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DagonNotes         ChangeLog and porting notes for OGRE 1.2.0 "Dagon"

Welcome to the ChangeLog and porting notes for OGRE 1.2.0 "Dagon" in progress

H.P. Lovecraft wrote:
Vast, polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds... (From H. P. Lovecraft's short story "Dagon").


ChangeLog

  • Compositing framework added (CompositorManager). This interface makes it possible to easily apply postprocessing and other after-effects to a viewport using shaders or stencil effects. Multiple effects can also be used in a chain if so desired.
  • Compositor Scripting added. Compositor scripts allow post processing special effects to be defined through script instead of hard coded. Compositor scripts are loaded on startup similar to material scripts and loading occurs after material script loading.
    • The Compositor Demo has been updated to show the use of both hard coded compositors and those loaded from script.
  • MultiRenderTarget (MRT) support. Shaders can now render to multiple simultaneous render textures on cards supporting this.
    • Added DeferredShading demo demonstrating the use of MultiRenderTarget to do deferred shading
  • Change HardwarePixelBuffer::blit prototype to be more usable (take a SharedPtr not a hard pointer)
  • OpenGL changes:
    • Two sided stencil is always supported for GL 2.0 compliant drivers, even ATI
    • Fast texture-to-texture blit, blitFromMemory, and hardware accelerated bi/trilinear scaling using FBO. This improves loading time in the common case that some textures need to be scaled to power-of-two size.
    • Implement Texture::copyToTexture for GL, which was already implemented for DX9 (useful for longer term storage of graphics rendered to a texture)
  • D3D9 Changes:
    • Triple buffering enabled when vsync is enabled
  • RenderTexture changes
    • RenderTexture API overhaul more
    • Rendering to faces of cubemaps (for realistic reflections), mipmaps and slices of 3D textures is now possible.
    • RenderTarget::writeContentsToDisk now implemented for all RenderTextures
    • D3D9: RenderTextures of compatible formats now share one DepthStencil surface to conserve memory
    • GL: For faster and more flexible rendertextures use GL_EXT_framebuffer_object instead of pbuffers (if available)
    • GL: PBuffers only used when rendertarget is smaller than frame buffer. If smaller, the framebuffer is used, as this is faster
    • GL: PBuffers are shared between RenderTextures to conserve memory
  • MovableObject changes
    • All MovableObjects are now created through MovableObjectFactory, and new factories can be registered by plugins. Plugging in new object types generically is now simple
    • SceneQueries can now exclude entire MovableObject types as well as individual objects
    • Added MovableObject::setRenderingDistance which operates like the same method of StaticGeometry, effectively limiting the view distance of individual objects
    • MovableObject::setVisibilityFlags controls the visibility of objects based on a mask set in SceneManager::setVisibilityMask, in the same way as SceneQuery works. This is yet another way for you to control object visibility, and makes it simpler to turn categories of object on / off quickly and efficiently
    • The default values for MovableObject::setQueryFlags and MovableObject::setVisibilityFlags on creation of the MovableObject are now defined in the static methods MovableObject::setDefaultQueryFlags and MovableObject::setDefaultVisibilityFlags. These defaults start out at 0xFFFFFFFF to preserve previous behaviour.
  • Added radix sorting routines
  • Billboard / particle enhancements
    • Billboards can now be sorted individually relative to the camera to provide correct transparency effects (also applies to BillboardParticleRenderer, and a new 'sorted' attribute is available in particle scripts)
    • ParticleSystemRenderer can now describing their desired sort mode by override '_getSortMode'.
    • Billboards can now have their own individual texture coordinates to allow you to display subsets of a texture per billboard (e.g. for billboard based text)
    • Particles can now be kept in local space rather than world space
    • Added two new billboard/particle type: BBT_PERPENDICULAR_COMMON (perpendicular_common) and BBT_PERPENDICULAR_SELF (perpendicular_self). BBT_PERPENDICULAR_COMMON make the billboard plane perpendicular to a common direction, and BBT_PERPENDICULAR_SELF make the billboard plane perpendicular to their own direction. In other words, their facing to the given direction instead of the camera. It's useful for an aureola around the player and parallel to the ground etc. Both of them use an additional up-vector to determine the billboard X and Y axis.
    • Added billboard/particle rotation type setting, allowing you to rotate vertices or rotate texture coordinates. Defaults to rotate texture coordinates to preserve previous behavior. Use new 'billboard_rotation_type' attribute to set rotate type in particle scripts when using BillboardParticleRenderer.
    • Billboard particle renderer now supports setting the billboard origin in particle scripts via 'billboard_origin'.
    • Particle system now allows the user to configure the sampling interval, either fixed or based on frame-rate. Default based on frame-rate to preserving previous behavior. Use 'ParticleSystem::setIterationInterval' to configure iteration interval per particle system, or use 'ParticleSystem::setDefaultIterationInterval' to set the default iteration interval for all ParticleSystem instances that don't have their own setting. Available in script as 'iteration_interval'.
