MCprep v3.4.1 | (CRITICAL patch)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.78 through 3.3)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above. NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT.

See README for usage instructions | Join the official discord | Or help by taking this quick survey!

Fixes in this update:

• Resolved the issue which everyone faced while trying to update MCprep and then reloaded assets #331
  • CRITICAL DETAIL: Because this was a bug in the updater code itself, you will need to manually reinstall MCprep (or trigger the update to 3.4.1 from inside blender twice, restarting blender each time). If you don't do this, things will still work better, but you won't get all the effects files that were failing before (ie no instant or particle effects)
  • Sorry everyone! This was the single biggest error causing release for MCprep by a large margin.. and was the result of an inadvertent library update over a year ago that didn't rear itself as an issue until now.
• Fixed missing textures on TNT explosion assets #326
• Made rain fall somewhat more like rain (looked like snow before). #327

Full Changelog

3.4.0...3.4.1

Note: The minimum version of blender supported is still 2.78, however not all new features are supported by 2.7x. Users are strongly suggested to use minimum blender 3.0 to ensure they can use all features and new rigs in MCprep.

MCprep v3.4.0 | Effects Spawning

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.78 through 3.3)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above. NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT.

See README for usage instructions | Join the official discord | Or help by taking this quick survey!

Check out the splash art files here

New in this update:

• See in depth details about all listing in the 3.4.0 milestone here
• New features:
  • Weather + effects Spawning #96
    • Long awaited, and the crown jewel of this update. You now have the ability to spawn in rain, snow, explosion effects, bubbles, and so much more.
    • This is really a rollup of several different features:
      • Geometry node based "wide area effects" (Kudos to Th3Pooka for the great node layouts)
      • Particle based wide area effects, pre-animated collections (with the feature of offsetting direct and indirect animations based on the active frame)
      • Animated image sequences, such as bubbles popping, read from resource packs directly and thus work with custom resource packs
      • "Particle planes" to quickly generate particle effects from a Minecraft texture, such as from footfalls. You can select any source image and it properly creates (or reuses) a collection with cut up variants of the texture plane to use for a particle system. Over time, will add additional modes for useful default behaviors.
    • All effects were made in a generic way. You will see subfolders in the MCprep resources folder, where you can add in your own effects if you like (just be careful during MCprep updates or when uninstalling MCprep that you don't lose your work).
  • Panorama rendering #309
    • Perfect for any resource pack developers or someone who wants to customize their Minecraft startup screen. This will render out, from the current camera position, the correctly position files for a title screen panorama.
    • Major thanks to @Tiefseetauchner for contributing this code and putting up with code reviews!
  • Cycles optimization! Thanks to @StandingPadAnimations #290 and #239
    • Cycles optimization can be hard at times, so MCprep now comes with a new Cycles optimizer that does most of the heavy lifting for you. This is a new feature and actively seeking feedback and suggestions from veterans.
• Improvements / fixes
  • Handle special cases via an extension to the MCprep data json file
    • Now when you meshswap spawn chests, they will be made as instances by default so you can animate them.
    • Prep material is turned off by default for several rigs, such as the Simple Villager, to support asset contributions that have special material node layouts that would be broken by prep materials (which is otherwise on by default to maximize compatibility).
  • New rigs and assets (see issue for which and credit) #318
  • Added the "Player Armored" rig, which is a direct extension of the Player rig but with all sorts of Armor already set up as meshes
    • This is not using any fancy materials or UV sliding, or rigs with drivers. For simplicity, you simply need to enable or disable the according collection in the outliner after use.
    • Not currently set up for the slim player rig.
    • The player rig itself is unchanged from the other Player rig that shows up, but they were kept separate to cut down on size (so if you don't need armor, you aren't bringing in all those extra meshes along with their sharp-bend drivers, which in large numbers slows down blender if you have several instances of the rig).
  • Fixing villager torso not deforming after restart #307
  • Support for splitting up which files can be imported by different versions of blender
    • It was very taxing to support old versions of blender consistently. Now, we have an approach where we can author rigs in the latest version of blender, and then export to FBX and re-impor into blend files used for older versions of blender. These older version-supporting rigs don't have the bells and whisles of drivers, custom bone properties, or even constraints - but it's better than nothing, and saves a lot of time of re-hand authoring. Fore more information, read here.
    • A file with the name "pre3.0.0" for instance tells MCprep this file should be preferred to open over the one that does not have "pre#.#.#" in the name. Several rigs how have one or more version-based variants thanks to this new feature. This is done at the overall file name level, MCprep does not parse for groups to have blender version name indicators (as the whole file was either saved in one version of blender or another anyways).
• Numerous bug fixes, thanks for continuing to submit error popups when they occur.

