1.0beta.935 (2015-May-27)

• Fixed: When initializing skinning layers on the DQ-weight-blended skin cluster, DQ weights will now be correctly loaded into initial layer.
• Fixed: another update for closest point matching in mirror or transfer, some glitches were still occurring since the introduction of UV transfer mode;
• Fixed: mirror direction ended up being inverse when using “seam width = 0”

1.0beta.932 (2015-May-27) 

• Fixed: recent file storage changes broke ASCII (.ma) files;
• Fixed: mirror/transfer could cause some spikes when copying skin weights;

1.0beta.930 (2015-May-26)

1.0beta.918 (2015-Feb-22)

• Fixed: Maya crash when merging layers;
• Json export: output file is now formatted into multiple lines (was a single-line compact format before); will help those people that are poking their noses inside exported files - e.g. for version-control purposes. I’ve done some dirty magic to make it more compact than plain json.dumps with indent=2, so that all numeric arrays (e.g. influence weights) are still in one line.
• Introduced OSX builds! Yay!

1.0beta.915 (2015-02-14)

• New feature: “Prune Small Weights” now also available as a post-processing filter in the “Settings” tab. This does not modify layer weights; instead, when enabled, ngSkinTools will not write small weights into skin cluster. E.g. weights joint1:0.99, joint2:0.01 will become joint1:1.0.

• Fixed: Maya crash when MllInterface.getCurrentInfluence() is called without anything selected. (Timothy, thanks for report).

1.0beta.912 (2015-02-08)

• Renamed “Assign Weights” tab to “Edit Weights”;
• Added “Prune Small Weights” to “Edit Weights” tab. Works pretty much like standard Maya “Prune Small Weights”: set all weights lower than X to zero. Operates on selected layers only, and allows pruning in layer mask as well.

1.0beta.910

• Feature: “Merge Layer Down” action. Select a layer other than the lowest, and it will be merged with the layer below it. Will help reduce the amount of those small helper layers you might be creating.

1.0beta.902

• Fixed: Maya 2015 crashes when scene with ngSkinTools data is being saved into .ma file;
• A lot of changes around mirror, import, and transfer weights;
• Added a long outstanding and highly requested feature to transfer skin layers from one mesh to another;
  • Possible to review and adjust influence mapping before transfer is done;
  • Different source and destination mesh topologies are supported;
• Import on a changed mesh is now also possible;
• Revamped "Init Mirror" window, should make working with manual influence matching a bit easier;
• A big rework on influence matching algorithm, new matching engine is now used for import, transfer and mirror;
  • Better prediction of left/right influences when matching by name or position;
  • "Ignore suffix" support for left/right influences - previously only prefix was supported;
  • An option to ignore namespaces when transfering/importing weights;
• XML export option removed from UI for now, thinking to dump the feature in the long run; XML only made sense for older Mayas that did not have JSON support; JSON is just an overall more compact format for the type of data to be stored (especially numeric arrays);

1.0beta.881

• Removed a silly debug message that was displaying at the end of maya session.

1.0beta.880

• fixed the issue when UI window sometimes will not be brought to front when opening from shelf button;
• ngSkinTools tool window position/dock state is permanently stored (each time the ngSkinTools window is closed, and/or object with layers is selected)

1.0beta.878

• UI is now dockable;
• Support for Maya 2010 and below is dropped, details for decision were posted here: http://ngskintools.com/node/36

1.0beta.877

• Layers/Influences list UI is now sizable with window; tab height can be adjusted via horizontal splitter.

1.0 beta build 875

• Added new skinCluster-wide setting "maximum influences per vertex limit". It is a post-processing filter that limits maximum number of influences used per vertex. Setting can be found in a new tab "Settings","Selected Skin Settings" group.