    • ParticleSystem now supports a 'nonvisible update timeout' which means that if a particle system is not visible from any camera for the time specified, it will cease to update, saving the expense. You can set the default for all systems without their own setting through ParticleSystem::setDefaultNonvisibleUpdateTimeout, or set it per system (through script as 'nonvisible_update_timeout').
    • Each billboard can now have its own custom texture coordinates instead of merely generated coordinates (which were either the whole texture or grid set)
    • Billboardset now supports an 'accurate facing' model so that billoard orientation is calculated based on the relative positions of the camera and each billboard, which is more accurate but slower than the default method (which is to use the camera axes for all billboards). This option is available through particle systems as 'accurate_facing true' too.
    • BillboardChain and RibbonTrail classes allow you to do 'beam' effects like jet trails and lightning arcs
  • SceneManager enhancements
    • SceneManagers are now constructed from SceneManagerFactory instances, allowing more than one instance of the same type of SM
    • SceneManagers must be constructed first using Root::createSceneManager, and can be created based on a scene type mask (a binary combination of requested types), or an explicit name
    • Available SceneManager types can be iterated over using Root::getSceneManagerMetaDataIterator, each with a type name, description, scene type mask and world geometry support flag
    • Using multiple simultaneous SceneManagers, of the same type or different types, is now safe
  • Material enhancements
    • Techniques, passes, and Texture unit states can now be named
    • Materials can now extend other materials, through the script syntax 'material DerivedMaterial : BaseMaterial', to allow simple refinement of existing materials
    • matrix4x4, float4, float9, and float16 in material script now properly load matrices for use with GLSL shader unitforms
    • New auto parameter binding 'pass_number'
    • Serializer now writes out all shader bindings (for tools)
    • Passes can now iterate an arbitrary number of times, either globally or per light
    • New auto parameter binding 'pass_iteration_number'
    • There is no limit on the number of frames for animated textures. There use to be a limit of 32.
    • matrix4x4 in material script now uses same matrix element layout for Cg, HLSL, GLSL
    • New TextureUnitState blending option, blend_diffuse_colour, allows you to use the RGB luminence of vertex colours as an additional blending parametric
    • New texture addressing mode 'border' and texture unit attribute 'tex_border_colour'. 'border' addressing mode will set to the border colour when texture coordinates outside the range [0.0, 1.0].
    • New gpu parameter 'render_target_flipping', allow adjust position to accord with requires texture flipping when bypassed standardise projection transform.
    • New gpu parameters 'fog_colour' and 'fog_params', allow access fog parameters by gpu program if need.
    • New pass attribute 'polygon_mode', allowing you to specify solid, wireframe or point rendering on a per-pass basis (instead of just an object basis as before)
    • New feature 'material schemes' - every technique can be allocated to a scheme ('scheme blah' in technique block), and viewports can have a preferred scheme. This allows wholesale switching between techniques per viewport, or just globally to do scalable effects, or hdr paths etc
    • new Ocean Demo added showing use of CEGUI manipulating programable shader parameters in realtime.
    • New option on texture loading within texture_unit to load a single-channel luminence texture into alpha, useful for fixed-function alpha textures
    • Unusual transparent with colour write disabled technique are now put into transparent render group. Allow rendering self-intersection object without self overlay, and still performing depth sorting for better transparent blending with other objects.
  • Animation enhancements
    • Existing animation tracks are now just one type of track, ie NodeAnimationTrack
    • New 'NumericAnimationTrack' allows the animation of any numeric value through the AnimableValue abstraction
    • New 'VertexAnimationTrack' allows animation of vertex positions in a VertexData instance, either in software or hardware. Comes in 2 variants, morph animation (like MD2) and pose animation (blendable poses, e.g. facial animation)
    • Some optimisations
  • Skinning blending enhancements.
    • Only passing bones world matrices of a subentity that are actually used, mainly purpose is support more bones in a mesh when hardware skinning is enabled. Now the hardware skinning supports limit and is applyed to actually used bones of each submesh, not mesh. And it's possible to split up the meshes to support unlimited number of bones with hardware skinning.
    • Software skinning now done in object space, and additional special optimise for froze/disabled animation, kept software blended vertex data as many frames as possible.
  • ManualObject added to make custom geometry creation more accessible
    • Closely mirrors the GL immediate mode interface; create geometry using begin(); position(); normal(); texCoord(); end();
    • Builds data into regular hardware buffers for performance
    • Supports all types of shadows
    • Can convert the result to Mesh if desired for instancing
  • Node changes
