QuickSDFTool v0.2.0-preview

This preview release focuses on maintainability and day-to-day authoring UX. The paint tool has been refactored into smaller responsibilities, the material-slot workflow is clearer, and the timeline now separates seeking from keyframe edits while showing the current paint target state directly on the track.

Recommended Audience

Technical artists testing toon-shadow mask authoring inside Unreal Engine 5.
Teams already evaluating v0.1.0-preview and wanting the refactored editor workflow.
UE plugin developers interested in Interactive Tools Framework, Slate timeline UI, material baking, and editor-side texture generation.

Tested Environment

Item	Status
Unreal Engine	5.7.4 tested development target
Platform	Windows development environment
Project type	C++ Unreal project
Shader model	SM5 or higher

UE 5.6 and earlier are not supported for this preview.

Highlights

Large UQuickSDFPaintTool refactor into focused paint session, stroke, mask, render target, import, preview, and SDF helper code.
UQuickSDFAsset now treats the active texture set as the primary editable data source, with best-effort migration for older saved assets.
New Material Slots UI with row-click selection, compact status pills, and per-slot Bake actions.
Removed broad multi-slot controls such as Bake Selected, Bake Missing, and Generate All from the primary workflow.
Timeline now uses an upper seek lane and lower keyframe lane to prevent accidental keyframe movement while checking light angle.
Timeline visibility improvements include clearer angle labels, stronger active/target range contrast, and cleaner thumbnail segmentation.
Timeline Status Badges show mask availability, Monotonic Guard state, and warnings, with detailed tooltips for angle, texture, edit state, paint-target inclusion, overwrite state, and warning details.
Paint Target range highlights for Current, All, Before, and After use the same midpoint-based key segments as the editing operation.
Brush resize now works immediately after mode entry, only while the cursor is over the level viewport, and defaults to radius 2.5.
Import texture selection no longer auto-assigns the Content Browser selection when opening the import panel.
Preview material handling was corrected so /QuickSDFTool/Materials/M_PreviewMat is not marked dirty when entering/exiting SDF mode.
Source files added during the refactor were normalized to UTF-8 to avoid Rider encoding warnings.
Automation coverage now includes timeline range/key status, asset migration, import validation, and Monotonic Guard behavior.

Upgrade Notes

This release targets UE 5.7+ only.
Existing UQuickSDFAsset data is migrated on load on a best-effort basis. Back up production assets before testing preview builds.
The main Material Slots workflow is intentionally slot-focused. Use the row Bake action for the slot you are editing.
Mask import now expects an explicit file choice or timeline drag-and-drop instead of using the current Content Browser selection automatically.

Verification Steps

Open a C++ UE 5.7.4 project with the plugin enabled.
Build sdfbuildEditor Win64 Development.

Run the automation groups:

Automation RunTests QuickSDFTool
Automation RunTests QuickSDFTool.Core.Timeline

Enter Quick SDF mode and select a mesh with multiple material slots.
Select a row in Material Slots, Bake that slot, and confirm the row status updates.
Paint on the current mask, switch Paint Target modes, and confirm the timeline range highlight follows the affected masks.
Seek from the upper timeline lane and drag keyframes only from the lower keyframe lane.
Hover key status badges and confirm mask, Guard, warning, and texture details appear in the tooltip.
Generate a selected SDF threshold texture and confirm it is created under /Game/QuickSDF_GENERATED/.
Save and reopen the level or asset to confirm migrated texture set data reloads as expected.

Known Defects

UV layout can affect the relationship between brush size and painted area.
SDF output direction still needs final verification against the preview material.
GPU JFA shader files exist, but the public generation path currently uses the CPU FSDFProcessor path.

Suggested GitHub Release Assets

Source archive from the tag.
A short demo video or GIF showing mask paint -> SDF map -> toon result.
A PNG export of .github/assets/social-preview.svg.

Full Changes

Compare with the previous preview: https://github.com/yeczrtu/QuickSDFTool/compare/v0.1.0-preview…v0.2.0-preview