What's new:

• Terrain optimizations.
• No performance drop if there is an invisible water in the scene.
• Occlusion queries for smart culling.
• Fixed overlighting of impostors and reflections.
• Alpha-testing + anti-aliasing now works correctly on DirectX 10.1 capable hardware.
• Added anti-aliasing support for scattering pass for DirectX 10 hardware.
• Removed Oren-Nayar shaders due to increased compexity of material system.
• Support of mouse scroll in EditLine and SpinBox widgets.
• LODs for particles (particle count reduces with the distance).
• Optimized light scattering.
• A special "destroy" method of containers in UnigineScript for memory cleanup without direct call of a destructor.
• Fixed Image crashes on float and half images in rare cases.
• Grass performance optimizations.
• Fixed crash of ResourceEditor if config file missing.
• UnigineEditor now works more intelligent with textures, there is no need in ImageDDS tool for ordinary cases.
• Scene validator in UnigineEditor.
• Added "How to..." section in the manual, which will be useful for artists.

You can see antialiasing improvement by yourself: No AA, 4xAA on DX 10.0, and 4xAA on DX 10.1.

We have launched a "1% per day" discount campaign: every single day before November, 30 gives you 1% discount on licensing Unigine (or you lose 1%, if you are waiting), so you can get a fully-capable license with 60% discount, if you are on time!

Recent changes:

• Splatting shaders for terrain with 16 texture slots available.
• Improved terrain editing in ResourceEditor (editing of splatting maps; automatical conversion of textures and clipmaps; 'g' hotkey resets pivot point, like in UnigineEditor).
• Fixed terrain tesselation.
• New "Clipmap" tool for converting textures into clipmaps and vice versa.
• Optimized polygon count in the sky.
• Image class can load multi-channel PSD textures as 3D ones.
• BASE particles renamed to BILLBOARD.
• No more PhongRim shading and color noise on vegetation with low shaders profile.
• Correct detection of AMD videocards in Linux.
• unigine.mat is splitted into several material libraries.
• Updated generator of project files for Visual Studio.
• Handling of NumLock, CapsLock and ScrollLock buttons.
• Support of streams (Stream is a base class for File and Socket now) for save/restore system.
• FileBase class renamed to Stream.
• Access to world nodes via C++ API.
• It's possible to transfer classes with inheritance through the C++ API now.
• Fixed bug with members of inherited classes in UnigineScript.
• More strict accordance to Vista UAC (all user-writable data is stored inside user's home directory, use "project" argument during Engine initialization to override the location).
• More correct FPS calculation.
• Full control of mouse and keyboard events by means of UnigineScript.
• "reference" field in widgets for external references.
• NOW font wrapping is working.
• Smart language switching for GUI L10n, one only needs to call ui.update() after changing locale.
• Hotkey bindings for UnigineEditor can be altered from the editor itself.
• New procedural ObjectGrass: 2 LODs, fast geometry generation by CPU, support of density masks and a lot of other adjustable parameters.
• Added ObjectGrass sample.

It was decided to revert back to terrain splatting instead of huge clipmaps, which are too unconvenient for editing by artists.

There are also important news regarding network support. Right now we have syncronization of world nodes over the network almost ready, it will be available as a sample in Unigine SDK soon. We use a 3rd-party software for transport layer now, later it will be replaced by our in-house module. At the moment a dedicated developer (Anna "ANet" Ishina) is working on our networking issues, a lot of research work has already done, so we plan to complete our multiplayer solution in 5-6 months.

We have updated "Sanctuary" demo also (improved shadows quality, increased textures resolution, added more stereo 3D modes and "candle weapon" camera mode). Screenshots gallery is updated as well.

What's new in the engine and tools:

• Password mode for WidgetEditLine.
• Automatic placement of WidgetSpinBox if it's attached to WidgetEditLine.
• Fixed font wrapping on labels and buttons.
• Fixed color codes for WidgetEditText.
• Correct localization for complex widgets.
• Fixed ObjectWaterMesh and volume fog.
• Support of double precision vectors in math library.
• Automatical approximation of meshes by convex hulls for BodyRigid.
• Auto-update of decals on change of their parameters.
• Optional Phong shading for foliage material.
• Added Xml::removeChild() into UnigineScript.
• Fixed spline exporters for 3dsMax.
• Automatical installer of plugins for 3D editors.
• Improved default look of the Sun.
• Correct import of RGB normalmaps in ResourceEditor.
• Template of WiX-based installer for Windows.
• Fixed impostors overlighting.
• More supported video modes.
• Added getFTime() function for detection of precise frame time.
• Support of password-protected zip packs.
• "Soft mouse" mode support.

