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CopperCube 3.0 released

niko
Moderator
Quote
2011-10-01 07:19:31

Hi,

a new major release of CopperCube is available now, version 3.0. This one includes a lot of new features: It adds dynamic lights for all targets, plugins, JavaScript as language for for Mac .app and Windows .exe, polygon editing tools in the editor, audio for WebGL target, double sided materials, new actions, improved model viewer camera, better 3rd person camera for indoor scenes, improved file importers, better WebGL performance, and much, much more. See the detailed change list below.

Get the new version here: http://www.ambiera.com/coppercub...

🔎︎


If you already have CopperCube 2, you can update to CopperCube 3 with a -60% discount, simply enter the last 4 letters of your existing license key in the 'coupon code' field of the buy now page. If you bought CopperCube 2 within the last 2 months, just contact us (see company -> contact), you'll get it a bit cheaper still.

Note that there are a lot of new Demos showing the new features in action: http://www.ambiera.com/coppercub...


niko
Moderator
Quote
2011-10-01 07:20:05

Detailed change list:

- Dynamic light is now supported on all targets, including WebGL and Flash (molehill version only).
On those two platforms, up to 4 dynamic lights are used per model at the same time, but you can
of course use more than that in a scene.

- CopperCube now supports plugins. The creation and using of little helpers in the editor to make your work easier. Plugins can manipulate 3d geometry in the scene, import 3d file formats, setup and modify 3d scenes, adjust material settings and more. Plugins are written in JavaScript, there is a page about this including some examples in the documentation.

- The scripting language for the Mac OS X .app and Windows .exe targets is no longer Squirrel: It has been replaced by JavaScript. The API (the function names and calls) are still the same and converting to JavaScript should be easy, because the syntax is very similar. Squirrel is no longer supported.

- There is now a new main tab in the editor, named 'Polygon Editing'. It contains tools to edit triangles, points and UV coordinates of static meshes. It is intended to be used to correct errors in imported models, but can also be used as Low Poly modelling tool to create
new 3d models from the ground up.

- The lighting model in CopperCube has been redesigned.
Lighting also now works perfectly when using OpenGL, and looks the same on D3D as on OpenGL. Due to these various dynamic light updates, the lightmapper also has been updated to match the new
calculation methods. If you are reusing an old scene from CopperCube 2, you probably need to update the radius setting of your lights.

- There are a lot of new functions in the API for the Mac OS X .app and Windows .exe targets, for example for accessing and manipulating the 3D geometry (vertices, texture coordinates etc) of the scene. See the javascript reference in the documentation for details.

- The WebGL target now supports audio output. 3D sound as well as playing sounds via Actions works. 3D sound is still a bit limited due to shortcomings in the HTML 5 audio API.

- When publishing to WebGL, Internet Explorer is now supported as well. Although this browser doesn't support WebGL, you can run your apps now perfectly using the IEWebGL plugin. There is also now a copperlicht_ie.js file available on our website to help you using CopperLicht in InternetExplorer, see the FAQ for this.

- There is now the option to show a frames per second counter for all targets. See the 'general' page in the publishing options for this.

- All materials can now be double-sided. For this, there is an 'Advanced Settings' option now in the material window for each channel. Note: This has only effects on rendering, collision
will not be affected by this.

- Because the scripting language for the Mac OS X .app and Windows .exe targets is now JavaScript, the "Execute JavaScript" action now also works there.

- The wire frame mode in the editor now has been a bit cleaned up and looks nicer.

- The default publishing setting when using the Flash target is now Molehill/Stage3D. You can however switch to the old (and slow) Flash player rendering in the publishing settings.

- There is a new action to load an store variables. In this way, you can create simple 'savegames' for your apps.

- The model viewer camera behavior now has the option so specify a sliding value, so that the camera still slightly moves when the mouse has finished moving.

- The third person camera now uses much less performance for its collision detection and also works much better now in indoor scenes, especially when it collides against nearby walls. Additionally,
it doesn't shake anymore when positioned between two very close walls.
Note: if you are using a third person camera from a previous project, remove the 'Collide when moved' behavior from the camera. For the 'third person camera style controlled' behavior, there is now a checkbox 'collides with world'.

(continued below)


niko
Moderator
Quote
2011-10-01 07:20:31

(continued change list:)

- The editor now has a 'recent file' list, to quickly open one of the last used files.

- Bullet scene nodes shot by the 'Shoot' action now get rotated into the direction of the shooting.

- In the WebGL target, pressing keys assigned to behaviors or actions like camera controllers will no longer cause that key presses to propagate to the browser, causing it to for example scroll unwantedly.

- In the shooting action, there is now an optional action possible to define which should be executed once the bullet impacts a wall. Useful fow playing an impact sound, for example.

