI for the number that represents the index of an Array now dynamically resizes to fit the number of digits of the highest index. This also now supports the UI Font Size = Large Preference.
• New Cavalry’s JavaScript engine has been upgraded to V8 12.4, adding support for ECMAScript 2024 features including Array.fromAsync, Set methods (union, intersection, difference), and iterator helpers.
• Performance improvements - some complex Scenes now playback at up to 5x faster.
• Dependency Graph:
  • Backdrops - Create a container to visually group and move several Layers together.
  • Wire Styles - Set the style of the connecting wires between Layer ports.
  • Mini-Map - Show/hide a Mini-Map of the window which can be used to navigate the graph.
  • Bookmarks - Save the current view of the graph.
  • Show/hide grid - Show/hide the background grid.
• Forge Dynamics:
  • New modes for breakable Constraints.
  • Tension and Damping for the Pin Constraint.
  • New Complex Polygon Collision Shape Type bringing concave shape support.
  • New Soft Body Collision Shape Type (at risk).
  • Collision Groups - Assign collision groups by entering comma separated strings (e.g. text, rocks) to filter the affect Fields have on individual bodies or how bodies interact with other bodies.
• New Threshold attribute for Subdivide.
• New Radius Mode and Minimum/Maximum Angle attributes for Bevel.
• Color Names - it's now possible to enter the names of the current Library Palette and any Project Palettes into a hex field and for those labels to resolve as the corresponding hex value.
• New Mask tab for Filters allowing for other Shapes to be used as a matte for the Filter's effect.
• New Orientation attribute for Rectangle Pattern Shape. Note that Bar Size has also been renamed to Dynamic Bar Size and converted to an input field.
• Sampling Quality for the Bulge and Spherise Filters.
• Improvements to Viewport rendering and Filters.
• New Arc Angle Mode for Extend Open Paths.
• New custom presets for the Graph attribute. WiP - the UX/UI is likely to change.
• New Oklab and LCH Interpolations for the Gradient Shader, Multi-Point Gradient Shader and Gradient Map Filter.
• Importing MP4 files on macOS now uses hardware acceleration.

Notable Bug Fixes

• New An issue with a Camera Guide's viewport draw has been resolved.
• New Apply Text Material is now working again.
• New Connecting a Pathfinder to a Shape's Position attribute no longer causes a crash.
• New An issue meaning some Filters could result in Shapes being 'cropped' when moved has been resolved.
• New Adding 4 x Inner Shadow Filters to a Shape no longer causes the Shape to disappear.
• New Using Option/Alt + drag to duplicate a Gradient's Color Stop no longer triggers a crash.
• New A crash related to adding a Falloff to a Path Relax using a Mesh Solver has been resolved.
• New A 'ghost' window no longer appears when using the Add Layers popover with Live Mode active.
• New An issue with Flatten Shape Layers hiding materials in certain scenarios has been resolved.
• New A regression meaning the Graph Editor was not previewing looping animation curves where the first and last keyframes have identical values has been resolved.
• New A crash when entering negative values for a Lattice's Count has been resolved (minimum Count of 3 now required).
• New Reveal Composition in Assets Window will now open any parent Asset Groups if the related Composition is within one.
• New Several issues related to 'specific indices' and mixing Text Backgrounds with Style Behaviours have been resolved.
• New Render Queue Items are no longer included when importing Scenes or References. These were appearing as 'orphaned' Layers in the Scene Window.
• New When updating the Excel Sheet of a Spreadsheet Utility, the Row Count and Column Count now also updates.
• Forge Dynamics no longer prints debug messages to the terminal during playback when a Field is connected.
• Drag/drop Layers from the Add Layers popover ( Cmd/Ctrl + .) has been restored.
• Renaming Layers where the label is elided (...) is now working as expected.
• Attribute Editor UIs for Array Layers no longer change their vertical position when the cursor moves across windows.
• The way a ColorPalette fills the width of a UI has been improved.

Notes

• The Create Editable Primitives menu item has been moved from the Shape to the Create menu.
• Forge Dynamics - 'size' calculations for Shapes containing child-meshes (e.g. Text) were incorrect meaning their Density was wrong. This has been corrected but is considered a bug and so backwards compatibility has not been added. Legacy scenes may require Density values adjusting.