Devlog - Introducing hierarchy of node properties

July 16, 2008

What's new:

  • Hierarchy of node properties (read more below).
  • Underlaying material for reflections.
  • Console commands now can be created by means of UnigineScript.
  • Variables content can be accessed via [] operator, there are new __set__ and __get__ class memebers to be overloaded for [] access.
  • Adjustable precision of mesh data for 3dsMax export plugin (snap to grid).
  • Friction and restitution parameters are moved into base properties library.
  • Filesystem speedup.
  • A file inside 'data' directory can be access very fast now, if its name doesn't contain 'data/' prefix.
  • Fixed LWO format loader.
  • New format of world files: material name should be in 'material' attribute of 'surface' tag (old format will be supported for some time still; re-save world to update its format).
  • Removed 'deprecate.mat' material library, there is no more mesh_detail_base (use mesh_base instead of it).
  • Great speedup of scripts compling (it is almost 4 times faster now).
  • Fixed reflection masks.
  • Cube filtering of ambient maps.
  • Stereo launchers dynamically load DirectX libraries now.
  • Removed FreeBSD building rules due to very low demand on FreeBSD support.
  • Automatic generation of focus cycling order for UI.
  • reflection_adjust parameter for cube reflection for fine tuning.
  • Almost all memory leaks are eliminated, there are only 3 unfreed pointers left.
  • Added time.h (for correct sun position according to a given time) to the core scripts set.
  • Added sun movement into 'water' demo.
  • WorldTrigger can work with predefined set of nodes (if the list is empty, all nodes are taken into account).
  • Correct work of tabbing in WidgetEditText.
  • Simple syntax highlight in built-in text editor.
  • New ALIGN_BACKGROUND flag for separating widgets by rendering order (work only for WidgetVBox).
  • WidgetManipulator takes care about step of snap.
  • New icons in UnigineEditor.
  • Fixed annoying 'invalid operation' error in OpenGL.
  • Snap to grid for moving and rotating objects (set grid step in 'Tools' window).

Node properties is a general purpose mechanism for adding some custom properties to objects (like game-specific parameters and so on), they can be set per-surface. Properties set can be flexibly adjusted for a project, see data/core/properties/unigine.prop as an example, the system is very similar to our visual materials. Use 'o' hotkey to access properties window in UnigineEditor.

Some notes regarding changes in development environment:

  • Unigine_Externs pack is updated, all 3rd-party code is moved there
  • All .lib files provided with Unigine_Externs are for Visual Studio 2008, older ones can be found in 'vs2005' subfolders
  • Recommended SCons version is 0.97