There are a lot of "automatic" words in here :)

PS: Due to the popularity of indie developers support program it was decided to continue it, so small independent studios have a chance to license Unigine technologies by low prices, starting from $15k. Please see licensing page for more information.

• Projected, orthographic and omni decals.
• Masks and offsets for decals.
• Added decal samples.
• Isolation mode in UnigineEditor.
• New "back shadow" flag for all light sources.
• New default names for 32/64 bit libraries.
• Spatial settings for sky material.
• Fixed water shaders.
• Impostors speedup.
• MenuBox supports another MenuBoxes as children.
• New WidgetSpinBox.
• Fixed calling of script functions through the C++ API with external classes passed into them.
• SDK launcher for Windows with HTML-based interface.

Our art department is reworking an old draft of tropical demo, it should be ready in September:

Ocean waves look completely real in dynamics, unfortunately a static image can't show it:

By the way, recently OpenGL 3.0 specification has been released, and we found that Unigine already supports its features, like geometry shaders, texture arrays and so on.

PS: There are up to 40% discounts in August for licensing Unigine technologies, so use the chance.

• Smart dynamic impostors.
• Capability of rendering of a single object in WidgetSpriteObject.
• Fixed 3dsMax plugins (wrong alignments for skinned mesh).
• setCastShadow/setReceiveShadow methods for surfaces, which allow fine tuning.
• Support of password-protected built-in data packs.
• Fixed selection of NodeRef by double-click.
• New render_show_textures console variable for visualization of dynamical textures.
• *.pak files are treated as *.zip ones by filesystem.
• Increased precision of ObjectWater and ObjectSky on far distances.
• Filesystem loads files in alphabetical order now.
• A file, which is referenced by NodeRef, can be replaced by another one via UnigineEditor now.
• An object is belong to a sector according to its bounding box.
• Materials and properties can be set for all nodes of a multiple selection.
• Updated Unigine_Externs pack.
• Updated docs, added "Content Creation / Materials Overview / Optimization Tips" and "Content Creation / Level Design" articles.

Impostor is a fake 2D sprite object, which replaces a real 3D object at far distances. The engine render impostors automatically, the only thing you should do is to enable 'Impostor' flag in the node properties. There is also an 'Impostor distance' setting in UnigineEditor (see rendering settings window). It's recommended to set that parameter equal to shadow off distance or even greater to avoid artifacts. Approximate estimations of memory consumption by impostors can be found in "Content Creation / Level Design" article.

9 000 000+ polygons, 613 DIPs, 16 FPS (on 8800GT):

2 000 000+ polygons, 235 DIPs, 31 FPS (the same hardware):

FPS is doubled, resulting image is the same - this is a power of impostors!

Dynamic decals are on the way.

• Hierarchy of node properties (read more below).
• Underlaying material for reflections.
• Console commands now can be created by means of UnigineScript.
• Variables content can be accessed via [] operator, there are new __set__ and __get__ class memebers to be overloaded for [] access.
• Adjustable precision of mesh data for 3dsMax export plugin (snap to grid).
• Friction and restitution parameters are moved into base properties library.
• Filesystem speedup.
• A file inside 'data' directory can be access very fast now, if its name doesn't contain 'data/' prefix.
• Fixed LWO format loader.
• New format of world files: material name should be in 'material' attribute of 'surface' tag (old format will be supported for some time still; re-save world to update its format).
• Removed 'deprecate.mat' material library, there is no more mesh_detail_base (use mesh_base instead of it).
• Great speedup of scripts compling (it is almost 4 times faster now).
• Fixed reflection masks.
• Cube filtering of ambient maps.
• Stereo launchers dynamically load DirectX libraries now.
• Removed FreeBSD building rules due to very low demand on FreeBSD support.
• Automatic generation of focus cycling order for UI.
• reflection_adjust parameter for cube reflection for fine tuning.
• Almost all memory leaks are eliminated, there are only 3 unfreed pointers left.
• Added time.h (for correct sun position according to a given time) to the core scripts set.
• Added sun movement into 'water' demo.
• WorldTrigger can work with predefined set of nodes (if the list is empty, all nodes are taken into account).
• Correct work of tabbing in WidgetEditText.
• Simple syntax highlight in built-in text editor.
• New ALIGN_BACKGROUND flag for separating widgets by rendering order (work only for WidgetVBox).
• WidgetManipulator takes care about step of snap.
• New icons in UnigineEditor.
• Fixed annoying 'invalid operation' error in OpenGL.
• Snap to grid for moving and rotating objects (set grid step in 'Tools' window).

