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Changelog

All notable changes to TrueSKY for Blender are documented here.

Latest beta - v3.0.0-beta.8 (January 2026)

Highlights: - New Scene Builder tool with viewport gizmos, positioning widget, and shortcuts - Align GPS to Body syncs Global Positioning to your viewport adjustments - Auto Night Mode keeps dark scenes dark when Auto Exposure is enabled

See v3.0.0-beta.8 for full details.

v3.0.0-beta.8

Release date: January 2026

Added

  • Scene Builder tool - New 3D Viewport tool with tabbed layout for Luminous, Primary Body, Celestial, Clouds, and Space workflows
  • Viewport gizmos and overlays - Body gizmos for size/brightness/distance, a floating cloud panel, and quick viewport toggles
  • Positioning Widget - In-viewport Date/Time + Location controls with map picker and sunrise/sunset shortcuts
  • Exposure gizmos - In-viewport exposure slider, metering modes, and compositor preview toggle
  • Align GPS to Body - Sync Global Positioning to a moved/rotated body and keep the scene aligned
  • Auto Night Mode - Prevents Auto Exposure from brightening dark scenes (toggle in Exposure settings when Auto is enabled)
  • Primary Body base presets - New Surface and Atmosphere starter presets

Changed

Fixed

v3.0.0-beta.7

Release date: December 22, 2025

Added

  • Global Positioning - New lower tab to set a single location/date/time for the entire scene with per-body overrides
  • Clean Scene - One-click cleanup to remove all TrueSKY data, plus a purge reminder for unused data
  • Cloud presets expansion - New Cirrus, Cumulus, Stratus, and Altostratus presets, plus preset pickers when adding layers
  • Per-layer volume quality - Volumes list with per-layer sliders and Atmosphere quality control
  • ACES support - ACES view transforms available in preferences for Blender 5.0+

Improved

  • Clouds UI - Reorganized layout with Advanced Shape controls and random seed for fast variations
  • Performance controls - Presets now include Steps Mode, Quality Mode, and Fast Viewport tuning
  • Exposure workflow - Auto Exposure modes updated and clearer exposure preferences
  • Global Positioning UX - Daylight Savings shown as status and city search sets correct local time

Fixed

  • Cloud layers now work reliably with scene offset
  • Latitude/longitude ranges allow negative values where expected
  • Tab switches no longer trigger unnecessary viewport render updates

v3.0.0-beta.6

Release date: December 1, 2025

Added

  • Render Quicksettings - One-click TrueSKY controls now appear in Render Properties, so you can toggle common options without opening the N-panel
  • Volume look examples - Presets include visual examples and icon previews to help you pick a look before applying it

Improved

  • Volume presets UI - More compact layout with visual cues so it is easier to browse looks
  • Preferences refresh - Preferences panel updated for clearer organization
  • High-res HDRI safeguards - HDRI exports above 12K (or custom values over 10K x 5K) now fall back to CPU automatically to avoid GPU stalls

Fixed

  • macOS OptiX rendering now works reliably
  • Background HDRI renders no longer fail because of argument issues
  • Custom volume preset values save consistently

v3.0.0-beta.5

Release date: November 27, 2025

Changed

  • Temporarily reverted to the previous cloud system for stability while keeping the new shader available under a new name for testing

v3.0.0-beta.4

Release date: November 27, 2025

Added

  • Full scene presets expanded - World lighting and effects now ship with the one-click scene setup, plus new startup/world presets and improved ring options for primary bodies
  • Scene Offset control - Shift the entire TrueSKY setup at once to reposition scenes without rebuilding

Improved

  • Clouds and volumes - Updated defaults (Fast GI off by default) and reorganized presets for better quality and ordering
  • HDRI workflow - Clearer output directory controls, updated tutorial link, and a prompt to create an HDRI camera when none exists
  • UI polish - Preferences tabs reorganized; effect layers indicate when they are disabled; layout tweaks for rainbow/ghost options; new icons for documentation/community links

Fixed

  • Primary body displacement textures now display correctly on setup
  • Ring materials and removal behave as expected when using presets
  • Placement settings for celestial bodies save reliably in full-scene presets

v3.0.0-beta.3

Release date: November 20, 2025

Added

  • Moon and space animation improvements - Sun-driven space rotation, moon ephemeris animation, and multi-day animations with lamp disc angle control
  • Preference option - Disable selecting the primary body in the 3D Viewport
  • Mac compatibility - Texture resizing functionality with related UI elements

Improved

  • Asset optimization - Reduced size by switching to WebP format for textures
  • Visual quality - Updated clouds settings for better appearance
  • Color management - Updated view_exposure setting to -4.0 in preferences

Fixed

  • Mac compatibility issues with oversized textures
  • Default exposure settings not being applied correctly
  • Compositor node configuration issues
  • Primary body cut-out not always removing geometry

v3.0.0-beta.2

Show changes

Release date: November 18, 2025

Improved

  • Export optimization - Option to skip texture export for reduced zip file size

Fixed

  • Enum entry issues resolved by storing enums in global variable

v3.0.0-beta.1

Show changes

Release date: November 17, 2025

  • Celestial and luminous body toolkit - Click-to-place objects, viewport/render toggles, richer presets (radius, distance, color temperature/RGB, star sizes), expanded ring and coordinate options
  • Primary body controls - Displacement with textures, adaptive subdivision, cut-out/flattening toggles, atmosphere/coordinate presets with automatic radius and distance updates
  • Space and moon animation - Drive space rotation from the sun, animate moon with ephemeris data, multi-day animations with responsive lamp disc angles
  • HDRI toolset overhaul - Dedicated panel, quick HDRI camera setup, resolution presets, background rendering with progress tracking, TrueSKY world HDRI settings including night options
  • Effects and world features - Auroras on celestial objects, cloud presets with godray support, world settings with Earth star map, effects presets defaulting to GPU/full precision with render toggles
  • Rebranding - TrueSKY 3.0 beta with refreshed metadata, icons, and header styling for clearer navigation
  • Effects workflow - Exposure handled directly with warnings/icons, compositor defaults to GPU/full precision, render toggles across effect nodes
  • HDRI workflow - Clearer labels, consistent resolution/format handling, expanded EXR compression choices, better progress countdowns and messaging
  • UI streamlining - Cleaner tabs and spacing, dropdowns with icons, preset options shown only when available, faster city search, better DST detection, tidier grouping for celestial and atmosphere controls
  • Stability polish - Quieter logging, constrained rotation inputs, tuned default energy for celestial lights, organized collections for new items
  • Celestial bodies and rings - Save and rotate correctly, ring data preserved in presets, correct icons, light linking honored, reliable displacement and UV handling
  • Luminous bodies - Predictable movement and click-to-place, preset panels restored, color/temperature presets no longer break
  • HDRI workflow - Missing images reload gracefully, cancellations clean up progress bars, background renders respect settings, resolution displays update, errors surface clearly when inputs are missing
  • Clouds and effects - Visible/aligned cloud presets, godray tweaks, correct layer mixing when disabled, Blender 5.0 compatibility fixes for nodes and compositor
  • Scene setup and presets - Exports write correct files and version info, preset loading avoids missing assets and duplicate collections, camera clip distances update correctly, time/date fields display properly, trailing zeros stay visible