0.1.0

Real-time cube maps

Realtime cube maps are used to reproduce dynamic reflections of an object by rendering the scene from its position in six faces of a cube map. The real-time cube map requests to use an exisiting texture with a proper size for cube maps. The image is used in a new environment texture sub type named Realtime. The UI of this sub type is mostly the same as the type Animated:

The only options added are the Auto Update, which allow the user to disard update other than in the first frame. And the option Filtering, which specify the texture filtering method used. The list is:

Mipmap Filtering call a regeneration of all the mipmaps every render. Linear Filtering simply use a texture filtering without mipmaps. And None set none filtering or mipmaps.

Examples of realtime cube maps usages:

Real-time cube maps are also exposing a python proxy class named KX_CubeMap. The cube map is accessed from a material texture with:

BL_Texture.cubeMap

The KX_CubeMap class exposes the same attributes than in the UI:

KX_CubeMap.autoUpdate
KX_CubeMap.viewpointObject
KX_CubeMap.ignoreLayers
KX_CubeMap.clipStart
KX_CubeMap.clipEnd

Excepted for the attribut:

KX_CubeMap.enabled

It enables or not the rendering even if KX_CubeMap.autoUpdate is to true.

And the function:

KX_CubeMap.update()

This function calls to render the real-time cube map for the next frame when KX_CubeMap.autoUpdate is to false.

Video Tutorial

See also: KX_CubeMap and BL_Texture

Percentage closer filtering shadow

Percentage closer filtering (PCF) is a shadow graphic technic which average multiple samples of a shadow map with a small gap. This technic allow to made soft edge of hard shadow, but it don't replace variance shadow mapping (VSM).

PCF is a filtering technic requiring a render with a simple shadow map. Two filtering modes for simple shadows are exposed: PCF and PCF Early Bail. The first mode is the regular PCF algorithm. The second mode is the PCF with a optimization which consists in discarding sampling when the four first samples are of the same value. It reduces render time but can create some artifacts in shadow edge cut.

The options related to PCF and PCF Early Bail exposed in the UI are:

Samples, the number of samples in heigh and width, equal to the squared root of the total samples count. Soft the gap between samples depending of the shadow map size.

For example a shadow without PCF looks like:

With PCF, samples to 4 and soft to 0.3:

With samples to 16 and soft to 1.0:

Soft particle

Soft particle (or Depth transparency) is a graphic technique used to avoid geometry cut between transparency meshes and opaque meshes. It simply multiply the transparency depending of the depth to the closest surface.

The UI is the following:

The option Depth Transparency enables the special render. Depth Factor is the influence of the depth in the transparency.

Without depth transparency the render is:

With depth transparency and a factor of 0.2:

With a factor of 5.0:

New joystick support

The joystick management was refactored. This refactor allow to keep compatibility between joystickS for the buttons name and axis. But the compatibility with previous joystick sensor is broken. The UI of this sensor is now:

As the buttons now had a name, the button index is removed to a list of buttons. The list is:

The event types handled for joysticks are mostly the same as before:

In the same way, the refactor implement the auto detection of removed and added joystick at runtime.

Joystick vibration

Joystick vibration is a very simple effect send to the joystick to rumble. The effect is send through an actuator and takes two parameters: Strength, an arbitrary value between 0 and 1. Duration, the duration of the effect in ms.

The UI of the vibration actuator is:

Geometry shaders

Geometry shader allows the user to set a custom program alterating the geometry of a renders mesh by adding, removing, ect... vertices. The geometry shader (or program) is sent to an instance of BL_Shader to a new function used to send programs:

BL_Shader.setSourceList(sources)

Where sources is a python dictionnary containing all the programs for the keys vertex, fragment and geometry corresponding to the program prefixed the same.

For example:

sources = {
    "vertex" : vertexProgram,
    "fragment" : fragmentProgram,
    "geometry" : geometryProgram
}
BL_Shader.setSourceList(sources, apply)

See also: BL_Shader.setSourceList

Off screen render

Off screen rendering consists in render the scene directly to a off screen (FBO with color texture and depth texture) and at the frame end render the off screen to screen. Internally a lot of things are improved and simplified like the 2d filters, render textures and soft particles.

From the user point of view, two things changed in the UI:

The option AA Samples is the same as standalone player, but doesn't request to restart blender.

The HDR option is to control the image format of the off screen. None is GL_RGBA8, Half GL_RGBA_16F and Full GL_RGBA_32F.

As render to texture is now obligated to use an off screen. The python OffScreen class was removed in the purpose of multiple arguments in the ImageRender and ImageMirror constructor.

The constructors are now:

ImageRender(scene, camera, width, height, samples)
ImageMirror(scene, observer, mirror, material=0, width, height, samples)

The arguments width, height and samples are optional.

Variable vertex memory size

A new system with template vertex class is used internally. This system allows to reduce memory usage by reducing the number of UV layers used, in the same way the mesh transformation are optimized. The only side effect in the user point of view is that he will not acces anymore to an inexisting uv layer from the KX_VertexProxy python class.

Per material storage settings

The user is now able to set a rendering storage per material and not globally per scene. In the UI, similar setting related to render storage than in scene are added in the Game Settings material sub panel. The only option added it the mode is named Scene Default. This mode is reusing the render storage settings from the scene.

