L3DT development blog
Large 3D terrain generator

L3DT v2.6 release announcement

Date: 18th of October 2008

L3DT release 2.6 Professional

Hi Everyone,

L3DT release 2.6 is now available for download in Professional and Pro for Torque flavours from here and GarageGames, respectively. In fact, it's been available for the last two or so weeks, but due to other commitments I've not been able to properly announce it until now.

What's new?

Release 2.6 is a major upgrade to many important components of L3DT Professional. Below I've listed the main changes from the previous stable release, which was v2.5c from March of this year. The detailed change log is also available on the release history page.

Multithreading and optimisations

The headline change for v2.6 is the massive improvements to multi-core/mosaic-map support. In particular, optimisations of the light and texture mapping algorithms have provided as much as a 25× increase in calculation speed for Quad-core systems (see here and here for benchmark results). No less important than the speed improvements are the major improvements in stability. We've now logged hundreds of hours of testing of L3DT's multi-threaded mosaic-map calculations on dual-, triple- and quad-core systems, and it works flawlessly.

This means that if you have an interest in making large maps with highly-detailed textures, updating to L3DT version 2.6 will save you a lot of time!

TGEA support

All versions of L3DT now include the new Atlas2 exporter plugin, which supports both blended and unique textured Atlas generation. Also, the exporter is now accessible using the 'Atlas' button on the toolbar, shown below. Please refer to the TGEA tutorial for more information.

:l3dt:2008:oct:atlasicon.png The Export to Atlas toolbar icon.

Spring support

There are lots of new goodies for Spring mappers in the new Professional Edition, including:

  • Full SD7 support, including both export and import.
  • A new Spring Mapping Wizard, which organises and automates the process of making maps for Spring (see the new 'Spring' button on toolbar).
  • New maps layers for easily placing metal patches, geovents, trees, grass and other features on the map, along with an easy-to-use editor interface for the same.
  • Team starting points are now calculated for you by the plugin, based on a new editable 'starting points' map.
  • A comprehensive tutorial on making Spring maps in L3DT has been written.
  • There were also countless other bugfixes for the SMD/SMF export plugins.

Vista support

The required changes have been made to allow L3DT to run properly under Vista's User Access Control (UAC) system. Extensive testing has been performed under Vista 32- and 64-bit versions, and no further compatibility issues were identified.

Linux support

Changes have also been made to improve support for L3DT in Linux using the WINE compatibility layer. I and others have successfully installed and run L3DT Standard and Professional in Ubuntu 8.04. However, some users have reported (easily fixable) problems with file paths in some distributions. For more information, please refer to the L3DT in Linux page.

User interface

  • There are now brushes for painting the texture and attributes maps in both the L3DT (2D) and Sapphire (3D) windows.
  • The 2D view is now 'tabbed', for easier switching maps in main window. See here for screenshots.
  • There is finally a user interface for editing georefererencing settings. See here for more info.
  • The wizard setup was changed so that you now directly set the size of the heightfield in the 'heightfield size' wizard, rather than indirectly setting the heightfield size via the 'design map size' wizard. This should be much easier to use for both new and experienced users.
  • More toolbar buttons were added for common tasks, such as TGEA export, Spring export, and the image drape.

Other changes

Please refer to the release history for the full list of changes.

Downloading updates / renewing licenses

  • If you are using L3DT Professional, updates may be downloaded from the Professional Edition downloads page (consult your registration/sales e-mail for the link.)
  • If you are using L3DT for Torque, updates may be downloaded from your profile page on the GarageGames site.

Please note that licenses for L3DT Professional have a free update period of 18 months. If you purchased an L3DT Pro license in or before March of 2007, you may now need to renew your license to use this new update. To renew your license, with a 40% discount, please contact sales@bundysoft.com and be sure to quote either:

  • the PayPal/Kagi receipt numbers for your license purchase, or;
  • the name and e-mail address used to make the purchase.

Feedback

If you'd like to ask a question or make a comment about this release, please do so in this forum thread. As always, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback that you care to give.

Best regards, Aaron Torpy.

2011/01/13 07:34
 
l3dt/ann/v2.6.txt · Last modified: 2017/08/31 05:08 (external edit)
 
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