L3DT 2.3c available

Due to popular demand I've rushed L3DT release 2.3c forward a few days, so here it is! Judging by past form, I've probably forgotten something and will need to issue an update in two days time anyhow. Nevertheless, there is much to discuss with this new release:

From a user's perspective, the main changes are the improved high resolution texture- and light-mapping in the Professional edition of L3DT. Additionally, stability and usability has improved thanks to a number of bug fixes. One of my main goals for this release was also to prepare L3DT Professional for commercial release in the middle of 2006, which meant finalising the activation key system. A brief overview of all these changes can be found on the release history page.

The texture- and light-mapping routines have been improved in L3DT Professional (no changes here for L3DT Standard). The texture mapping algorithm can now calculate the land types per texel, which gives much sharper (read: less washed out) textures at land type interfaces such as grass/rock (see example). This is slower, however, so it's not the default option. Also, high resolution light mapping is now possible, and gives sharper shadow definition for high res textures (see example).

This release addresses some of the long-standing bugs in L3DT (such as the MRU list in the 'files' menu), as well as some of the more recent ones introduced during the 22-or-so updates of L3DT Pro (such as breakage of the delete water-body tool, wrapping heightfields, non-square perlin maps, etc). There have also been numerous bug fixes for the activation key processing module, which had a habit of failing when it wasn't supposed to, often in quite a spectacular fashion. There are still some kinks to be worked out, but now at least it should crash in a nice way.

You can download the free Standard Edition from the downloads page, and registered users can download the Professional Edition from the address provided with their activation keys. If you'd like to register for an evaluation version of L3DT Pro, please follow the procedure described on the downloads page.

As mentioned above, the next major update to L3DT will be release 2.4 in the middle of 2006, and this will be a commercial release. The standard edition will remain free (including for commercial use), but the professional version will cost of the order of $25 USD (still to be finalised). A 90-day evaluation version of L3DT Pro will also be available via free registration, like the previous beta programme, so you will be able to try the fully-featured version before you decide to buy (or not).

Feature-wise, L3DT 2.4 Professional will include further improvements to the light mapping module, including the ability to apply individual bump maps to different land types for better visual detail. Another key feature will be the ability to combine different L3DT operations to build your own algorithms. I'm yet to finalise the user interface for this, but I may settle for a simple scripting engine input in the first instance.

My warmest thanks go out to the 200-or-so participants in the beta programme, who have been of great assistance in debugging and refining L3DT Professional. I've closed the door, metaphorically speaking, on the beta programme; instead I will be issuing to prospective registrants 6-month evaluation keys, which should last until L3DT 2.4. All current beta keys have been automagically converted to a 12-month evaluation keys, dated from today.

The documentation hasn't been updated since the original release of 2.3b last year, but will be updated in time for release 2.4. In the mean-time, I will be adding corrections and updates to the addenda section of the users' wiki new documentation wiki.

Some users may still experience problems in activating or using L3DT 2.3c Professional. These problems will be addressed in the minor updates leading up to release 2.4. We're getting there, slowly.

Otherwise L3DT is looking pretty bug-free (fingers crossed).

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the users' forum.