Devlog - Tropics 1.1, auxiliary buffer, NULL render

November 05, 2008

There is an updated version of Tropics demo 1.1 available now, main changes are performanse boost, added procedural grass and support of DirectX 10.1 multisampling features. Our web-server is experiencing heavy overload due to the fact, so please be patient while downloading the demo.

Recent changes:

  • New Auxiliary buffer (RGBA8) for different effects (e.g. you can store some object's masks there), it can be accessed from a postprocessing shader.
  • Fixed HDR bug with some rare configurations.
  • Pixel Shader Model 3.0 support is required now, so minimal supported hardware is ATI Radeon X1xxx / NVIDIA GeForce 6xxx from now on.
  • No more is*Available() functions in the render.
  • New console variable d3d10_render_use_alpha_test_level_1 for DirectX 10.1 AA.
  • 2D_Array textures are supported by Image class now.
  • Fixed terrain tool crashes on heavy meshes.
  • Fixed terrain seams.
  • Terrain speedup.
  • Restored clipmap material with unique material for the terrain (see below).
  • A new format of the terrain palette without borders, "palette" tool R.I.P.
  • Fixed too dark clouds in DirectX 10.
  • Correct detection of NVIDIA GTX 2xx series.
  • NULL render, which doesn't render anything (useful for server purposes).
  • New Terminal class to work with a text console.
  • Removed FMOD and xaudio2 support.
  • Translucence flag is splitted into two options for casting and receiving (it allows to avoid biases adjusting).
  • Fixed translucency in shadowed regions.
  • A function for setting composite material, default one is render_composite.
  • Foliage noise is reverted back on low shader profile.
  • Fixed enabling of disabled NodeRef's after reloading of a world.
  • Access to the list of filesystem's files.

Due to multiple requests we've got back old terrain material (with unique mapping) in addition to a new one, so now one can choose between them. Thus now there are two different materials available (if there is a mask, so it's a splattering material, if there is a diffuse clipmap, but no mask, so it's a climpaped one).