Hi Everyone,

I've finally added texture coordinate and material file support to the OBJ file exporter. The updated plugin is included with L3DT Professional v2.7 build 16, which is on the downloads page now.

The OBJ/MTL exporter is available in the menu under 'File->Export->Export OBJ and MTL'.

Please let me know if you find any problems.

Best regards,
Aaron.

PS: This new developmental build also includes improvements to the copy/paste tool, and a bugfix for the 'point grab' tool in Sapphire.

Hi Everyone,

A bug in the bitmap export plugin with the potential to affect many users has recently been found and fixed. The plugin was producing invalid bitmaps when exporting heightfields as 8-bit greyscale images. The corrected plugin is included in the latest developmental build of L3DT (v2.7 build 15), which is on the download pages now.

If you're not sure how to update:

• The updated L3DT Standard Edition installer is available here,
  
• The updated L3DT Professional Edition installer is available from the URL provided in licensees' sales/registration e-mails, and;
  
• The updated L3DT Pro for Torque installer is available on request to licensees. Please contact aaron@bundysoft.com.

I apologise for the inconvenience caused by this bug.

Best regards,
Aaron.

Hi Everyone,

The latest developmental build of L3DT (v2.7 build 6) includes partial support for the GeoTIFF file format. The new TIF plugin included in the latest build can read heightfields from 8/16/24/32-bit TIFF files, and supports a limited subset of the GeoTIFF georeferencing tags, including tiepoints, geographic scaling and extents (lat/lon only), EPSG datum and projection codes. The plugin does not implement the entirety of the GeoTIFF standard, but this may be added in the future if required/desired.

As an example of the usefulness of this plugin, please have a look at the new Loading 'Shuttle Radar Topography Mission' maps in L3DT tutorial, which explains how to import real-world terrain heightmaps into L3DT using the CGIAR GeoTIFF download site. Here's a pic of the results in L3DT (this is central Italy, looking north-west):



Please note that the 'atGeoRef2' and 'L3DTio_HFZ' plugins have also been updated in this build to include additional georeferencing support to match that of the TIFF plugin; in particular, EPSG projection codes.

Cheerio,
Aaron.

Hi Everyone,

One generally does not consider the availability of a particular developmental build to be front page news, but one feels it warranted in the case of L3DT Pro v2.7 dev build 1, as released on the 9th of March 2009.

This build includes an speed improvement to the shadow ray-casting algorithm so substantial that I would recommend all users of L3DT Pro update immediately. The benchmark results are available in the dev blog, but the readers digest version is that shadow mapping is now up to 30 times faster. In one test, a calculation that took forty minutes in release 2.7 took only one minute and twenty seconds in the new developmental build.

If you're making large/detailed maps, please do have a look at this developmental build, as it has the potential to save huge amounts of time. As always, developmental builds of L3DT Pro are available on the Pro downloads page, the link to which you will find in your registration/sales receipt e-mail.

Cheerio,
Aaron.

Hi Everyone,

L3DT release 2.7 is now available for download. This release introduces support for 'undo', bugfixes and new goodies in Sapphire including video capture, new and improved file format support (B3D, 8-texture blended Atlas, etc.), improved scripting support, and the usual swag of user interface tweaks. You can read all about it in the full release announcement in the dev weblog, which contains a more fulsome explanation of the changes, some videos and screenshots, plans for the future, and other items that tickled my fancy.

This is a free update for all L3DT Standard users, and for all L3DT Professional and L3DT for Torque users that purchased a license within the past 18 months. If your license is more than 18 months old, you may be interested in our current 40% discount on license renewals (see here for update info).

Feedback is most welcome.

Best regards,
Aaron.