Devlog - Physical force fields, particles improvements and Softimage plugin

December 10, 2009

Physics:

  • New PhysicalForce, PhysicalWind and PhysicalWater objects (simulation of viscous medium, buoyancy and resistance forces).
  • Fluid buoyancy for all physical shapes.
  • Added a set of samples with physical force fields and a rope sample.
  • JointPin can attach cloth to ragdolls.
  • Physics visualizers are now shown only with the editor loaded.
  • Particle systems are now affected by force fields.
  • Fixed velocity calculation for ragdolls transformed with setVelocityTransform() function.
  • Added 'world_show_physicals' console variable.

Particles:

  • New Chain type of particles for shift emitters to generate a seamless flow.
  • Particles reset emitter parameters on disabling/enabling of the node.
  • Some renaming in world/node files: 'stretch' -> 'length_stretch' and 'point_force' -> 'force' (run upgrade.py script to convert your data). This affected ObjectParticles API as well.
  • Removed 'emitter_velocity' and 'emitter_scale' parameters from the particle systems; added slightly different 'emitter_direction' and 'emitter_spread' instead.

Chain particle systems affected by force fields: Chain particles
Chain particles

Other stuff:

  • Export plugins for Softimage 2010 (static geometry, skinned mesh animation).
  • Fixed AppWindow in Linux: it provides the same keycodes regardless of the current key layout.
  • Fixed node type filter in UnigineEditor.
  • Refactored tessellation shaders; there is some performance improvement.
  • Added 'post_filter_rgb2yuv' post-process filter that is useful for TV broadcasting.
  • Improved Unigine::Image C++ API: added more functions for image processing.
  • Added WidgetSpriteShader object, which can be used with a custom shader for post-process material.
  • Added Unigine::ObjectMeshDynamic::updateIndices() function.
  • Shadow objects force node update, there will be no shadow stalls.
  • Timestamps in log files.
  • WorldTransformExpression is renamed to WorldExpression.
  • Refactored stereo 3D launchers, now they can are not limited to dual view mode.
  • Adding array of visible nodes into the world is possible via UnigineScript.
  • Swizzling is now available in UnigineScript for functions; foo().x and foo()[2] is acceptable now.
  • Added EngineAnalyzer system, output can be seen via 'engine_analyze' console command.
  • Fixed occluders rasterizator.
  • All GUI fonts have anisotropy enabled now.
  • Updated documentation on particle systems ("Principles of Operation / Objects / Particle systems" section of the manual).
  • Updated article on blending in materials ("Content Creation / Materials Overview / Blending Options").

Softimage export plugin GUI (see documentation for more information on options):
Softimage export plugin GUI