Note: The minimum version of blender supported is still 2.78, however not all new features are supported by 2.7x. Users are strongly suggested to use minimum blender 3.0 to ensure they can use all features and new rigs in MCprep.

MCprep v3.3.1 | (Patch update)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.78 through 3.2)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Join the official discord | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this update:

• Primarily bug fixes:
  • Big one: the default "simple" material for 2.7 was broken. Fixed now (by removing this Simple layout, which was not intended for Blender 2.7): #272
  • Improved handling for the Block Spawner - many issues are still known, but there should be fewer error popups now: #267
    • Come across other issues? Have example json files that don't work? Please reply to the above github issue thread!
  • Many more in-blender reported bugs, details here: #261
  • Improve UI was changing viewport settings like custom gradients, now resolved. #187
• Updated the list of which blocks are light emitting for prep materials. This is a change in behavior that may result in differences in how your scenes are lit, since more materials will be emissive (largely affecting cycles). More details: #271
• Installing rigs with multiple collections now carry forward when imported, maintaining their nested structures and colors. #280
• Created a developer contribution guide - if you want to help MCprep and know python, please reach out to TheDuckCow!

Note: Up until now, blender 2.72 was officially supported. Due to few (though non-zero) and new regressions that came up, the new minimum suggested install is now blender 2.78. Earlier versions may still technically work, but it is untested.

MCprep v3.3.0 | Spawner Expansion

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.78 through 3.1)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Join the official discord | Or help by taking this quick survey!

Check out the splash art files here

New in this update:

• New features:
  • General Block Spawning #77
    • A huge feature a long time in the making! You are now able to generically spawn (nearly) any block from any Minecraft Resource Pack. This likely included spawning custom 3D models from Mods as well, but this is not yet highly tested.
    • Works based on the active resource pack, falling back to the one that ships with MCprep (e.g. if a resource pack references the generic Block resource defined by vanilla Minecraft).
    • Please be aware of some known issues, some blocks won't generate correctly. This will improve in time to come.
  • Entity Spawning #148
    • Functions similar to MeshSwap spawning where collections are spawned from a resource file specified in user preferences. Generally entities are expected to be rigged, but it is not always necessary.
    • A few entities are included already, from community contributions. This includes a boat, minecart, shield, bow, crossbow, and arrow. More will be added over time. Community contributions are highly welcome (open a new issue with your contribution).
  • Redesigned the spawner panel. See visuals here.
  • A new default, simpler material for prep materials (Cycles + Eevee only). #263
    • Highly requested, this simplifies node layouts for the most common use cases.
    • The previous default was the "Specular" mode, which was suited for PBR resource packs (similar to how you could specify SEUS). You can always revert back to the original behavior choosing Specular from the prep materials dropdown, or when swapping textures.
    • Note: As a result of this simpler operation, you will likely find that light emitting blocks no longer emit very much light (this was accomplished using a falloff node, still available in the Specular/SEUS option).
  • New rigs added for: Zombie Villager, Stray, and Drowned. Thanks community! There are more mobs missing, consider contributing.
  • Added a super secret "Experimental" flag option in user preferences. #260
    • As new features come out in MCprep that are not fully refined, they will be hidden behind this flag. It is off by default, and the goal is that using features that are new will prompt user survey feedback (this functionality not yet implemented).
    • At the moment, no features are blocked behind the setting, so it doesn't do much right now.
• Bug fixes:
  • Fixing resource pack mapping for worlds from more recent jmc2obj versions. #248
  • Fixed lack of transparency for worlds from more recent jmc2obj versions. #246
  • Check for grayscale (used when swapping textures) speed increased. #178
  • Fixed Item Spawning where pixel grid was offset in blender 2.93+. #213
  • A slew of more specific bugs. You can see the most commonly ones reported here, note the tick box for which ones were resolved.

Note: Up until now, blender 2.72 was officially supported. Due to few (though non-zero) and new regressions that came up, the new minimum suggested install is now blender 2.78. Earlier versions may still technically work, but it is untested.