    • Node::Listener added so you can use Node::setListener to get callbacks when the transform changes
    • Node::setInheritOrientation/getInheritOrientation added allows configure the node whether it should inherit orientation from it's parent node.
  • Render queue enhancements
    • Render queue groups can now be given an arbitrary uint8 identifier rather than just one of a fixed set of enums
    • Custom render queue invocation sequence per viewport if required
    • Allow suppression of shadow processing and render state changes during custom invocation
    • Ordering / grouping of non-transparents can be changed per invocation
  • Shadow enhancements
    • New shadow type SHADOWTYPE_TEXTURE_ADDITIVE, allowing the lighting accuracy of additive shadows with the GPU speed of texture shadows
    • You can now disable the rendering of shadows per viewport, to save time in mini-maps / RTTs etc
    • ShadowListener interface added
      • shadowTexturesUpdated allows you to hook into the time when shadow textures have been rendered to, but before they are used. You can use this to perform custom shadow behaviour such as filtering
      • shadowTextureCasterPreViewProj and shadowTextureReceiverPreViewProj fires before the view & projection matrices are set for the shadow caster / receiver renders respectively; you can use these hooks to provide a specialised camera setup if you want to define custom shadow systems
    • Texture shadow casting now fully supports alpha blended / alpha rejection materials
    • Both stencil and texture additive shadow technique now fully supports alpha rejection shadow receiver.
    • Texture shadow supports point light, used directional light look at target mechanism and 120 degree FOV (similar spotlight) behavior.
  • Resource management changes
    • Added a new predefined resource group called ResourceGroupManager::INTERNAL_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME ("Internal") for dealing with resources created internally by the engine; you can now safely unload the default resource group if you choose without affecting these internal resources.
    • Added a new meta resource group called ResourceGroupManager::AUTODETECT_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME ("Autodetect"); if you use this group name, the real resource group is detected at load time based on where the resource is found in the configured resource locations. Entity now uses this method by default to load meshes so you no longer have to preload meshes in custom resource groups if you don't want to (although preloading is often a good idea anyway for performance).
    • Resource loading group fallback
      • When a resource is not found in the requested resource group, look for it in the others based on resource locations
      • The group ownership of resources changes when this happens
      • This allows you to load a material from a custom group and have it load textures into a general resource group dynamically
    • ResourceGroupManager::unloadUnreferencedResourcesInGroup now available to unload only resources which are not currently being used
    • ResourceManager::unloadUnreferencedResources / ResourceManager::reloadUnreferencedResources now available to unload / reload only resources which are not currently being used
  • Cameras & Frustums can now have custom view and / or projection matrices if required
  • Viewports now have a setting to say which buffers they clear if clearing is enabled (colour, depth, stencil)
  • SceneManager::setWorldGeometry now accepts a stream as input as well as a filename
  • CEGUI renderer updated to take advantage of CEGUI HEAD which doesn't depend on Xerces-C++ anymore
  • Added IndexData::optimiseVertexCache to allow people to cache-optimise their triangle list indexes
  • Added pulse width modulation option to WaveformControllerFunction
  • Standardised projection matrix manipulation in Frustum so translation to rendersystem-specific versions is done later, uniform projectin matrix available to callers if they need it
  • Added off-axis perspective projection to Frustum and Camera. Related functions: Frustum::setFrustumOffset, Frustum::getFrustumOffset, Frustum::setFocalLength, Frustum::getFocalLength.
  • Added method to access 'virtual' (reflected if need) or 'real' (unreflected always) world orientation/position of the camera.
  • Added Root::setFrameSmoothingPeriod() to let users customise smoothing of frame time fluctuations.
  • Every render system config options are stored to configuration file.
  • Added Viewport::setSkiesEnabled() to let users hide skies for viewport individually, allow control skies displays or not more easy, especially for using multiple viewports.
  • VC6 & VC7.0 (2002) support discontinued; officially supported Microsoft compilers are now VC7.1 (2003) and VC8 (2005)
  • Direct3D7 support removed
  • Platform Manager Changes
    • Added Ogre::PlatformManager::messagePump(RenderWindow*) to the platform manager - This moves the Win32 message pump from Ogre::Root to the Win32Platform Manager, and the GLX platform messages to the GLX Platform manager. On other platforms (Mac & SDL) this has no effect. Call this method if not using startRendering (as startRendering calls this everyloop for the default renderwindow) to pump messages into Ogre while avoiding the OS pcific issues in your own code - allows alt-tabbing, etc to work correctly.
    • Timer stability on dual core systems
    • GLX Platform only listens to Window X events when not using Ogre input system - allows ability to plug in other input systems easier, while not having to pump specific X events into Ogre manually.

