DarkRadiant 1.7.0 available!

[greebo]

I'm proud to announce that DarkRadiant 1.7.0 is ready for download. With this version a massive amount of improvements is made available, next to the usual long list of bugfixes. A fully-fledged Particle Editor, real-time render preview, increased map loading performance, reduced memory consumption and many improvements related to layers, to name the most important changes over the previous release.

 

Download DarkRadiant from our website: http://darkradiant.sourceforge.net/. Huge thanks go out to the patient pre-release testers!

 

Important: with this release Windows users will need to install a newer redistributable package in order to run this release:

• VC++ 2010 Redistributable Package 32 Bit: http://www.microsoft...&displaylang=en
  
• VC++ 2010 Redistributable Package 64 Bit: http://www.microsoft...bf-9350143d5867
  

The list of changes can be found on the website: Full list of changes and on our bugtracker changelog.

 

As usual, please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines:

• Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask.
  
• Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker.
  

As probably not everybody is reading the changelogs, here is the summary of changes:

 

 

New Features / Changes

• Always-on active layer and related functionality. One is able to specify the active layer by Ctrl-Clicking on a layer button.
  
• Improved map loading performance.
  
• The Entity List can be configured to show visible elements only.
  
• Added "Filter All" and "Filter None" to Filters menu
  
• A backup of the .darkradiant file is created now when saving a map.
  
• Particle Editor
  
• Particle Previewer: added auto-loop mode
  
• New feature: MD5 Animation Preview
  
• Added support for editor_color directives
  
• Added real-time render mode to camera view
  
• Many D3 shader keywords are now recognised, added support for translate, scale and other time-dependent stages in materials
  
• Added the ability to filter on entity spawnargs
  
• Add support for Objective Conditions to Objectives Editor plugin
  
• Add "Select elements using this shader" option to MapInfoDialog > Shader Info.
  
• The Entity Inspector is showing the Primitive and Entity number for the selected item
  

Bugfixes

 

• Fixed: Clipping a worldspawn brush in layer A will make the new clipped brush disappear if the preferred layer is not visible.
  
• Fixed: Delete Node + Delete Layer + Undo leaves node in invalid layer ID.
  
• Fixed: When degenerate brushes are present in the scene, layer information corruption can occur on next map load.
  
• Fixed: In .darkradiant files, some nodes might be assigned to non-existent layers.
  
• Fixed: New entities not going into expected layer.
  
• Fixed: Selecting items in a layer also selects hidden ones
  
• Fixed: Brushes, patches, entities, etc. change layers on their own.
  
• Fixed: Entities with models in their def ("eclassmodels") are created in the Default layer
  
• Fixed: Partice Editor Input Fields not properly keeping direct input
  
• Fixed: Transparent Decal texture invisable when selected
  
• Fixed: Translucent textures not visible when selected
  
• Fixed: Placing a background image in grid window is broken
  
• Fixed: key names are getting cut off in editor_setKeyValue spawnargs
  

Tweaks

 

• Generate color picker for "ambient_light" property
  
• ASE export script could skip caulk
  
• Scripts can use the ModelDefVisitor interface now
  

Coding / Internal Design

• EntityClassManager module is using a lot of memory.
  
• Fedora libboost_system-mt linker error.
  
• Upgrade to Boost 1.47
  
• Added support for multiple scenegraphs
  
• Resolved: Brush::buildBRep() performs ColourScheme Manager lookups
  
• Slow Registry and ColourScheme lookups in Light render methods
  
• Streamlined model and skin handling for entities
  
• Fixed a compilation error in g++ 4.5.2
  

[grayman]

Much appreciated, greebo.

 

Thanks again for your continued hard work.

[SiyahParsomen]

great! All these stuff push me mapping more.

 

Thanks for the inexpressible effort Greebo.Testers are participant on this too.

[Flanders]

yes, great work and thanks a lot!

[Tels]

Updating as we speak, great news and thank you!

[nbohr1more]

Congrats on the release greebo!

[Bikerdude]

Well touch wood etc, no bugs to speak off.

 

Nice one Greebs.

