Release Notes for Version 7.1

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Release date: April 24, 2023

Core Engine

  • Luminance and chromaticity have been separated for most things that emit light. This applies to light sources, emission attributes, and several special effects. This essentially allows color to be chosen independently of brightness, which can be much higher than 1.0. Brightness is now measured in physical quantities appropriate for the type of object. Infinite lights have illuminance measured in kilolux (klx), point lights have luminous intensity measured in kilocandelas (kcd), and emissive objects have luminance measured in kilocandelas per square meter (kcd/m²).
  • The ColorRGBA class is now a subclass of the ColorRGB class.

Graphics Manager

  • The reflection and refraction buffer formats have been changed to 16-bit floating-point.

Interface Manager

  • The default GUI has been updated to a dark theme, and default font sizes have been made a little larger.

Math Library

  • Functions for transforming objects with quaternions, motors (dual quaternions), and flectors have faster implementations in this release.

In Progress

There are several new features that are in progress as of this release:

  • The engine is transitioning from OpenGL to Vulkan. Some code is present in version 7.1, but it is not complete.
  • A new physically-based metallic material attribute is in progress.
  • A new fur shader is in progress.
  • The way that terrain is textured is being updated.