MCprep v3.2.5.1 | (Patch update)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.72 through 3.0)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this update:

• New features:
  • Glow Squid mob contribution thanks to TRPHB Animation, #160
  • New power feature for item spawner: Spawn an item while in pose mode of a rig, and the spawned item will automatically be relocated and parented to the active arm. Common use case: have a lower arm selected, spawn a sword. Sample demo video.
  • Automated updates to the MCprep resource json, which performs mappings from Mineways and jmc2obj materials over to vanilla Minecraft textures.
• Bug fixes:
  • Fixing the most commonly report bug, which was raising errors like KeyError: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key "Stone" not found.
  • Fixed errors with item spawner UV layout in Blender 2.93, read more: #213
  • Increasing backwards compatibility for material assignments thanks to some bug reports: be7f0da and another bug to do with consolidating materials 54cd0a2

MCprep v3.2.5 | Blender-Minecraft update

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.72 through 3.0)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

(Snazzy artwork coming soon)

New in this update:

• Officially now supporting current Blender 2.93 and Blender 3.0 builds!
  • New versions of blender may always be unstable and create changes that break MCprep. In particular, the Blender 3.0 alpha is quite likely to introduce new issues that have not been uncovered yet. Reporting issues is the best way to help capture these.
• Including official Minecraft 1.17 textures.
• Fixed normal maps to used 'closest' interpolation to better match shader behavior #205
• Added new mobs thanks to the recent Mob Challenge (details here):
  • Axolotl by Breadcrumb (see how to change type here)
  • Cave spider by Austin Prescott
  • Goat by TRPHB Animation
  • As always: Rigs included in MCprep have the CC-BY license, which means you are free to use them (even commercially!) so long as you give credit back to either 1) the individual rig owners, or 2) link to the overall credits section of MCprep here
• Imported worlds will now properly name the individual blocks, and segment the collection / group name according to the world imported. More info.
  • This allows for managing multiple worlds more easily without having name clashes (e.g. collections being all named "Mineways_world")
• The "Report error?" will no longer trigger if a user has just updated MCprep in-place, and instead will suggest the user try restarting blender. Many errors can occur if the user doesn't not restart directly after updating MCprep, try to always do so proactively!
• A slew of minor bug fixes thanks to submitted error logs:
  • 78c1d43 Fixing error when material slot is empty
  • 99fb668 Fixing open user preferences error if package not found
  • 3ff8d86 Fixing regular expression escaping during animate textures generation
  • e682163 Improved user error messaging during OBJ importing
  • 331e90e Capturing non-blocking ValueError during Combine Materials operator
  • 596d331 Upgraded the in-addon updating code, resolving some previously reported bugs
  • b62f74d Stop Prep UI errors in prep materials operation

MCprep v3.2.4.2 | (Patch update)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.72 through 2.92)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this update:

• Including latest snapshot (21w14a) items and textures (new mobs such as goats and wardens are not yet included).
• Fixed issue where a custom Mob folder would not refresh the list of dropdown categories to match
• Fixed issue where swap texturepack or animate textures could result in an error like uvx, uvy = active_uv.data[loop_ind].uv IndexError / AttributeError, due to the recently added check for valid UV (non scaled) layouts required for such features.
• Fixed naming of poppy flowers in the meshswap file
• Fixed meshswap torches, which would have some instances spawning without light-emitting lamps, or light values would be too low (due to animation set in older blender versions).
• Fixed default zombie eye material to not go white when prepping materials.
• Added simple first-layer head meshes with no 3D details for the Player and Player Slim mobs, hidden by default (both viewports globally and in render). This is a fast option if you want the full rig but just don't want a 3D face.
• Implemented the "Download username list" operator, under the advanced settings of the Skin Swapper.
  • Niche tool I built primarily to aid MCprep Community renders, you can paste in a comma-separated list of usernames, and MCprep will auto download all of them into the target folder (it will not try to apply them to any active character, you still need to manually apply skin afterwards).