Porting notes

MovableObject changes

  • 'mName' has been promoted to MovableObject and thus MovableObject::getName now has a concrete implementation. You must remove any name member variables in your subclasses, and probably any getName() implementations. Include an initialisation to MovableObject(name) in your named constructors.
  • SceneManager::getEntityIterator, getBillboardSetIterator, getLightIterator no longer exists. Use SceneManager::getMovableObjectIterator("Entity") instead
  • Query flags/masks
    • Underlying type has changed from unsigned long to uint32 to be explicit about length on all systems.
    • There are now 2 sets of query flags on MovableObject and masks on SceneQuery. The existing flags/masks have been reinterpreted to mean 'instance flags/masks', which are specific to the object. The second set, called 'type flags/masks' relates to the type of object.
    • When a MovableObjectFactory is registered, it can request that it is allocated a type flag, which will be used by any MovableObject instances created by it. Since many factories can be plugged in independently, there is no way these flags could be unique unless allocated by the SceneManager. SceneManager will allocate flags from LSB upwards.
    • Custom MovableObjects not created by factories can override getTypeFlags if they want to return a specific value anyway. Must be careful about overlap here (although you can use intentional overlap if you want to classify different types the same way).
    • The highest significant bit on the type flag is reserved for world geometry. SceneManager::WORLD_GEOMETRY_QUERY_MASK has been renamed SceneManager::WORLD_GEOMETRY_TYPE_MASK to reflect the fact that it affects matching with the type mask on a scene query, not the instance mask.
    • Any custom MovableObject that is neither created from a MovableObjectFactory, nor overrides getTypeFlags, will be included in all queries since the default type flag is 0xFFFFFFFF. This preserves the previous behaviour.
    • It's now important to call Root::getSceneManager before you start creating objects through other managers like ParticleSystemManager; most probably do already but this is a definite requirement now, when it was not before.

Animation Changes

  • Animation now holds several types of tracks; to port your code which creates / reads / modifies pre 1.1.x tracks, you need to change your code as follows:
    • Use NodeAnimationTrack instead of AnimationTrack, and use Animation::createNodeTrack, Animation::getNodeTrack, etc
    • Use TransformKeyFrame instead of KeyFrame, and use NodeAnimationTrack::createNodeKeyFrame et al
  • AnimationState no longer derives from ControllerValue<Real>, because Controllers work via shared pointers which delete their contents automatically, and AnimationState is destroyed manually so you'll get a double-free condition. Use AnimationStateControllerValue now instead of AnimationState when wanting to change animations through a controller.

Entity changes

  • setRenderDetail is no longer available on Entity, instead this is all controlled via the Pass of the material as with other rendering options. It is now called setPolygonMode, previously the names used were inconsistent.
  • getSoftwareSkinningRequests, getSoftwareSkinningNormalsRequests, addSoftwareSkinningRequest and removeSoftwareSkinningRequest are now renamed to getSoftwareAnimationRequests, getSoftwareAnimationNormalsRequests, addSoftwareAnimationRequest and removeSoftwareAnimationRequest.
  • _getSkelAnimVertexData now guarantee usable only if added requests for software animation via addSoftwareAnimationRequest. Also note that the blended vertex data is now in object space instead of in world space in previous version.

