Development log

Recent changes:

• New cross-API sound framework.
• Wrappers for OpenAL/FMOD/XAudio2.
• New WorldSource and AmbientSource classes for sound in the framework.
• Rollback to alpha7 version of Theora, beta seems to be too buggy.
• Improvements of C++ API, now it's possible to work with UnigineScript's arrays.
• Image framework now allows rotation of an image, it's very useful for cubemaps.
• Fixed lack of HSV accuracy for image dialog.
• Additional render optimizations (less CPU cache thrashing).
• Updated stereo launchers.
• Support of 3DNow! technology in the framework.
• Interpreter optimizations (Variable is more compact now, vec/mat/quat parameters are passed more optimal also).
• RichText now can be expanded.
• ObjectGui and ObjectGuiMesh cannot load UI files anymore, they simply provide an interface for GUI object.
• Separators in WidgetMenuBox.
• Open menu can be hidden by a click of any mouse button.
• XML parser now skips EF BB BF sequence at the beginning of the file in order to be more compliant with Unicode standarts.
• Fixed old UnigineEditor bug with moving nodes up/down in the list.
• Node instancing framework in UnigineEditor.
• Updated MPEG video grabber for new ffmpeg.
• C++ API documentation update.

It seems that the new sound system is close to be completed. Unfortunatelly there are a lot of bugs in OpenAL, some of them are really stupid ones. Another headache is different reverberation models in different APIs, there can hardly be API-independent settings.

What's new:

• DirectX 10.1 support (d3d10_render_use_feature_level_1 console variable, it's enabled by default; means that comparison sampling from texture arrays for cube and world lights is used).
• Support of MS Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition.
• New object for dynamic sky: ObjectSky (2 surfaces, 2 cubemaps with RGBE support, 2 layers of clouds).
• Shadowing by clouds of ObjectSky.
• Modulation of dynamic irradiance environment maps by ambient map.
• Geometry duplication via geometry shaders for rendering of cube and world shadow maps (it works really fast on ATI).
• Workaround for shadow biases (they are broken in ATI Direct3D10 drivers at the moment, the bug is submitted).
• R600-specific optimizations.
• Support of 16f and 32f image formats, loading of *.HDR files.
• Fixed ATI2 normals.
• Fair light scattering for reflections.
• SpriteVideo YUV output with shader-based conversion into RGB for ObjectGui and ObjectGuiMesh (it reduces CPU load while playing multiple videos).
• Dynamic access to textures by means of UnigineScript (e.g. for generation of procedural textures).
• KEY_PRESSED callbacks for WidgetEditLine and WidgetEditText.
• Saving of screenshots in different file formats (video_extension console variable, TGA is used by default).
• Fixed Alt-Tab issue with fullscreen mode on Direct3D9.
• Documentation updates: "Content Creation / Animation" and "Programming / Typical Architecture of a Unigine-Based Application" articles.

There is a funny thing with ATI2 components swapping on different cards and APIs (if you don't take it into account, there are artifacts):

	R500	R600	NV40	NV50
OpenGL	YX (3dc)	YX (3dc)	XY (la)	XY (latc)
Direct3D9	YX	YX	YX	YX
Direct3D10		XY		XY

We hope our render to be completed for several months, it is already on the most bleeding edge. Sound module and physics improvements are the following.

Recent changes:

• New Phong-rim material is now a default one for meshes.
• Full support of Xbox 360 gamepad.
• Support of standart PC joysticks and wheels (no force feedback is available yet).
• Fixed clip planes for all APIs (no more problems with 2D reflections).
• Optimization of shadow map memory usage.
• GUI refactoring, all widget classes now have "Widget" prefix, like WidgetVBox (use deprecate.h for backward compatibility).
• Visual limits of suspension travel in JointWheel.
• New WidgetMenuBox and WidgetMenuBar widgets.
• Mask buffers for GUI rendering (WidgetSprite).
• Fixed reading of empty string arrays from XML.
• Dedicated thread for networking in the engine.
• New Packet class for parallel data transfer in the thread.
• Added a lot of articles in "Content Creation / Materials" section of the documentation.

Here is a screenshot from the small racing demo, which will be included into Unigine SDK soon (there are both types of gear box available, physics interaction of objects, and some GUI elements, including minimap and speedometer):