BlendForge v1.1.0

The GLB & Auto-Baking Update

This major update introduces native GLB support, a massive overhaul to the procedural material baking system, and critical bug fixes for standalone Windows builds.

✨ New Features

• Native GLB (glTF 2.0) Export: You can now export directly to a single, highly-optimized .glb binary file. This perfectly preserves PBR materials (Base Color, Metallic, Roughness) and requires zero sidecar files. Works flawlessly with Unity's glTFast package!
• Advanced Node Auto-Baking: The baking engine has been completely rewritten. It now automatically detects and bakes any non-standard node setups (including MixRGB, Math nodes, ColorRamps, and custom Mapping setups) connected to your Principled BSDF, ensuring your Unity materials look 100% identical to your Blender viewport.
• UI Overhaul: Added a sleek format selection card (GLB vs. FBX) in the main interface with updated BlendForge branding.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Missing Textures Fix: Added a smart pre-flight safety check for missing image files in .blend projects. Cycles will no longer hang indefinitely. Instead, it dynamically generates black dummy placeholders during the bake so the export completes successfully.
• FBX Embedded Textures Fix: Fixed an issue where baked textures and dummy placeholders were not being properly packed into the Blender memory, causing "pink textures" in Unity upon FBX import.
• Production Build (.exe) Script Fix: Fixed the [stderr] OSError: Python file could not be opened error by updating the Electron asarUnpack configuration, allowing the standalone Windows .exe to successfully execute the bundled Python scripts.

🛠️ How to Update

If you are pulling the source code, run npm install and then npm run dist to generate the new standalone .exe.

BlendForge v1.0.0

🔨 Initial Release

Welcome to the first official release of BlendForge!

BlendForge is a powerful desktop utility that bridges the material gap between Blender and Unity. It automatically bakes complex node setups and preserves perfect PBR metallic/roughness values across your exported models.

✨ Key Features in v1.0.0

• GLB Export (Recommended): Natively exports your .blend files to single-file binary .glb assets. Preserves perfect 1:1 PBR materials that work instantly in Unity (via glTFast) with zero setup.
• Auto-Baking Node Trees: Automatically detects and bakes MixRGB, Math, Mapping, and procedural nodes into lightweight, optimized image textures.
• Legacy FBX Fallback: Need standard Unity FBX workflows? Exports FBX files with embedded textures and generates a .matdata.json sidecar. (Includes a Unity Editor script to auto-configure Standard/URP/HDRP materials).
• Smart Safety Checks: Prevents hangs or crashes during the texture baking process by dynamically generating placeholders for any missing texture files on your disk.
• Sleek Desktop UI: A beautiful, dark-mode Electron interface with drag-and-drop batch processing.

📥 Installation

Download the BlendForge-1.0.0.exe file attached below.

1. No installation required! Simply double-click the .exe to run the portable app.
2. Note: You must have Blender (3.0+) installed on your machine for the headless conversion engine to work.

🚀 How to Use

1. Launch BlendForge.
2. Drag and drop your .blend files into the app.
3. Select GLB (Recommended) or FBX.
4. Click Convert.

Using the Output in Unity:

• For GLB: Simply drag the .glb file directly into your Unity project (requires the glTFast package).
• For FBX: Copy both the .fbx and .matdata.json sidecar into your Unity project. Ensure you have placed BlendFBXImporter.cs into an Assets/Editor/ folder in your Unity project to auto-map the materials.

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If you encounter any bugs or have feature requests, please open an issue on the repository!