Renderable changes

  • setRenderDetail is no longer available on Renderable, instead this is all controlled via the Pass of the material as with other rendering options. It is now called setPolygonMode, previously the names used were inconsistent.

Material Changes

  • Pass::setRunOncePerLight (and getter) is now called setIterateOncePerLight, since setPassIterationCount applies per light if this option is set.
  • Texture coordinate transform now dealing with full 4x4 matrix always, in previous version, they are treat as 3x3 or 4x4 base on the texture type. Both of TextureUnitState::getTextureTransform and TextureUnitState::setTextureTransform accept/returns full 4x4 matrix now.
  • GPU view and projection related matrix bindings now pick-up identity matrix base on Renderable useIdentityView/useIdentityProjection.
  • Identity projection matrix now take care with render system depth range in both fixed-function and programmable pipe.
  • Fog parameters now passing to render system even if using fragment program, allow fixed-function fog applicable in some situations.

RenderTexture Changes

  • RenderTextures can be created like all other textures, with TextureManager::getSingleton().createManual. Usage parameter should be TU_RENDERTARGET
  • tex->getBuffer(x,y)->getRenderTarget(z) in which x is the face (for cubemaps), y is the mipmap, and z is the slice number (for rendering to 3D textures) will acquire a RenderTarget to a surface.
  • RenderSystem::createTexture is now deprecated
  • To destroy a RenderTexture, detach it from the TextureManager like you would destroy a normal texture. Removing the RenderTarget will no longer work (as there are potentially many render targets per texture)

Camera / Frustum Changes

  • The meaning of the projection matrix methods has changed to make it easier to understand what each of them do, and so that you can get hold of a completely standard projection matrix if you want to do manual operations on it.
    • getProjectionMatrix used to retrieve the rendersystem-specific projection matrix. It now returns a standard, right-handed projection matrix with depth range of [-1,1]
    • getStandardProjectionMatrix, which used to retrieve a standard right-handed projection matrix except that the depth-range was rendersystem-specific (for shaders), has been renamed getProjectionMatrixWithRSDepth
    • getProjectionMatrixRS is a new method returns the rendersystem-specific projection matrix. This is the matrix which is sent to the pipeline.
  • Custom view and / or projection matrices are now permitted to allow custom camera set ups if required, see setCustomViewMatrix and setCustomProjectionMatrix
  • setDetailLevel and getDetailLevel have been renamed setPolygonMode and getPolygonMode for consistency with other areas
  • getDerivedOrientation, getDerivedPosition and getDerivedDirection now respects reflected camera, their are now returns 'virtual' (reflected if need) orientation/position in the world space. This changes may break related code if they already take reflection into account.
    • Previous derived orientation/position behavior can still access by new method getRealOrientation, getRealPosition and getRealDirection, they are returns 'real' (unreflected always) world orientation, position and direction of the camera.
    • If you never dealing with reflected camera, this changes never affect you.

SceneManager Changes

  • removeCamera, removeEntity, removeBillboardSet, removeLight and removeStaticGeometry, as well as their removeAll* variants, have been renamed to destroyCamera, destroyEntity etc for interface consistency (create / destroy are paired, and add / remove - in this case it was create / remove which was inconsistent and some people had trouble finding them).
  • SceneManagers are now managed as instances of a given SceneManager type. Instead of using Root::getSceneManager initially you must now call Root::createSceneManager,and you can use a type mask (e.g. ST_GENERIC as before, or some bitwise combination of types), or you can use a specific type name (e.g. "OctreeSceneManager"). You can create more than one to maintain multiple separate scenes if you want.

If you used getSceneManager(ST_GENERIC) before, now use createSceneManager(ST_GENERIC).

  • Root::_getCurrentSceneManager now _strictly_ only valid during target update since support for multiple SMs. Previously was available after getSceneManager even though the docs said it was only valid during update so you can't rely on this undocumented behaviour anymore
  • Custom SceneManagers must implement the new getTypeName method, and have a constructor with a 'name' String parameter. You must use the same string for SceneManager::getTypeName and the SceneManagerFactory metadata.
  • Custom SceneManagers should come with a SceneManagerFactory to plug in to Root::addSceneManagerFactory. Should register in dllStartPlugin, unregister in dllShutdownPlugin. You can still plug a custom SM instance in manually if you want, but the SceneManagerFactory approach is recommended for flexibility.

