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News for November 2009November 26Importing Mars TerrainHi Everyone, Following a user's recent request, I have added a plugin to import terrain from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) mission. The plugin is called L3DTio_MOLA, and is available here. To use the plugin:
Further notes on downloading and using MOLA data are provided on the L3DTio_MOLA plugin page.
The results should look something like this:
Cheerio, Aaron. November 19L3DT release 2.8Hi Everyone, Release 2.8 of L3DT is finally available for download. The changes and improvements in this release were described previously in the v2.8 beta release announcement back in October. If you missed the announcement, or would enjoy reading it again, please find a description of the changes below: Torque TER exporterRelease 2.8 of the Professional and L3DT for Torque editions include a plugin for importing and exporting Torque terrain files (.TER), for T3D and TGEA. In addition to exporting the TER files, the exporter will also export the terrain texture images, mission files and materials.cs files. The user guide for this plugin is on-line here, and a start-to-finish tutorial on making T3D terrain with L3DT is also on-line. As for screenshots, here you go:
Please note that the TER plugin included in release 2.8 is slightly different to that which was included in the three preceeding beta releases. A few additional bugs were found and fixed at the last minute. I should also note that support for TGE terrain export was intended to be included in this release. Unfortunately, there was not adequate time or beta testing feedback to ensure that the quality of the code met release standards. The TGE exporter may be re-introduced in subsequent developmental builds if there is sufficient community interest. ZeoGraphRelease 2.8 includes a filter graph interface for performing custom map calculations called 'ZeoGraph', as announced in July. This interface provides a simple way to connect a collection of simple filters to perform a custom operation. It's like scripting, but with graphics. It all looks a little something like this:
ZeoGraph in release 2.8 contains just over 40 filters, including map operations such as smoothing, resizing, and combining, as well as file input and output operations. I expect to increase the number of filters for the following release (v2.9), so if you'd like to request any, this is the relevant forum thread. LightingAs announced back in February, the shadow casting calculation has been optimised and is now 10-20x faster than v2.7. This should save a lot of time for users generating large maps. L3DT version 2.8 also introduces specular lighting highlights. Here is a before and after comparison:
GeoTIFFL3DT now includes a GeoTIFF plugin that can be used to import real-world terrain from, for example, the Shuttle Radar Tomography Mission (SRTM). For more information, please refer to this tutorial. The results look a little something like this:
Mesh file formatsDue to popular demand, L3DT can now export the heightfield as a textured 3DS mesh file or OBJ and MTL file. The menu options for these are:
Sapphire 3D rendererThe Sapphire 3D renderer has picked up a few new features and had a few bugs fixed, including:
User interfaceThe user interface for L3DT v2.8 is an incremental improvement over v2.7. The main changes that come to mind are the updated map selection tab bar, some menu reorganisation, and bug fixes to wizard rendering when Windows is using non-standard fonts. On the whole, if you are familiar with the L3DT v2.7 controls, then v2.8 should be an easy upgrade. Bug fixes and annoyancesRelease 2.8 includes fixes for a number of bugs that were found in version 2.7. The list of bug fixes is available on the release history page, but some particular highlights include:
Additionally, I've been working on smoothing over some of those little annoyances or omissions that make life for the L3DT user a little more difficult than it needs to be. For example, L3DT now automatically loads new resources (climates, materials, and scripts) that are placed within the resources directory (see blog post), so the user doesn't need to manually import the files using the climate, material and script managers. Little changes like this should hopefully make L3DT just that little bit nicer to use. How to download?
If you have any problems accessing this update, please e-mailing sales@bundysoft.com. ThanksMany users contributed greatly to this release by providing excellent feedback and suggestions. If you downloaded and tested a developmental builds or beta releases, please accept my most heartfelt gratitude for your time, patience, enthusiasm and expertise. FeedbackIf you find any bugs, please report them in the bug reports forum. If you would like to make any comments or suggestions, or ask questions, please do so in the announcement thread. Best regards, Aaron. November 3In the mean time...With L3DT release 2.8 due in two weeks time, and hopefully all the debugging now sorted out with v2.8 beta 2, I now have some time to indulge in working on fun stuff for the next major release (v2.9). Just now I've been tinkering with the networking plugins for running calculations in a render-farm environment. I started work on this way back in April of last year, but ran into a few problems with packet loss somewhere in my asynchronous TCP socket plugin. I am pleased to now say that the asynchronous TCP socket plugin has been fixed and finished, and the network calculation client and server plugins are now nearly ready. The plugins run the texture and normal mapping calculations correctly over the network, but I have still to automate synchronisation of project settings and climates between server and client. I'll let you know how it goes… 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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