Tools Version 1.5 Release Notes

From Multiverse

Contents 1 Hardware and Software Requirements 1.1 Operating System 1.2 Installation notes 2 Update release 1.5.1 3 New features and changes 3.1 Logging 3.2 UI XML Schema 3.3 Model Viewer 3.4 Terrain Generator 3.5 World Editor 3.6 Conversion Tool 3.7 COLLADA Import Tool 4 Bug fixes 4.1 1.5 Update 1 release 5 Known issues 5.1 Problem with jittering, frame-skipping on dual core systems 5.2 Model Viewer 5.3 Terrain Generator 5.4 World Editor 5.5 Conversion Tool

Hardware and Software Requirements

Minimum requirements:

• Processor: Pentium 4 with 1GHz or greater
• RAM: 512 MB+
• Video: DirectX 9 compatible Video Card. Pixel shader 2.0 and vertex shader compatible hardware with 128 MB of texture memory
• Audio: DirectSound compatible sound card

Operating System

The Multiverse tools currently run on:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP Home and Professional
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
• Windows XP international (non-US-English)

Support for other operating systems is planned.

Installation notes

• IMPORTANT: Uninstall any previous version of the Multiverse tools before installing this version, otherwise you will get an error. There is no uninstaller: use Windows Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs.
• If you have a Beta version of the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, you will get an error when installing the Multiverse Tools. You will need to uninstall the Beta version of .NET before installing the Multiverse Tools. See Microsoft's instructions for uninstalling the .NET beta.

Update release 1.5.1

The following bugs are fixed in this update release:

• WorldEditor does not always read name/value pairs from the world file correctly.
• Collada import tool paths and permissions have problems on 64-bit Vista.
• Conversion tool does not filter rigging geometry properly.
• Seams appear in the terrain sometimes.

New features and changes

Logging

The Tools now save the log file to a directory in the user's "My Documents" folder, by default C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\Multiverse Tools.

This change was made primarily to support Vista, which discourages applications from writing to the Program Files directory.

UI XML Schema

We provide the XML Schema for use with validating XML editors and other tools. The schema includes some attributes and elements that are not currently implemented:

• Frame attributes of "toplevel", "movable" and " resizable"
• Button elements DisabledColor, HighlightColor, NormalColor, PushedColor (included but commented out)

Model Viewer

• The colorization of axes for bones and normals has been updated. Previously, the x, y and z axes were red, blue and green respectively. In this release, the x, y and z axes are red, green and blue respectively.

Terrain Generator

• Fixed an visual artifact that occurred when editing the height map with a circular brush with size of 1. Holes would appear in the terrain in the terrain when using this brush. While visually disturbing, this artifact did not cause any permanent damage and did not persist across saving and reloading the terrain.

World Editor

• Fixed bugs with Name Value Pair templates. You can now add them. Also, Added a check to see if the a template is trying to add a property that already exists this now gives the user a warning and doesn't add the template. Added support for a boolean type.
• Added InstanceEntryRegion.xmlname value template for setting up an instance entrance.
• Added MessageRegion.xml name value template which is used to send arbitrary server messages.
• Added Events for World View and Tree View to Copy, Cut, Paste. The default key bindings now support this. This allows you to use these keys to edit property grid items. If you have changed your key bindings from the default you may want to edit them to remove these keys from the Global context to the World View and Tree View contexts.
• Added a new action toolbar button and right click menu item, for collections, to allow placement of a Marker with the position and orientation of the camera.
• "Display Terrain Tiles" and "Display Terrain Stitches" on the View menu have been combined to "Display Terrain"
• Applied change to prevent Crashes when the TriangleBuilder is behaving badly.

Conversion Tool

• Fixed bug where Conversion Tool created incorrect .physics files, in particular, when the source DAE file is exported from DCC tools besides 3dsMax.

COLLADA Import Tool

• When you start the tool, it deletes files in the working folder that are more than 24 hours old. This prevents files from accumulating indefinitely in the working folder.

• The "COLLADA Files" panel now dynamically updates its file list as you add/delete files in the folder.

• Fixed a bug that caused the tool to throw an exception at startup if you had deleted the working folder.

Bug fixes

TBD.

1.5 Update 1 release

• World Editor Name/Value dialog box will prompt if you close via window [X] button before saving.

Known issues

Problem with jittering, frame-skipping on dual core systems

On some dual-core systems, the processors get out of sync for timing. For details, see this AMD Technical Bulletin.

Power management slows down the cores at different times, causing the high resolution timers in the cores to lose synchronization, which causes the time to jump forward and backwards as the process is scheduled to run on one core and then the other. The cores start out in sync when the system boots, but over time get out of sync.

To correct the problem, Download and install a new processor driver. You should not need the Dual-Core optimizer utility that is also mentioned on that page for running Multiverse applications.

Model Viewer

• Looped animations show a slight stutter when the animation hits the end and loops backed to the beginning.
• There is currently no option when reading COLLADA files to convert from "Z-Up" to "Y-Up" coordinate system, which may result in some models appearing on their side when loaded into the Model Viewer. The command line Conversion Tool has an option (--3ds) that does this conversion. A future release of Model Viewer will provide this option.
• If a texture referenced by a material is not available, the Model Viewer will abort. This problem is actually an issue for all of the tools, as well as the Multiverse Client, but it is most likely to be an issue with the Model Viewer.

Terrain Generator

• Large seed maps are difficult to edit.

World Editor

• Using the Auto Splatting method for terrain texturing, the values for SandToGrassHeight, GrassToRockHeight, and RockToSnowHeight should not be negative. Use of negative values will produce incorrect results.
• Tree billboards (lowest level of detail for far away trees) are not lit properly.
• Tree leaf billboards occasionally don't point at the camera.
• When a road and a boundary share the same terrain tile, the road is not drawn on that tile. These display correctly in the client.
• Server does not support Spawn Generators on regions.

Conversion Tool

• The COLLADA to Mesh conversion tool creates material scripts for 3D models. The generated material should be considered a prototype: You may need to edit it by hand for it to work properly. For more information, see Creating Material Scripts and Editing materials files (Platform Tutorial).