Root changes

  • Automatic smoothing out of fluctuations in frame times is now disabled by default. To return to the old behaviour call Root::getSingleton().setFrameSmoothingPeriod(0.5);.
  • Render system config options stored in its own section, allow save/restore config options for every render system now.

Render queue Changes

  • All instances of RenderQueueGroupID in parameters are now uint8 to allow values in between the standard OGRE queue numbers to be used without the compiler complaining
  • RenderQueueListener existing method signatures have changed, check your implementations. Note also the addition of the shadowTexturesUpdated event.

Render System Changes

  • _setRasterisationMode has been renamed _setPolygonMode for consistency with higher level functions

Resource manager Changes

  • New predefined resource group called ResourceGroupManager::INTERNAL_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME ("Internal"). All engine internal created resources (shadow materials/textures, default materials, compositor internal resources, etc) will use this group. And this special resource group are supposed to used by engine internal only, user shouldn't modify, unload or remove the resources that in this group.
  • Added a new meta resource group called ResourceGroupManager::AUTODETECT_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME ("Autodetect"); if you use this group name, the real resource group is detected at load time based on where the resource is found in the configured resource locations. Entity now uses this method by default to load meshes so you no longer have to preload meshes in custom resource groups if you don't want to (although preloading is often a good idea anyway for performance).
  • Resource loading group fallback
    • When a resource is not found in the requested resource group, look for it in the others based on resource locations
    • The group ownership of resources changes when this happens
    • This allows you to load a material from a custom group and have it load textures into a general resource group dynamically
  • ResourceGroupManager::unloadUnreferencedResourcesInGroup now available to unload only resources which are not currently being used
  • ResourceManager::unloadUnreferencedResources / ResourceManager::reloadUnreferencedResources now available to unload / reload only resources which are not currently being used

Billboard changes

  • Billboard member function setTexCoords and getTexCoords renamed to setTexcoordIndex and getTexcoordIndex, which set billboard use generated texture coordinates. Also added function setTexcoordRect to set its own custom texture coordinates, and new function isUseTexcoordRect to determinant which is being used.

Particle System Changes

  • ParticleSystem can now only be created and retrieved via SceneManager like all other MovableObject types, using the generic createMovableObject or the specific createParticleSystem. ParticleSystemManager is still used for registering emitter / affector / renderer factories and creating templates.
  • ParticleSystemManager::setTimeFactor is no longer available in favour of the more generic (and therefore consistent) ControllerManager::setTimeFactor. This is more useful if you're trying to globally change the perceived time, and you still have the per-particle system speed factor for per-system adjustments anyway.
  • When using oriented_self, the size of particles is now always consistent and is no longer affected by particle velocity. You may need to adjust the height of your particles to compensate for this change, but particle size will now be more predictable when you have variable velocities.
  • ParticleSystemRenderer derived class must be override _getSortMode to describing their desired sort mode.

Vertex element changes

  • Vertex colour changes
    • The VET_COLOUR has been replaced by VET_COLOUR_ARGB (in D3D) and VET_COLOUR_ABGR (in GL) to make sure the internal format is unambiguous, and to allow automatic conversion.
    • On loading, colour formats are automatically converted if they are not native to the rendersystem
    • You can still use VET_COLOUR when creating geometry in memory, but it will be automatically changed to one of the specific variants when VertexDeclaration::addElement is called
    • If you read out VET_COLOUR from vertex buffers (say in a case statement) you need to detect the other 2 variants too.
    • Use VertexElement::convertColourValue to convert between types, and VertexElement::getBestColourElementType to get the recommended format for the current rendersystem.
    • RenderSystem::convertColourValue is still available for packing colours into buffers but you are recommended to use VertexElement::convertColourValue now since it's more generally applicable (works with no RenderSystem loaded)
    • If you have any existing meshes that use vertex colour, run them through OgreMeshUpgrade to convert the colours to a specific type
    • OgreXmlConverter defaults to writing VET_COLOUR_ARGB on Windows, and VET_COLOUR_ABGR on other platforms (conversion is seamless). If you want to change this, use the -d3d or -gl options.

