Technology Preview 5 available

Started by Matt, July 18, 2008, 02:26:19 PM

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Matt

Terragen 2 Technology Preview 5 (Build 1.9.99.1)

We have just released an update for licensed pre-purchasers of Terragen 2. Emails are being sent to those pre-purchasers who have subscribed to receive email announcements from us. This update is also available through the automatic update checker in Terragen 2, so you do not need to wait for your email.

This is a recommended update.

Please allow up to 12 hours for emails to arrive. If you are eligible for this update and think you are not on the list or have not received an email in due time, please contact registrations@planetside.co.uk explaining the situation and we will make sure you are sent information about the update. Please also remember that spam filters used by your ISP or mail provider may sometimes prevent legitimate emails from Planetside from reaching you, so please check any spam folders you may have access to for emails with the subject "Terragen 2 Update: Technology Preview 5".


Changes from 1.9.98.1 (Tech Preview 4) to 1.9.99.1 (Tech Preview 5)

Visible to Camera, Visible to Other Rays and Cast Shadows are options on most objects (not including Planet).

Some changes to Fresnel and transparency calculations in Water Shader and Reflective Shader.

Object readers and Grass Clump do not need to reload/regenerate when Cast Shadows is toggled.

Fixed a bug with shadows cast by reflective objects. This improves speed, fixes a bug that could hang a render, and fixes a visible artefact with soft shadows from such objects.

Object ray-trace acceleration structure (BIH) is limited to a depth of 30, which prevents crashes in badly-behaved object geometry.

Cloud Layer V2 and Planet Atmosphere use non-infinite lightsources more correctly. Possibly fixes some rendering errors with light sources in atmospheres.

"Planet surface shader" is no longer available from the menus. This shader is not recommended and will not be developed further.

Surface Layer:
    - Blend by shader feature, with option to "blend as coverage" which interacts nicely with the other constraints and effects.
    - Fuzzy zone softness is moved to the Effects tab.
    - Fixed a bug in the Intersect Underlying feature which would give the wrong results at constraint boundaries or when coverage was very low.

Distribution Shader V4:
    - Blend by shader options, similar to those in Surface Layer.
    - Slope key options similar to Surface Layer.
    - Altitude constraints can be keyed off either "final position" or "position in texture".

Some changes to parameter GUI updates, so that parameter text boxes update to the correct colours in all situations (add key, timeline scroll, etc.).

Animation keys can be removed (via the parameter animation/import menu).

Changed name of Mouse Settings preferences panel to Input Settings.

Added support for customising input bindings, see the Input Settings preferences panel.

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Matt Fairclough
Planetside Software
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.