[Springheel]

I had a couple weird things happen today with the render preview windows.

 

When checking out the md5anim viewer (which is an AWESOME addition), the preview image would regularly disappear after a few seconds, and I wouldn't be able to see any more meshes until closing and re-opening the window. Once, after doing that, I clicked on a head and could only see the teeth layer, not the rest of the head mesh.

 

Then in the model preview window, some of the models seemed to have weird black shadows in front of them, obscuring different parts as the model rotated (also, with the pure black background now, black metal models are impossible to see). Clicking on the "filters" button at the bottom crashed DR.

 

edit: Don't know if it's cause or effect, but a few hours afterwards, I tried to open D3 and got an error about my video card not having certain requirements. After a reboot things appear to be fine. Seems likely that it is tied to the above somehow. Maybe my video card is on the fritz.

[Bikerdude]

Then in the model preview window, some of the models seemed to have weird black shadows in front of them, obscuring different parts as the model rotated Maybe my video card is on the fritz.

Its not your gfx card as I have the same issue and i did log a bug tracker for it - as I understand it Greebs had fixed it...

[fllood]

Congrats' to the new release!!

 

Thanks for the patient work that went into all that improvements greebo & also to the beta testers!

[DeTeEff]

Then in the model preview window, some of the models seemed to have weird black shadows in front of them, obscuring different parts as the model rotated (also, with the pure black background now, black metal models are impossible to see). Clicking on the "filters" button at the bottom crashed DR.

 

Experienced the exact same thing...

[greebo]

It's very well possible that some shaders do cause problems. Do you have the name of the offending model?

[Bikerdude]

It's very well possible that some shaders do cause problems. Do you have the name of the offending model?

This will take a while, as it happens to me often - I will set about keep a log and post when I think I have a bunch.

[Springheel]

In my case the one right before the crash was the electric_light_fancy.

[greebo]

Confirmed, can you open a tracker issue, please? I guess it's one slightly more complex material that is throwing the renderer state off limits.

[DeTeEff]

What? Same model for me, Springs :-O

 

When I open the model loader and press the 'filter'-button...

 

I tested with the bag1_small --> crash

basket_lwo --> crash

bucket_wood --> crash

 

Whatever model I test will cause the same crash

[Melan]

I am experiencing a rather ugly bug on my laptop. In the camera window, the view is all jagged, and distant textures are screwed up. The issue disappears when I enable far clip plane, but then performance plunges to an abysmal level.

 

 

What could be the reason? I know the laptop is not ideal for TDM (it can barely run it at low settings), but this did not used to be a problem the last time I used it for building (late 2009).

Edited January 8, 2012 by Melan

[Serpentine]

I am experiencing a rather ugly bug on my laptop. In the camera window, the view is all jagged, and distant textures are screwed up. The issue disappears when I enable far clip plane, but then performance plunges to an abysmal level.

What GPU does the laptop have? do you have any options in regards to the z-buffer depth?

[Melan]

It has a built-in Intel GMA X3100. The GPU settings allow 16 and 24 bit z-buffering, which is currently set to "default" (whatever that is). Setting it to either option does not seem to help with performance.

[Serpentine]

Hmmm, try force 24bit and give the laptop a restart - might need the driver to be reloaded.

 

However, it looks like even at 24bit you will have trouble, you however can try to decrease the depth of the clip plane to minimise the issue. There seem to be a few complaints about the old GMA's defaulting to 16bit in opengl, 24bit(in d3d) is better but it's still a fair bit worse than 32bit + compression.

[Melan]

That did it! Thank you very much. I can do some editing again.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Melan

[SeriousToni]

Has this issue already been encountered by anyone else?

[Bikerdude]

yeah, this is known issue you just have to revert back to WS and than back to FS.

[SeriousToni]

Oh dear! I have a really hard time changing all this and resolve the leaks it created

[Bikerdude]

yeah you just need to be away of it in future, some FS rotate just fine, other don't and its those you have to do the above trick on. Also be aware of certained shaped (eg L-shaped) FS that maye have their origin in the void even with out any rotating etc.