CEGui Renderer Changes

  • Due to the new flexibility in SceneManager construction, you must either pass the SceneManager to the OgreCEGUIRenderer constructor, or call setTargetSceneManager sometime afterwards otherwise your GUI will not render (it cannot assume which SM to use anymore)
  • setTargetSceneManager only takes an explicit SceneManager pointer now, there is no SceneType option anymore (since SceneType does not lead to a unique SM anymore). The same goes for the constructor.

Overlay changes

  • Overlay scripts no longer support defining 'entity' as a 3D element; if you want to use 3D elements you have to define them at runtime. This is because ownership of Entity instances is at a SceneManager level, and SceneManager instantiation is much more flexible now.

TextureUnit changes

  • Effect ET_SCROLL is replaced by ET_UVSCROLL, ET_USCROLL and ET_VSCROLL

Controller changes

  • ControllerManager::createTextureScroller is replaced with ControllerManager::createTextureUVScroller, ControllerManager::createTextureUScroller and ControllerManager::createTextureVScroller

Misc

  • The SceneDetailLevel enum has been renamed PolygonMode, as have the enum values (SDL_SOLID is now PM_SOLID)
  • TerrainSceneManager's TerrainPageSourceListener has an additional parameter to the pageConstructed event, a SceneManager pointer, so you must change your listener signatures if you use this

Remaining issues

  • Point Attenuation causes segfault on Linux / ATI, but is fine on all other hardware?

