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News for March 2008March 22L3DT Release 2.5cL3DT release 2.5c is now available on the download pages in both Standard and Professional editions, and is also available for download via the GarageGames.com site for L3DT for Torque users. Free update? (yes and no)This is a free update for all users of L3DT Standard, and for all users who have purchased a license for L3DT Professional or L3DT for Torque in the last 18 months (since September '06). If the free update period of your license has lapsed, we are currently offering a 40% discount to users who renew their license, which entitles the users to another 18 month's worth of updates, improvements and bugfixes. This offer is currently limited to customers who purchased their licenses directly from Bundysoft before the 1st of January 2007. Eligible and interested users should contact sales@bundysoft.com to receive the relevant discount codes. Changes
The complete log of changes is listed on the release history page.
...since L3DT release 2.5bUsers upgrading from L3DT release 2.5b will notice the following changes:
...since L3DT release 2.5a (L3DT for Torque)Users upgrading from the most recent release of L3DT for Torque (release 2.5a) will notice the following additional changes:
Some screenshotsHere are some recent screenshots of L3DT v2.5c (and related), taken from the main gallery and the developmental gallery. Note the last image (bottom right) is a screenshot from Spring, showing a map exported from L3DT v2.5c using the SD7 plugins.
Zeolite plugin APIZeolite has been updated to v2.5.3 (see change log). This update is relatively minor, and includes a few bugfixes and a couple of new functions. Plugin developers should note that this updated API is only compatible with L3DT v2.5c or later. This means that plugins compiled with this updated API cannot be used with older versions of L3DT. However, plugins compiled with older versions of the API can still be used with the latest version of L3DT. DocumentationThe majority of the user guide has been updated to reflect the latest changes, as has the fjord tutorial, Spring tutorial, and the initial sections of the climate tutorial. However, some sections of the user guide that relate to the new materials system may not yet be complete, but I hope to address this as soon as possible. What's next?The next release on the cards is v2.6, and as always, my development plan is jam-packed with new and exciting things to do. The items that are currently tickling my interest include:
If you would like to have input in the priorities for the next release, please feel free to post your ideas in the feature requests forum. ThanksI'd one again like to thank the entire user community for their encouragement, suggestions and patience during the development of this release. A very big special super-thanks also goes out to anyone who posted a bug-report in the four months since the last release. Without their bug reports there could be no bug fixes (well, not as many). FeedbackIf you would like to provide suggestions, criticisms or other feedback, please do so on this forum thread. Cheerio, Aaron. Post scriptAn unpleasant bug in the normals/light map calculation modules had made it through to the release build of L3DT 2.5c. I have updated the installers with a fixed version, and the file version number of the correct installers and L3DT executables should be 2.5.3.7, with a build date of the 31st of March 2008 (you can check this in the 'Help→About' box in L3DT). If you are using L3DT release 2.5c with an earlier version number or date (the 'broken' installer was 2.5.3.4 from the 19th of March), please re-install release 2.5c from the installers on the downloads page. For more info, or to post a comment, please see this forum thread. March 18Update ManagerComing soon to a version of L3DT near you will be an update manager window, such as that shown below:
The purpose of this feature, as it explains itself (see text in window above), is to allow users to check for updates to L3DT or critical alerts (e.g. bug warnings.) The window, which works much like an RSS reader, will provide a brief summary of the update/alert, and a link to a page on the website with more information (e.g. release announcement), or to a direct download link.
Cheerio, Aaron. March 12Attributes map brush in SapphireHi All, In todays show-and-tell, I have for your perusal the new attributes map brush tool in the Sapphire 3D editor/renderer. This brush allows you to manually paint land types onto the attributes map, which will then be 'baked' onto the texture map or alpha maps when they are subsequently calculated. A quick demonstration of this new tool is provided in the screenshots below, where I have carved a road onto the terrain using the 'bulldozer' brush in Sapphire, and then applied an 'asphalt' land type (from the new 'artificial' climate) to the road surface using the attributes map brush: Screenshots: Using the brush
Screenshots: After calculating the texture
I think the brush works quite well, and is really snappy and responsive even on large mosaic maps. Consequently, I've included a pre-release of this tool in the latest beta release (L3DT release 2.5c beta 1 build 2). However, please be mindful that the brush is not yet fully polished. In particular, I need to work on the following issues:
If you'd like to give it a try, please download and install the latest beta release of L3DT 2.5c from the downloads page. 'L3DT for Torque' users should e-mail me for the link, via aaron@bundysoft.com. Cheerio, Aaron. Except where otherwise noted, content on this wiki is licensed under the following license:CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
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