We have a new feature packed release of Skyline V0.6.4 hot off the press.
Physics:
This version sees the depreciation of the Bullet physics now replaced by PhysX, there are new rigid body actions complete with collision micro scripts, physX trigger volumes, the start of our Player controller set up for 3rd person and first person and super fast physics ray casting which over the next updates we will use in the new combat systems. All physics tests have out shone the bullet versions by nearly twice the performance and there are better physx debug lines to help you when setting up physics in your scene. Most of the physics lua commands stay the same and can be used as they were before.
Micro Script:
We see the introduction of the new micro script editor which speeds up coding simple and unique scripts. These micro scripts are saved with the scene entity and requires no lua file. This works alongside the file based script editor. The micro script editor has a snippet tool which saves time by adding events, commands and snippets of code to your object from a mouse click, we hope to expand on this content over time. Because the script is part of the object you can save this scripted object as a preset ready for reuse eg a flaming torch model with the micro script spawning a fire particle when you press the play button.
NavMesh:
We have a full nav mesh editor in place which also is designed to work with your terrains .This is the complete navigation system and over the next few weeks we will have full wandering NPC's complete with their physics controllers that will hook into this system for full object avoidance.
Please see the previous news post for feature images:http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/SDN/archives/1926
Many other new features include a LOD action, material editor upgrades some cool vegetation upgrades to make using vegetation more fun. The terrain now has a color tint paint layer to compliment the existing layers, this enables you to change the color of large texture areas to break it up or add a darker color around path edges, providing more variety with the existing textures. We have also added a few new tech demos as examples of some of the new features.
If you see anything in the editor marked with "**Dev**" means that this function is getting reworked and does not need testing yet as we are aware of any issues, but still feel free to play with it.
For a complete list of the many new feature and fixes please refer to the update log below:
- New: Entity - Lod System action, which allows up to 6 lods per entity.
- New: Entity - Lod action: choose a .mesh/.dae etc.. For each lod as well as set the distance the lod works from.
- New: Action: Entity -Lod : Camera Lod bias on the scene settings will allow you to control all lods in the scene.
- New: Action: UI-3D Label lets you add text above the parent object. Good for health numbers on an npc
- New: Post effect editor (free standing not in the bottom of the editor!)
- New: Post effect panel can toggled to stay on top from a tool button.
- New: Post Effect - Optimised Height Fog 150% faster than the prototype.
- New: Base Advanced material now switches to a basic material after 50 units(will become controllable in editor at some point but can be changed in the material script file.)
- New: Basic material closely matches base advanced material for diffuse and ambience.
- New: Material Editor allows any file to be worked instead of entity in scene.(Used in features only at the moment.)
- New: Micro scripts: these are full lua scripts that are stored with the scene or preset instead of having its own .lua script file. This makes scripts reusable and fast to make any object do a specific task quickly, e.g. using a sound when the object hits the ground or spawns a particle for a torchlight.
- New Micro Script system in trigger callbacks
- New Micro Script system in collision callbacks
- New: Micro script on the selected objects rmb context menu
- New: Lua command - entity.getName(objID) returns the scene entity name as it is in the scene list.
- New: Lua command - getActionID()
- New: Terrain Colormap Painting. This lets you paint all ranges of color across all texture layers.
- New: Terrain Colormap Painting Palette that saves and loads with your scene.
- New: Older out of date terrains can have their colormap activated using the menu>Tools>Terrain>Activate Colormap
- New: Basic Heightmap exporter implemented located on the terrain creation tab
- New: Terrain Vegetation now sprays on definable slope angles
- New: Terrain Vegetation now sprays on definable heights
- New: Edit Terrain Model Vegetation material using the material editor.
- New: Easily add any .mesh into the terrain vegetation model editor.
- New: Recast Navmesh integration.
- New: Skyline Navmesh editor that allows the addition and removal of tiles where you choose, fully customizable
- New: Skyline Navesh debug.
- New: Snapshot from full screen by pressing [shift + p]
- New: Third person character - drag from default preset library
- New: First person character - drag from default preset library
- Updated: Vegetation clear all button now has a catch from accidental clicks.
- Updated: Terrain Vegetation Scale, Slope, Height return values back to the editor.
- Fixed: billboards had clashes with render namespaces which may have caused strange behaviour.
- Fixed: On a new scene the terrain that was created with default settings used hard coded values not the ones in the editor.
- Fixed: Adding a new folder renamed the last scene entity selected.
- Fixed: Material Editor images loaders did not show .dds or .bmp images.
- Fixed: Crease shader works out side of dev environment
- Fixed: If frame rate was locked to 0fps, the system would crash, this is now fixed
- Fixed: Audio 2D now plays with out drop outs.
- Fixed: Script editor crashed system if opened/closed a few times, this is now fixed and stable.
- Fixed: Duplicating a scene entity did not update the selected item in the scene entity list. Now only the newly duplicated object shows as selected.
- Fixed: Vegetation Models can now be sprayed in projects
- Fixed: Attach weapons/Armour action don’t crash if applied to a non model or a model with no skeleton.
- Fixed: 4096 terrains do not need edited to work properly on load back.
- Fixed: Underscoring the front of a folder omits the folder/sub folders from being added to resources
- Bullet Physics Engine has been depreciated. Physx Physics Engine now takes its place. This should not have caused any issues other than if you have used the old bullet action, please set up your object with new physX version.
- New: PhysX Integration
- New: Character controller that works with the player camera action for creating most styles of characters for games.
- New: RigidBody action, this uses the static/dynamic properties as well as box, sphere, convex, mesh and capsule body types. It also contains options for allowing collision onTouch, onStay and onLeave per rigidbody.
- New: self contained trigger volume action with its own micro script.
- New: Full volumetric triggers and collision callback to lua script.
- New: Physics Raycast
- New: stack and throw actions are also remade for the physx library.
- New: Physics Ragdoll action, basic but works most of the time.
- New: Character controller that works with the player camera action for creating most styles of characters for games.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please ensure you copy your preset thumbnails if you have added your own as the install will over right them and they will be lost forever! Once the new Skyline is installed you can then copy your thumbnails back to their folder. You can find your thumbnails here Data\Thumbnails\Presets.
Downloads:
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.001
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.002
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.003
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.004
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.005
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.006
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.007
http://www.chi-ad.com/Skyline/downloads123/Skyline_SDK_0_6_4_Installer_x86.7z.008
Note: As usual you may experience some new bugs, please post your findings to the forum complete with an explanation on the process used to make it fail.
Your Skyline Developer Team
Enjoy!