The UI is:

Object culling state

The culling state of an object is exposed in python thanks to the variable:

KX_GameObject.culled

The value returned by this attribut is valid only in scene callback KX_Scene.pre_draw and KX_Scene.post_draw, not KX_Scene.pre_draw_setup.

See also: KX_GameObject.culled

Blenderplayer python main script override

Blenderplayer now accepts to receive an override python main script from the command line after the argument -p. For example:

blenderplayer -p script.py file.blend

Billboard object rotation

Object rotation is now taken in account for objects with billboard material. It allows the user to choose the billboard axis by rotating the Z axis (which is used for the billboard) to the X axis for example.

Refactors and clean up

• Remove GEMAT_TEXT. (see #13abc63)
• Allocate KX_CollisionContactPointList on stack instead of heap. (see #600eaed)
• Implement MT_Matrix[3x3/4x4]::Identity(). (see #cb0d42b)
• Use GPUBuffer in RAS_InstancingBuffer. (see #b585b4a)
• Optimization in SetViewMatrix about negative scale. (see #399ffc4)
• Add ostream operator for RAS_Rect. (see #7e9dc15)
• Remove files MT_[Point[2/3]/Tuple[2/3/4]].[h/cpp]. (see #8aa70f5)
• Use GPUShader in RAS_Shader. (see #82b8573)
• Add a notifier to update material when we create a new texture. (see #8129f1d)
• Implement CListValue for cameras and fonts. (see #3bdba40)
• Add lodbias option for world textures. (see #2e2c55b)
• Move render overlay plane in class RAS_OpenGLRasterizer::ScreenPlane. (see #f6e98bd)
• Move OglDebugShape and RayCastTranform in private RAS_OpenGLRasterizer. (see #a24a277)
• Remove KX_Dome. (see #fdadae1)
• Set the window on top at python interpreter end. (see #5a35942)
• Print message when launch python interpreter. (see #212def9)
• Restore anisotropic filtering value in LA_Launcher instead of RAS_OpenGLRasterizer. (see #a7ed66a)
• Remove 2d filter vertex transformation. (see #6b47c01)
• Remove bgl_LuminanceTexture. (see #7fba3fd)
• Remove GLEW_ARB_multitexture and GLEW_ARB_vertex_program checks. (see #02f4248)
• Use data_to_c_simple instead of STRINGIFY for built in 2d filters. (see #9e3b5a4)
• Explicitly convert stereo mode from blender to game. (see #fb7cdb4)
• Remove viewport bounding box gray clear. (see #6df1e38)
• Implement memory and gpu debug option in blenderplayer. (see #d642a1c)
• Use glDrawElementsInstancedARB instead of glDrawElementsInstanced. (see #53e7c80)
• Caching active mesh slot count per bucket type. (see #e76442c)
• Enable WITH_PLAYER by default. (see #1641916)
• Implement per mesh material attributes layers. (see #e6917d2)
• Securise std::vector erase iteration. (see #2c669cc)

Bugs fixed

• Fix opengl state with text render. (see #71827fa)
• Fix mipmapping on cube maps. (see #b51d7c6)
• Fix python interpreter support on windows. (see #ec2f88f)
• Fix shared reloaded gpu texture in BL_Texture. (see #ab5612e)
• Fix parralax mapping without UV. (see #e8233f3)
• Fix Compilation error WITH_SDL. (see #08ab6e5)
• Fix warning in setUpdateShadow. (see #ad6e12c)
• Fix inputs instead of events in SCA_InputEvent python API documentation. (see #f202982)
• Avoid ghosting python interpreter on windows. (see #b8e82db)
• Compile shader when creating 2d filter. (see #fdc48f4)
• Fix material vertex color attributs. (see #8e94aa8)
• Fix geometry instancing vertex attributs disabled. (see #d9d8b9e)
• Fix crash when calling setUniform when setSource has not been called (see #8f98642)
• Fix non-updated BL_Texture bind code for filters. (see #ef6b11b)
• Fix recusrive call in BL_Texture::GetName(). (see #edbde8a)
• Fix not culled texts. (see #18c0d1c)
• Fix VAO shadow render. (see #70cd11c)
• Fix blenderplayer wireframe render. (see #d818340)
• Fix for python joysticks not updated during attach/detach procedure. (see #a89a2ab)
• Fix T46650 animation on culled armature, refactor 583fa7d1e (Fix for T32054) (see #1d81d51, #ce5ba1f, #ce32cd9)
• Fix NULL window when reloading game. (see #51762c3)
• Fix render of empty meshes. (see #09e36e0)
• Fix unitialized AABB in RAS_MeshObject. (see #3012023)
• Fix memory leak created by DNA_sdna_current_init. (see #446a559)
• Fix submodules urls. (see #460aef6)
• Fix crash when calling Texture_init with material without texture. (see #5bc53ec)
• Fix mist in blenderplayer. (see #88314cb)
• Fix conflicting no environment flag and show bounding box flag. (see #32b345c)
• Fix mouse, keyboard and joystick python proxy. (see #b439be7)
• Fix crash of material textures without textures. (see #2614d55)
• Fix NDOF input event issues. (see #2d335a1)
• Fix non fixed frame rate time issues. (see #485e6de)
• Fix keyboard sensor release key delay. (see #5db8fc4)