Release Notes for Version 1.5.8

Release date: April 4, 2009

Core Engine

A new "Shader Time" process has been added to the Shader Editor. It outputs the engine's internal shader timer, which has a period of 120 seconds. The time output in the shader is normalized to the range [0,1].

The skinning code has been modified in this release to allow normals and tangents to be skinned instead of calculated separately. New performance optimizations have also been implemented for skinned models. To use these new capabilities, an existing model must be either be re-imported or have the Recalculate Normals command applied to its geometries in the World Editor.

Fluid and cloth simulation now run as multithreaded tasks through the Job Manager.

A perspective exclusion mask can now be specified for portals. This allows you to disable portals from specific camera perspectives, such as when rendering to the refraction buffer.

The Models page in the World Editor now contains a tool for placing generic unregistered models. After a generic model has been placed in the scene, the model resource is specified under the Model tab in the Node Info window. When multiple instances of the same generic model exist in the scene, they share the same object data. However, if a registered model is placed in the scene, and the same model resource is specified for a generic model as well, then they do not share the same object data. That is, copies of registered models all share each other's data, and copies of generic models all share each other's data, but there's no sharing between registered and generic models. Therefore, you should be consistent in what method you use to place a particular model in the scene. If a model is registered with the engine (and thus appears in the list of registered models), it is always better to use the registered model than to use a generic model.

The Terrain page now contains a smoothing brush. When this brush is used to draw on terrain, it applies a simple 3D blur filter to the underlying voxel field.

The World Editor now adds a new command to the global Tools menu called "Reopen Played World", with the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-P. This menu item unloads the currently playing world and reopens the World Editor with the last world that was played by typing Ctrl-P.

The range of speeds possible for the free camera in the World Editor has been increased on both the slow and fast ends.