1.0 beta build 870

• "new layer" window will appear with empty layer name box, instead of having a "new layer" text in it.
  You can still submit the dialog without typing anything in, in that case new layer will get default name.
• Manually added mirror influence pairs now will be exported/imported to xml/json along
  with other layers data.
• Improved load times for ASCII files, but due to different save format, files will no longer open with older
  plugin versions.
• "Delete custom nodes" action will inform when there are no custom ngSkinTools nodes to delete, instead
  of displaying a deletion confirmation box.
• 2014 Maya builds

1.0 beta build 865

• A fix to get Maya 2009 UI work again;
• Bug fix: paste weights to mask should properly work now;
• Bug fix: setting mask weights via API is properly undoable now;
• Bug fix: changing current layer while painting now properly highlights it's current influence;
• Bug fix: multi-layer selection now works for layer on/off action;
• Bug fix: long mesh names will no longer resize main UI window;
• Bug fix: update check window size should now be less awkward;
• UI code will now verify that plugin version matches UI version (this mainly solves upgrade issues, when old plugin sometimes gets loaded with newer ui)
• API changes:
  • added MllInterface.setCurrentPaintTarget(): universal way to set current paint target (influence or mask)
  • added MllInterface.getCurrentPaintTarget()

1.0 beta build 860

• Introduced weights clipboard:
  • A simple and intuitive way to move weights from one influence on to another;
  • Cut/copy weights for selected influence;
  • Paste weights on to another influence, either adding new weights to existing ones, or replacing them.
  • Cross-mesh copy/paste will only work if vertex counts are identical; this feature should mainly be used on the same mesh.
• Changed how influence names are displayed:
  • Influences with unique names will display just short name, as previously
  • Influences with duplicate names will display a unique name in the context of the list; that is, if rig contains two joints named "joint1", then they will be displayed as "joint1 (joint2|joint1)", but behaviour will only occur if the list is actually displaying two "joint1" items.
  • The idea behind the change is to only show long names when short name is not unique in a skin cluster.
• Influences can be filtered with wildcards now; for example, "finger*_1" will match "finger1_1", "finger2_1" or "L_finger66_1_joint".
• Minor API fix: MllInterface.getLayersAvailable() will work correctly on context mesh of MllInterface.
• Fix in import/export: internal layer transparency was being incorrectly calculated after importing weights.
• Stability improvements: setting vertex weights with sum above 1.0 could cause crashes
• Performance improvements: "import weights", "duplicate layers" should now be much faster (and mirroring multiple layers - just a bit:)
• API additions:
  • Batch update management added to speedup multiple update calls to internal layer data object

1.0 beta build 849

• Keyboard is now enabled in layer/influence lists, making it possible to go through influences
  with up/down keys (in Maya 2011 and up)
• Fixed: paint tool could crash maya in some occasions when skin layer data could not be determined from selection

1.0 beta build 847

• Fixed: "Add manual association" in mirror initialization should be functional again.

1.0 beta build 845

• Maya 2012 crash on Linux resolved
• Update checker window fixed to show itself when update is found.

1.0 beta build 843

• Critical bug fix: unable to open ngSkinTools UI due to preference value type mismatch.

1.0 beta build 842

• Reviewed some Linux stability issues when initializing layers
• Fixed: error message when opening ngSkinTools window for the first time

1.0 beta build 840

• Fixed: when exporting, influence names are now absolute;
• Improved direction display in mirroring window: now it will properly say "left to right", or "top to bottom", (depending on mirroring axis you chose when initializing mirror cache), instead of just "positive to negative";
• Mirroring now works with multiple selected layers;

1.0 beta build 835

• Added new tool "Import Influences" for synchronizing influences lists between different skin clusters;
• "Delete current layer" became "Delete selected layer(s)" and now allows selecting multiple layers for deletion;
• Added "Duplicate selected layer(s)" in menus;
• Fixed documentation links here and there (apparently nobody cares as "View documentation online" menu item actually never worked before);

1.0 beta build 830

• Added layer on/off feature, available from layer right-click menu.
• Added layer info import/export:
  • XML format available for all supported Maya versions;
  • JSON available from Maya 2011 and up;    
• First attepts at python API:
  • ngSkinTools.mllInterface.MllInterface : low level access to internal plugin functions
  • ngSkinTools.importExport.* : import/export capabilities
• Fixed a few Maya 2009 compatibility issues    
• A lot of refactoring inside the code, so possible stability issues, but it's all for the brighter future;