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L3DT v11.07 beta 1 release announcementDate: 2nd of July 2011 L3DT 11.07 Beta 1 is availableHi Everyone, The first beta version of the forthcoming release of L3DT is now available for download. The major changes since the previous release (v2.9) are listed below.
Version numbersIn case you missed the news this week and were curious how I’d jumped all the way from v2.9 to v11.07, L3DT now uses date-based version numbers in the YY.MM format. Plugin APIProbably the greatest change in L3DT 11.07, and hopefully one that users won't notice at all, is the major clean-up and re-write of the plugin API to make it easier to use for developers. Unlike previous revisions to the plugin API, this update breaks backwards compatibility with old plugins, so all plugins must be re-compiled to work with L3DT 11.07. If you are developing a 3rd party plugin, I have provided a tutorial on upgrading plugins over here. If you’d like to try your hand at writing a plugin, well, there’s a tutorial for that too. Memory managementAnother significant under-the-hood change is that L3DT now stores all maps as arrays of small non-contiguous memory tiles. This change reduces memory fragmentation, and should mean that the use of large non-mosaic maps will no-longer cause problems with insufficient memory. Please note that some image file format plugins still allocate their own contiguous memory blocks for storing images. Thus, when loading/saving very large images (mainly JPEGs or PNGs), you could still run into 'insufficient memory' errors. However, the frequency of these problems should be reduced, as the rest of the L3DT map data won't be hogging large swathes of contiguous memory, leaving more room for these recalcitrant plugins. A re-write of these plugins is on the cards for the next release (12.XX). Mesh exporterThere has been a substantial improvement in the way L3DT exports terrain mesh files. As announced earlier, the new mesh exporter:
Additionally, optimised mesh exporters are available for the DXMESH and FBX file formats thanks to the skills (and plugins) of Michael Koch (Miko, in the forum). Attributes map importerAnother nice-to-have in this release is the new attributes map importer, which allows users import land type / attributes maps from colour-mapped images, and allows you to choose which colours get matched to which land types. AlgorithmsThere have been no major changes to the either the heightfield or texturing algorithms in v11.07. However, there have been some nice little changes you may like, including:
User interface changesThere have been quite a host of other changes to the L3DT user interface, including:
SapphireThis time around there have been few public changes to the Sapphire 3D renderer. There have been a few minor tweaks to improve rendering speed, and also to improve the speed of tessellation convergence. There's also a work-around for what seems to be a bug in the OpenGL drivers of some ATI cards that causes huge lag when moving the mouse cursor (see this thread). Support for mesh objects is also coming along nicely, but it’s not quite ready for prime-time yet (next release, hopefully). BugfixesThere have been quite a number of bugfixes, which you can read about over here. How to downloadAs with all L3DT updates, this is a free update for all users of L3DT Standard Edition, as well as all users of L3DT Professional and L3DT Pro for Torque who have purchased a license within the past 18 months. If the 18 month 'free update' period for your license has expired (see the 'Help→About' box), you will need to renew your license to be able to use this update (contact sales@bundysoft.com to discuss discounts). To download the update, please follow the instructions below:
Release scheduleThis beta release will run for a period of about two weeks. If any major bugs are found in the beta release, an new beta release will be made available and the clock will be reset. If no serious bugs are found, minor fixes will be included in a 'release candidate', which will available for a further two weeks or so. If the release candidate proves satisfactory, the stable release will then follow. The most likely release date is in August, either early in the month if no bugs are found, or later if they are. Consequently, the next stable release will most probably be called 11.08. FeedbackI would be most appreciative if users could download and test this beta release. The more people we have testing the beta release, the fewer bugs we’ll have in the final release. Please reply to this forum thread if you find any problems, would like to recommend any changes, or would otherwise like to comment on the new beta release. Signing offCheers, 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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