L3DT release 2.5b

Released on the 7th of November, 2007 (see announcement)

• Added mosaic mip-mapped texture support to Sapphire, with LOD management (for megatextures)
• Added bulldozer, perlin and smooth tools to Sapphire.
• Removed L3DTVi2 from installation package.

• Change default file format to new extensible compressed heightfield file (hfz).

• Created plugin to import/export SMT and SMF formats for Spring.

• Added multi-core support to normals, light map and texture map calculations.

• Added 'backup active map' and 'restore to last backup' options to L3DT and Sapphire menus/toolbars (via L3DTio_Backup plugin.)

• Tropical, Demo-grass-rock-sand — By Aaron.
• Spring-Greenworld, Spring-Desertworld, Spring-Mars — By Forboding Angel.

• Added 'File→Import→Custom map layer…' (see userguide).
• Updated RUN batch processing to use new '.def.xml' map definition files.
• Allowed heightfield mosaic import in import wizard.
• Added greyscale→RGB, RGBA→RGB and RGB→RGBA conversion support for loading images in L3DTio_FI.
• Added InvertY option and RGB support to L3DTio_PCX.
• Add mosaic support for L3DTio_DDS, and include with installer.
• Added gzip support to L3DTio_AMF, and set AMF.GZ to default AM format (it's smaller than PNG).
• Dynamically generate format list in import wizard dialog from the actual format list for the heightfield (was using hard-coded format list before).
• Added Wavefront OBJ support with L3DTio_OBJ.
• Added support for import of super-large single TER/BT/HF2/HFZ files, which are too large to fit in memory (auto-split to mosaic).

• Revised the parameters pane of the land type editor.
• Updated to the Windows XP UI theme.
• Updated the status bar info to include BYTE/WORD/24-bit/DWORD maps.
• Rebuilt 1/2/3/4/etc hotkeys for viewing maps in main window.
• Allow re-binding of keys in Sapphire.
• Add indexed palettes to byte map rendering ('view→indexed palette…').
• Created modeless and auto-updating dialog box for map selection (see userguide).
• Added 'RGBA alpha means opacity' flag in view (see here).
• Revised alpha map settings wizard somewhat, and added a presets bar (as with most other wizards).

• atRoads (provides bulldozer tool in Sapphire.)
• atRotate, for rotating/mirroring maps.
• ZeoImage, for compositing images, etc. (see request)
• ZeoWrap
• L3DTio_Atlas2 — Beta only.
• atRainMaker — Alpha only.

• Improved speed of texture generation by adding skip size to anti-aliasing.
• Added support for global/shared plugins.
• Added MinAltFlag & MaxAltFlag to climates, so that we don't have to use crazy values like 1E10 to indicate no alt range.
• Now defaults to 2x mipmaps (was 4x) — needed for Sapphire megatextures.
• Disable shadow multi-casting for far off-axial light directions (10deg threshold)
• Converted all AM calc functions to use ushort arguments instead of shorts (affected L3DTio_FI and atFilterAM plugins).
• Allowed plugins to be disabled without throwing message on load (use CrashFlag instead of EnableFlag for crash monitoring).
• Store alpha maps in project map list.

• Added more functions:
  • map_LinInterp
  • map_GenMipmaps2
  • map_ClearMipmaps
  • map_GetMipmapResStep
  • map_GetMipmapMaxLevel
  • map_GetMipmapLevel
  • project_CreateMap
  • project_GetOrCreateMap
• Upgraded to Zeolite v2.5.2

• Now check map types when saving PROJ (if un-loaded, use default type)
• Fixed squares in high-res attributes map (see forum thread).
• Fixed auto-update of mipmaps in SetPixel.
• Fixed CPU throttle on mipmap generation.
• Fixed shadow-casting for axial light orientations.
• Disabled some more menu options when calculations are in progress.
• Fixed 'blank heightfield' option for mosaic maps.
• Fixed tile max altitude bug in libHFZ and L3DTio_HFZ.
• Remove non-existent projects from file list.
• Fixed exception in water map rendering (with water table).
• Changed reg usage to allow non-admin usage after activation (this is a fix for MS Vista).
• Fix time estimate for light map calculation.