News

Boxshot 5.4.1 beta

20 Jan 2022

This update improves gizmo and instances, adds new tools and shapes and improves the existing ones. Read on for more details.

Instances Improvements

Instances are now highlighted in the scene tree with a “chain” icon on the right, so you can spot them easily:

Highlighted instances in the scene tree

Creating instances of grouped objects is now supported. Note that Boxshot will make a group of instances, not the instance of a group.

Finally, there is a new item in the Tools menu called Select All Instances that does exactly what it says: selecting all the instances of the selected object to perform similar actions on all of them.

New Gizmo Features

This update makes further improvements of gizmo for both objects and decals.

Objects

Object gizmos got snapping option for rotation and translation, so Boxshot now helps you aligning and rotating objects by default. You can hold Alt key to avoid that while using gizmo.

Rotating objects while holding Shift key helps you quickly making round angles like 0°, 45°, 90° etc.

Decals

Decals got better gizmo like you have in Koru, so you can rotate and scale them directly with your mouse:

New decal gizmos in Boxshot

The center point moves decals, the side point rotates and scales them. Rotation and scaling are snapped to round numbers, holding Alt cancels that, holding Shift sticks angles and numbers strictly to round angles and scales.

Also, clicking the decal gizmo selects that decal in the decals list on the right for your convenience.

New Tools

This update comes with several new tools, one of them — Select All Instances — was mentioned above.

Rename Selection

Another tool lets you batch renaming selected objects, you can access it by right–clicking elements and selecting Tools → Rename Selection… in the popup menu:

New tool in Boxshot for batch renaming selected objects

It works pretty much the same way as batch renaming in Ai Toolbox and lets you specify a new name and optional number for all the selected objects.

Circular Step and Repeat

This new tool lets you clone the selected object and put its copies on a circle or spiral path. You can activate it by right–clicking selected object and then using Tools → Circular Step and Repeat… in the menu. The pop up window will be displayed:

New Circular Step and Repeat tool in Boxshot

Most of the options are pretty much self–explaining and Boxshot immediately updates the preview in background, so you can instantly see the effect of any option you change.

Shapes Changes

Soda Cans

This update changes soda can shapes behavior a bit and add separate materials for top and bottom metal parts and the ring pull element. Old projects should work just fine as Boxshot automatically uses old “Metal” material for all the new ones.

Updated can shapes in Boxshot

The shapes themselves got more details and the default artwork was refreshed.

Easel-Back Display Stand

This is a new shape useful for advertising signs mockups:

New easel-back display stand shape in Boxshot

You can modify its size and angles using the properties panel on the right.

Other Changes

Other new features and fixes of this update are briefly listed below:

  • High–resolution HDR images support was improved;
  • Batch rendering tools let you use decals along with materials;
  • Pasting without offset is now supported by holding Shift key while pasting;
  • Copy Materials tool got easier multiple selection support with Shift and Alt keys;
  • UV mapping tool of embedded models was fixed for cylindrical, plane and spherical mapping;
  • Mesh merging tool was added to embedded models;
  • Image Manager mouse selection was fixed.

Cheers!