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Author Topic: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 4 (September 9, 2007)  (Read 31525 times)

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Mnemonic

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Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 4 (September 9, 2007)
« on: July 08, 2007, 10:43:31 PM »

Hello wintermuties,

after some struggle, I'm glad to present you with WME 1.8 beta. This is a betaversion, so be careful and expect bugs. Be sure to backup your project before installing the beta. See below for more details.

Any comments are welcome.

Enjoy ::slug


DOWNLOAD: WME 1.8 beta 4 Installer (17MB)

WME 1.8 beta 4 (September 9, 2007) - list of changes
  • Changes to animation handling for 3D characters:
    • The StopAnim() method now accepts an optional transition time.
    • There is a new actor3D.AnimStopTransitionTime property for specifying the time it takes to transition back to default pose once animation ends.
    • Non-looping animations played using the PlayAnimChannel() method no longer get stuck at final frame.
  • New Game.GetFileChecksum() method for calculating a checksum (CRC32) of a specified file (useful for copy protection schemes).
  • String tables now accept space as a separator, not only tabs.
  • WME Integrator now also supports UEStudio.
  • The numpad + and - keys in SceneEdit now also work for adding waypoints, not only region vertices.
  • Changed the way method calls are terminated (see this forum thread for a detailed description). Since this is a potentially breaking change, it's possible to restore the previous behavior using the "Compatibility" property in ProjectMan.
  • FIX: WindowEdit can now load TGA images.
  • FIX: WindowEdit now handles erroneous .window files gracefully.
  • FIX: Fixed many hard-to-replicate crash bugs reported by users using the new crash reporting feature. Keep the reports coming!

WME 1.8 beta 3 (July 29, 2007) - list of changes
  • New WindowEdit tool for editing windows, inventory boxes and response boxes.
  • FIX: Occasional texture corruption on bitmap fonts (new in 1.8 beta 1).

WME 1.8 beta 2 (July 19, 2007) - list of changes
  • New format for 2D actors definition file. It allows you to define any number of named animation sets. The animation sets can be then switched at runtime using the new actor.IdleAnimName, actor.WalkAnimName, actor.TalkAnimName, actor.TurnLeftAnimName and actor.TurnRightAnimName properties. Additionally you can load new animation sets at runtime using the actor.MergeAnims() method and unload them using the actor.UnloadAnim() method. The actor.PlayAnim() method now accepts either a script filename or an animation set name. Basically all this is an effort to make 2D actors handling more flexible and more similar to the 3D actors model.
  • New scene methods and properties for querying lights and 3D nodes: Scene.NumLights, Scene.GetLightName(), Scene.IsLightEnabled(), Scene.IsNode3DEnabled().
  • New method for storing the saved game thumbnail (i.e. you can now specify the exact moment when to take the screenshot if you need to, instead of letting the engine do it automatically) - Game.StoreSaveThumbnail(). Similarly, the Game.DeleteSaveThumbnail() can be used to release the stored thumbnail.
  • New 3D actor methods for checking if an animation is playing: actor3D.IsAnimPlaying(), actor3D.IsAnimChannelPlaying().
  • New 3D actor methods for specifying animation transition time for various animation pairs: actor3D.SetAnimTransitionTime(), actor3D.GetAnimTransitionTime().
  • New 3D actor property for specifying which channel to use for talking animations: actor3D.TalkAnimChannel.
  • New global functions for working with the HSL color model (Hue, Saturation, Luminance): MakeHSL(), GetHValue(), GetSValue(), GetLValue() (requested for easier changing of light intensity).
  • New debugging options in ProjectMan. You can now specify  that you want to include the crash reporting library with the compiled games and that you want the FPS display / debug mode to be enabled for the compiled games. It's useful for building alpha/beta versions of the game.
  • New "copy as is" file filter in ProjectMan, which specifies that certain file types aren't included in game packages, but rather copied to the output directory. Useful for TrueType fonts and AVI videos.
  • ProjectMan now displays short help for all the project options.
  • Windows Vista integration support. WME games can now be integrated in Vista's Game Explorer. The changes are too numerous to be listed here. Please see the "Windows Vista support" chapter in the documentation for a detailed description.
  • FIX: Scene.EnableLight() was broken (new in 1.8 beta 1).
  • FIX: WME didn't display the missing DLL error when run from ProjectMan (new in 1.8 beta 1).
  • FIX: Crash on missing X models (new in 1.8 beta 1).
  • FIX: Leaving the FOV field in SceneEdit didn't update the scene view (new in 1.8 beta 1).
  • FIX: Wrong icons for some WME files in Windows Explorer (new in 1.8 beta 1).

WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007) - list of changes
     
  • WME is now available in two versions, Direct3D 8 and Direct3D 9. You can select which version of the runtime should be used in project settings in ProjectMan. See the discussion below for more details.
  • New option "Hardware T&L" in ProjectMan to enable hardware accelerated transform and lighting for 3D models. See the discussion below for more details.
  • New property Game.MaxActiveLights which returns the maximum number of lights supported by video card.
  • New property Game.HardwareTL to check whether the game is using hardware transform and lighting.
  • Optimized rendering speed of tiled images, bitmap fonts and particles.
  • New property Game.StartupScene and a corresponding setting in ProjectMan. The standard template now takes advantage of this property instead of hardcoding the filename of the scene.
  • New Scene event SceneShutdown which is triggered just before the scene is about to be changed.
  • New WME crash reporting library which can upload crash details to a database or send it by email. Please upload crash reports so that common crash causes can be analyzed and fixed.
  • Direct keyboard movement for 3D characters now also works for scenes with 2D blocked regions.
  • New "Require sound" option in ProjectMan. If enabled the game will not run without a sound card (can be used for games which heavily rely on sound design).
  • New method Scene.GetLightColor() for querying the color of a 3D light.
  • Manual changing of camera FOV in SceneEdit.
  • FIX: Custom scene properties were not reset on scene transitions.
  • FIX: Compiled game packages were sometimes referencing more files than how many they actually contained.
  • FIX: The check-boxes in the settings dialog no longer disappear when pressing the Alt key in XP/Vista.
  • FIX: When using multiple particle sprites the particle emitter was always choosing only one of them.
  • FIX: The engine no longer issues absolute path warnings when working with personal saved games stored in "Documents and Settings" folder.

Q&A
Q: Should I install the beta version?
A: Well, there's no point in releasing beta versions if no one is testing them. But of course, if you aren't comfortable with using beta versions, then don't. In any case, please don't distribute games compiled with a beta version of WME runtime.

Q: Can I reinstall the previous version?
A: Yes, but if you enable some of the new options in ProjectMan, the previous version won't be able to load your game.

Q: Why Direct3D 9? What's the benefit?
A: Quite frankly, there's not much of a benefit at the moment. There should be some performance increase when using hardware T&L (see below). But mainly the Direct3D 9 version of the engine brings more possibilities for the future, such as the access to high-level shader language (HLSL), which was impossible with D3D8. Also, the "Games for Windows" guidelines require games to use D3D9.

Q: When I'm trying to run the Direct3D 9 version of the engine, it complains about a missing library D3DX9_34.DLL. Why's that?
A: You will need to update your DirectX runtime installation to the latest version. Use the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. It will automatically recognize what needs to be updated and download only the necessary files.

Q: So if my game uses Direct3D 9, the users will need to update their DirectX too? That sucks!
A: Yes, unfortunately that's the way Microsoft updates DirectX lately. If you're distributing your game on CD, include the latest version of DirectX runtime installer (June 2007). If you're distributing your game online, direct the players to the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer.

Q: What's hardware T&L?
A: It stands for hardware transform and lighting. It moves some 3D calculations from CPU to video card, which improves performance. Most video cards made in the last 8 years support hardware T&L.