MCprep v3.2.4.1 | (Patch update)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.72 through 2.91)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this update:

• Fixed addon updater config issue, which was preventing new assets from being downloaded #171
  • NOTE! Because of the way the addon updater works, if you want to get the latest assets packaged in this release, be sure to update in blender twice (and restart blender after each update).
  • The first update will pull down the "corrected" python code, and the second update will then be able to correctly pull down assets. Installing the addon fresh (once) also works fine.
• Create Sky now automatically increases all camera clipping distances when adding clouds #172
• Added new special detection for "scaled UVs", to alert users proactively when they try to swap resource packs or animate textures when they did not use Mineway's "Export tiles to folder" feature.
  • More details on what this is and why it was added: #166
  • Not sure what this means? Check out this video, noting the last tick mark mentioned "for advanced users".
• The exclude meshswap collection is now not excluded (which is view layer specific), but rather hidden globally for both viewports and renders
  • To unhide, you'll need to add the according extra columns into an outliner. Details: #170
• Fix UV orientations for the bottom head (but inner and outer layer) for the Simple, Simple slim, and Shapekey player rigs.
• Several minor bug fixes and better user warnings, thanks to the bug reports logged! 24511a5 and c08a638
• Updated to the latest mappings for jmc2obj fa18837

MCprep v3.2.4 | Community

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.7 & 2.8)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this update:

• New tutorial series, and a special MCprep discord community - join here!
• Created support for another texture pack formats: SEUS (Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders)! #78
  • To use, select SEUS from the dropdown in Prep Materials, or in the Swap Texturepack settings after ticking Prep Materials. This will correctly load resource packs, properly making materials emissive, reflective, or metallic as the resource pack was meant to be used.
  • HUGE thanks to Bytzo for the community code contribution here!
  • Note: This supports only for Eevee (2.8+) and Cycles (2.7+), not Blender Internal (2.7).
• Created a Sync Materials operator
  • Now when prepping materials (and if Sync Materials is on), matching materials in the active resource pack's materials.blend file will be loaded, instead of generating the fresh materials entirely. This includes both material settings and nodes, and is always read from the root of the active resource pack.
• Added a Material Library panel, under Properties > Materials, demo here (#27)
  • This is a great way to quickly add materials to objects, and doesn't require that you first import a world
  • It respects the active texture pack, including use of pbr materials including normal and spec (or rough/emission/metal) passes.
• Several generated material improvements!
  • Stricter extra pass detection, so wrong textures on resource pack swap don't occur (e.g. picking up the bark top normal map for the bark side material).
  • Inverting normals for texturepacks as they use an oppose direction (Cycles/Eevee only) #122
  • Improved, looser checks for grayscale images (previously, if any pixel at all was saturated even slightly, the test would fail)
  • Fix for blender internal (2.7) grayscale material detection
• Long overdue updates for Minecraft 1.16
  • Added several missing mobs (see here for which ones were added and which ones are still deferred)
  • Added soul fire, soul torches, soul lanterns, soul campfires, shroomlights, and more to meshswap
  • Updated mapping file and included textures for 1.16
• Fixed issue when mesh spawning carrots and potatoes (being over-scaled) #158
• Meshswap material-to-object/collection mapping is now non case sensitive, improving mapping to Mineways worlds #152
• Added Simple Player Slim model. Also renamed Alex/Steve rigs to be Player and Player Simple, and ensured both by default have non-modified second layers to make skin swapping easier. Note: there is not a Shapekey Player Slim mob yet, this might be in a future update. #146
  • Updated simple player to ensure in default view the simple player second skin is visible #139
• Adding red-alert drawing for events like updates being ready or Restart Blender!, to make actions clearer
• Many bug fixes - thanks everyone for continuing to report them!

MCprep v3.2.3.1 | (Patch update)

Click the button below to download MCprep (same install for Blender 2.7 & 2.8)

By downloading and installing, you agree to the following privacy policy including anonymous data tracking clause. Do not download the zip file from the readme page, you must click the button above

See README for usage instructions | Or help by taking this quick survey!

New in this patch update:

• Fix for meshswapping a second time (users would have seen a "cache not found" error before)
• Fixed issue with setting saturation on materials with no diffuse image detected. Users would have had an error during prep materials
• Fix for UI popups to no specify field that does not exist in blender 2.90alpha anymore (popup height)
• Added detection for imported world exporter. Now, importing a world via the MCprep operator will automatically set the world exporter to jmc2obj or Mineways accordingly. This is done by checking the first line of the Obj export for the Mineways comments (if missing, assume jmc2obj).
• Changed import/split world operator to by default use use_split_groups=True, which was the behavior in 2.79, and removed the step of splitting objects by material as it is now unnecessary. This will make world imports faster! Future updates may improve the generated names.
• Fixed logic around applying non-color color space to PBR materials. More progress still planned for PBR as they are not yet ideal.