Annotated roadmap

  • Code Review (Owner: temas)
  • Texture features (Owner: wumpus) [done]
    • Support DDS custom mipmaps for GL and the Image class (Owner: wumpus) [done, went into 1.0.1]
      • Compressed (DXT) mipmaps support for mipmaps needs deep changes to DevIL as it refuses to provide DXTdata on them done. This needs this patch to DevIL
    • Use GL_EXT_framebuffer_object instead of pbuffers if available [done]
    • Better support for render to faces of cubemap textures [done]
    • VTC texture compression for cards supporting this
    • Render to multiple buffers at once (GL_ARB_draw_buffers, MRT) [done]
      • Deferred shading demo using Manuel's postfilter framework [done]
  • Performance optimization and profiling (Owner: everyone)
    • RenderState caching for GL [done, but tests show no significant speed improvement]
    • Float radix sort for depth sorting [done - only used when there are enough transparents to make radix sorting faster]
  • XSI v4.x / v5 Exporter (Owner: sinbad) [done]
    • Basic mesh exporting [done]
    • Multiple UV support [done]
    • Polygon cluster material change support [done]
    • Mesh optimisation (index organisation, submesh merging) [done]
    • Animation export [done]
    • Material export [done]
    • IK -> FK sampling [done]
    • Shape keys / clips -> pose animation [done]
  • Customisable render queues (Owner: sinbad) [done]
    • Specify custom render queue group invocation sequences [done]
    • Update RenderQueueListener to be called per invocation instead of per queue, and remove the repeat / skip options (since they can be handled by the former) [done]
    • Per queue group invocation, specify whether material render state is managed by OGRE or whether it will be left constant, thereby allowing queue invocation listeners to set global renderstate for all objects in the invocation [done]
    • Per queue group invocation, choose between standard sorting (solids grouped by pass hash, transparents by decreasing depth) or global depth sorting. Note that differing settings for the same queue group will cause and renderables to be added to 2 separate sets of lists to cope with this. [done]
  • Billboard / Particle System enhancements (Owner: _mental_, sinbad) [done]
    • Point particle rendering [done]
      • Basic point rendering [done]
      • Point sprites [done]
      • Option to allow BBS to use point sprites if requested (has limitations to point oriented billboards, uniform size (GL has no per-vertex point size) and some max size limits (GL has a max point size) [done]
    • Ribbon Particles (BillboardChain) [Done]
    • Sortable billboardsets (radix sort) [done]
    • Per-billboard texture coordinates [done]
    • Relative positioning option [done]
  • MovableObject factories (Owner: sinbad) [done]
    • Register MovableObjectFactory with SceneManager [done]
    • Generalise creation of MovableObject subclasses and use with SceneQuery [done]
  • Animation enhancements (Owner: sinbad) [done]
    • Morph animation, facial animation (morph animation combined with skeletal animation) [done]
      • Hardware morphing [done]
      • Software morphing [done]
      • Combination of skeletal and morph animation [done]
      • Exporter updates [done]
    • Animation of any numeric value (light colours, camera fov etc) through generic tracks [In progress]
  • Texture shadow enhancements (Owner: sinbad) [in progress]
    • Additive texture shadows [done]
    • Post-render of shadow texture hook to allow for postprocessing [done]
    • Clean up code so stencil vs texture, modulative vs additive branching is simpler [done]
    • Per-light passes should support shaders e.g. normal mapping [done]
    • Support alpha blended casters properly [done, also backported to Azathoth]
    • Add hook to allow view / projection matrices for shadow casting to be customised by the user, as a way to implement new shadow techniques such as PSM [done]
    • Custom fragment programs in receivers [done]
    • Add filtering option to Demo_Shadows
  • Mesh file vertex colour changes [Done]
    • Be specific about the packed colour type so serialised versions can be converted to native format on loading if required (only if non-native) [Done]
    • Allow preferred native type to be specified on XMLConverter and flipped with MeshUpgrader [Done]
    • XML vertex colours should be floating point separate channels [Was Done Already, clarified in docs]
  • Serialiser changes [done]
    • Serialisers to read/write in native endian format rather than being locked to little endian with conversion on big endian platforms [Done]
    • Automatic endianness conversions for binary formats in both directions [Done]
  • Wireframe / point rendering mode per material pass [done]
    • Camera should override still [done]
    • Per-object render detail removed, completely controlled through material now [done]
  • Material system Enhancements (Owner: nfz)
    • allow techniques, passes to be named [done]
    • allow texture unit states to be named [done]
    • material can extend from a previously defined material in material script [done]
    • Pass index number auto parameter for shaders [done]
    • add write methods to material serializer to write out all shader bindings used within a material [done]
    • make render system be able to re-issue draw calls without changing render state through use of pass iteration in material script [done]
      • pass iteration number auto parameter for shaders [done]
    • Texture alias: meshes can indicate which textures are to be used in a material. Will allow one material to be defined in a script that is used on different meshes using different textures. [done]
    • Technique, Pass, and texture unit enable/disable [Deferred to Eihort]
    • Mipmap LOD biasing on TextureUnitState (forum thread) [Deferred to Eihort]
    • materials that have techniques using gpu programs that fail to compile/link use next available technique or fall back to fixed pipeline rendering. Error messages are logged but exception is not raised which could shut down the renderer. [Deferred to Eihort]
    • make material scripts reloadable without having to unload the materials [Deferred to Eihort]
    • add methods to manipulate order of techniques, passes, texture unit states [Deferred to Eihort]
    • add methods to manipulate texture frame names in Texture units. [done]
      • remove 32 frame limit [done]
    • make the use of matrix4x4 in material script uniform for Cg, HLSL, GLSL [done]
    • GLSL bug fixes
      • Skeletal Animation support (hardware skinning) [Deferred to Eihort]
      • support for uniform arrays [done]
      • fix GLSL Matrix bug in material scripts [done]
    • Material Script Compiler [Deferred to Eihort]
      • enhance compiler so that it can accept more flexible text source layout
        • ie pass (texture_unit decal { texture "my texture.jpg" }}
      • allow names (includes texture file names) to have spaces - names with spaces have to surrounded with double quotes
  • Core PostFilters framework (wumpus, sinbad)
    • PostfilterManager that can assign arbitrary chains of screen post filters to a ViewPort [done]
    • Postfilter scripting [done]
  • RenderSystem changes
    • Rationalise configuration options so they're easier to set between different render systems, especially FSAA [done]

Dagon Dependencies

A number of the dependencies used by Ogre have been updated.

  • FreeType 2: went from 2.1.09 to 2.1.10
    • there is an issue with building the otv module but Ogre doesn't need it so it can be removed from the build by editing include/freetype/config/ftmodule.h and comment the following line



 FT_USE_MODULE(otv_module_class) 

so it becomes

 //FT_USE_MODULE(otv_module_class) 
  • CEGUI: went from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0
  • Devil: went from 1.6.5 to 1.6.7



Beyond Dagon

Since Dagon is approaching release, all new ideas that can't make it into Dagon will go into the next development version after Dagon, OGRE 1.4 aka 'Eihort'.