Q: Should I enable hardware T&L for my game?
A: It depends. There's no benefit for 2D games. For 2.5D games, however, hardware T&L can significantly improve performance, especially when using models with high polygon count.

Q: Sounds good. What's the catch?
A: When using hardware T&L, the maximum number of active lights in a scene is limited by the capabilities of a video card. Typically there can be up to 8 active lights in a scene (compared to unlimited lights when using software T&L). Depending on the design of your scenes, enabling hardware T&L can change their lighting. Even though WME tries to compensate the problem by automatically choosing the nearest lights for each 3D characters, the results may or may not look good. Therefore it's the developers responsibility to decide whether hardware T&L will work with their game or not.
For new games it's recommended to design scenes with the limited number of lights in mind.

Q: Will there be more beta versions?
A: Most likely, yes. There are more features scheduled for WME 1.8, but I wanted to release the current version for public testing.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2007, 09:10:43 AM by Mnemonic »
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2007, 11:08:34 PM »

Amazing! Congratulations. I'm off to test it NOW! :)  ::beer ::beer ::beer
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2007, 03:31:40 PM »

Yeaaaaaaah. Hardware T&L! We are going to test it.

Erm:
"...brings more possibilities for the future, such as the access to high-level shader language (HSLS)... "
Which actually means... Reflections?  ::beer

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2007, 04:16:52 PM »

Ok, some short feedback.
When activating the Direct3d 9 option, the game can't be started in debug mode. No idea how it would be in compiled mode, as creating a new build would last a little time.
Activating the HW T&L decreased the framerate about 30 frames.
Hope you find the information usefull.

Regards

Amo

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2007, 04:46:35 PM »

What does "can't be started" mean? It displays some error, it crashes, it doesn't do anything? What's in the log?
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2007, 04:48:45 PM »

It doesn't do anything and the logs aren't updated. Clicking on the icon results in nothing, not even the game settings window opens.

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2007, 04:53:26 PM »

Are you sure your Direct3D 9 installation is updated to the latest version? (using the web installer linked above).

Also, everyone, I included a wrong version of the crash reporting library with beta 1, so I'm gonna re-upload the installer in a moment.
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2007, 05:22:52 PM »

It is 9.0c, I check the web installer.

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2007, 05:27:36 PM »

Yes, please check it. 9.0c is not enough. It must be 9.0c June 2007 (thanks again, Microsoft! ::))
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #9 on: July 09, 2007, 06:39:10 PM »

It works fine now. Ok, I had to convert all texture maps to a power of 2, otherwise they weren't corrently mapped on the characters, but thats no problem, as it was planned for the refining phase, so it is done now.

The performance is awesome! Hope I can support you with some "numbers" how many fps we have more now.

regards

Amo

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2007, 08:48:02 PM »

Cool. Some numbers would be indeed helpful :) Thanks.
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2007, 09:07:55 PM »

Here we go.

First, the machine specs:
P4 3Ghz
2Gb RAM
GeForce 6600GT

Scene specs:
3 actors
29 scripts
about 12 000 Polys

Without HW T&L 70fps
With      HW T&L 100fps

The rest of our scenes run with hardware acceleration on 160-170fps.

Regards

Martin

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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2007, 10:31:18 AM »

Thanks...
Real performance increase with D3d9+Htl
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #13 on: July 10, 2007, 10:44:46 AM »

Athlon x2 3800
1GB ram
Gforce 7600GT

On a scene with 100 sprites,14 3d actor,120 scripts running and a total of 33000 polys(custom built scene for the test)
20 fps before
With d3d9 HarwareTL i get 30 fps 


« Last Edit: July 10, 2007, 10:59:25 AM by leucome »
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Re: Latest beta: WME 1.8 beta 1 (July 8, 2007)
« Reply #14 on: July 10, 2007, 11:03:56 AM »

Thanks, leucome.
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