- Added support for the latest OGRE mesh file format (MeshSerializer_v1.41). Also, CopperCube now is able to import animated meshes in the OGRE file format. This is still beta and might have a few bugs, so
when importing animated meshes, the ogre file format will not appear in the file extension filter list, but you can select and load ogre meshes anyway.

- Embedded sounds in the flash target are now better supported. You can now use a wider range of mp3 formats and bitrates.

- There is a new tutorial in the documentation, showing how to create a third person camera.

- 2D Overlays used as buttons in the Flash Target now behave exactly as they do in the other targets: Hovering is controlled by the 'AnimateOnHover' flag. Also, buttons now correctly disappear in the flash target when switching the scene.

- Fixed a bug in the Follow Path Behavior, which always ignored the time displacement value.

- Fixed a bug causing OpenGL not to run as fast on the windows publishing target

- Fixed a bug in firefox: When playing animated meshes in a WebGL scene, firefox got slower and slower. This is caused by a memory leak bug in firefox, but the engine is now aware of this and improves the situation.

- Fixed bug with dxf file import filter in the open dialog

- Fixed the following bug: When a static mesh had the collision behavior and collision for it was enabled, it collided against itself.

- Fixed a bug where the changed aspect ratio and FOV of cameras is ignored in special circumstances in Flash and WebGL.

- Fixed a bug causing the look target not to work in FPS cameras when there is a Model Viewer camera in the same scene, in WebGL and Flash.


TimJ
Guest
Quote
2011-10-02 13:11:21

Great! Just upgraded.
Thanks for the release!


bjacob
Registered User
Quote
2011-10-02 15:35:58

- Fixed a bug in firefox: When playing animated meshes in a WebGL scene, firefox got slower and slower. This is caused by a memory leak bug in firefox, but the engine is now aware of this and improves the situation.


If you really found a memory leak bug in Firefox, rather than just working around it, please report it to bugzilla.mozilla.org and CC me [:bjacob] on it.


bjacob
Registered User
Quote
2011-10-02 15:38:14

And from your description, let me ask this question: when you want to discard a WebGLBuffer, do you just let the WebGLBuffer variable go out of scope, or do you call webgl.deleteBuffer? WebGL requires you to do explicit memory management when you repeatedly create and destroy objects, that's why webgl.deleteBuffer and friends exist.


niko
Moderator
Quote
2011-10-02 18:32:28

Nope, I tried both, deleteBuffer as well as let all references go to zero. (Im a C++ programmer, so I'm used to do manual memory management anyway). Chrome doesn't have that problem, so I guess it is firefox specific. Last time I checked, I found a similar bug in bugzilla, so I think it might be there already. But I'll check soon again.


bjacob
Registered User
Quote
2011-10-03 00:04:45

I would really, really like to fix this bug if it exists. Or at least please show me a test case and why you think there's a leak.


kurtmel
Registered User
Quote
2011-10-03 19:47:46

Outstanding!!! Unfortunately, being behind a military firewall, it blocks the outbound browser communication and you have flash detection enabled for flash 11 player (Which I have) but the webpage will never get any message back

Also, if I sent you a message from my .mil e-mail, would it be possible to get a link to a zipped up version of the new release, for we can't download .exe files either from behind the firewall.

I'm looking forward to working with this version, I know the US DoD will upgrade flash to 11 within a few months after its actual release so give me some time to try and get Copercube certified for DoD use. Any effort made at trying to get a US distributor for Coppercube to use as a contact address for trying to get Coppercube certified?

Let me know via my .mil e-mail if you recall it. Great news on the JavaScript vs. squirrel as well, great move, looking forward to all the improvements.

I hadn't looked it up, but did you ever fix the display issue with the shifted moved axis?

But, great work - really looking forward to working with it.


niko
Moderator
Quote
2011-10-03 20:56:35

wrote:
I would really, really like to fix this bug if it exists. Or at least please show me a test case and why you think there's a leak.

I'll see what I can do. Will take a few days, though, sorry.

@kurtmel: The flash player detection on this website is only for printing the warning, it is actually ignored, and the flash player is statically embedded in the website. Maybe your problem really is what you thought, that Flash Player 11 is not yet officially released (to be done by Adobe in the next few days, I guess), currently there is only the beta version available.

About the shifted axis: No, sorry, I wasn't really able to reproduce it, but it is still on the TODO list, low priority though, since you were the only one reporting that. As I recall, switching to another Driver (Software, OpenGL, D3D) fixed the issue, correct?


kurtmel
Registered User
Quote
2011-10-04 00:10:05

That's OK Niko, I'll try to download it from home and it should be fine, nevermind about the ZIP version.

I've got to get the education version for 3 now anyway for doing my school research, is the education/student discount still the same?

Could you do as before and send me the code or correct link to purchase with the education discount?

Thanks - keep up the great work!!


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