L3DT 2.2 released

Hey, it's finally here…and I thought I'd never live to see the day. It only took eleven months.

In the most severe case of feature-creep I've yet seen, the following improvements have been made to L3DT:

• Speed - L3DT 2.2 is about 10× faster than release 2.1 for most operations, thanks in part to compiler optimisations.
• Improved land types and texture mapping (see gallery page for results).
• Heightfield erosion (example screenshot).
• More supported file formats, including the DirectX '.x' mesh format.
• A batch engine for making lots of maps in 'hands-off' mode.
• Heightfield resampling + horizontal and vertical rescaling.
• Flood-on-click mouse tool for making sea and lakes wherever you desire.
• Calculation of water-table and salinity (example) - used in climate modelling.
• Easier interface for editing the design map.
• Some support for run-time texture blending.

For a complete list of changes please refer to the release history page.

L3DT 2.2 isn't completely compatible with L3DT 2.1:

• Attributes maps won't load properly because the climate model has been substantially upgraded. It's no big loss, I assure you.
• Mosaic heightfields, water maps, attributes maps, terrain normals and light maps are broken (mosaic textures are still OK). I hope to fix this in subsequent minor updates.

Also, there have been some changes to the map group file format, so older versions of L3DT and L3DTVi2 will not load new L3DT 2.2 maps.

Check out the 'to-do' list. A few features here and there are not fully implemented, and these will be the subject of subsequent minor updates (2.2a, b, c… maybe). The plan for the next little while is to produce more frequent minor updates to include bug-fixes and user-requested additions in a reasonable time-span.

Improvements to the viewer by Stuart Gooding include:

• A detail map, for pretty up-close stuff.
• A skybox, for pretty far-away stuff.
• A basic water map renderer.

Refer to the gallery for pretty screenshots from L3DTVi2.

Modifications include:

• I've added a whole lot more content to the tutorial pages, which are now accessed from the information page.
• I've written a new release 2.3 'to-do' list.
• Added the users' gallery and TerraGen gallery.
• Added the FAQ, release history, file formats and reference pages.
• Updated some bits of the algorithms page.

Phew, I'm going to have a lie-down now.