Node properties is a general purpose mechanism for adding some custom properties to objects (like game-specific parameters and so on), they can be set per-surface. Properties set can be flexibly adjusted for a project, see data/core/properties/unigine.prop as an example, the system is very similar to our visual materials. Use 'o' hotkey to access properties window in UnigineEditor.

Some notes regarding changes in development environment:

• Unigine_Externs pack is updated, all 3rd-party code is moved there
• All .lib files provided with Unigine_Externs are for Visual Studio 2008, older ones can be found in 'vs2005' subfolders
• Recommended SCons version is 0.97

• More accurate parallax mapping on 'high' profile.
• Fixed ObjectWater polygons doubling after cloning.
• Fixed match() for patterns with '*'.
• Fixed call of user class methods with arguments in UnigineScript.
• Correct work of garbage collector with inherited classes in UnigineScript.
• Correct work of 'hidden' flag for all types of GUI containers.
• No more artifacts of ObjectWater in underwater mode.
• Fixed handling of '(' ')' '{' '}' symbols in UnigineScript.
• Fixed node cloning dialog in UnigineEditor.

• Saving debugger's history between sessions.
• Added xml->isChild() function in UnigineScript.
• ObjectTerrain can be edited and saved by means of scripts.
• Improved brushes window in TerrainEditor.
• Introduced 'Pair' and 'Triple' containers in UnigineScript.
• Clean-up of UnigineEditor.
• Removed alpha channel support from NormalCombiner.
• Cubic filtering for lightmaps on 'high' setting profile.
• New strget() and strset() functions in UnigineScript.
• Updated a lot of articles in reference manual, added UnigineScript debugger documentation (see 'Programming / UnigineScript / Script Debugging').
• Added WorlTrigger support in UnigineEditor.
• Improved editing of vec3/vec4/mask parameters in material editor of UnigineEditor (double-click on them to edit).
• Added 'Place here' (move to the camera) and 'Place manually' (place on a surface, right-click switch normal binding, mouse scroll adjusts height) buttons in Nodes window of UnigineEditor.
• Support of material's parameters copy-paste in UnigineEditor.
• Dynamical node info visualization feature in UnigineEditor (Tools -> Interface -> Dynamic info).

The hunting was fruitful, almost all of the bugs were discovered during work on our internal Unigine-based projects, which are a kind of sandbox for us.

Recent changes:

• Fonts outlining.
• UnigineScript debugger (GDB style): call stack, stack dump, disassemble, view variable and array info (add breakpoints to your script and look into the system console).
• New NodeRef node type, which refers to nodes from external node files.
• Improved 'forloop' and 'foreach' operators in UnigineScript.
• Added 'switch' operator into UnigineScript for faster branching.
• WidgetEditText allows per-line editing now.
• Holes support for terrain (first LOD only).
• Added more settings for ResourceEditor: camera speed, FOV, wireframe color.
• Inheritance of user-defined classes with virtual functions support in UnigineScript.
• Context menu for nodes in UnigineEditor (Alt + right mouse button to activate).
• Full undo/redo support for nodes and materials in UnigineEditor.
• Updated documentation on Unigine library.
• Heap of minor fixes.

Finally, a new Catalyst 8.6 has solved the problem with soft shadows! It's highly recommended to upgrade to it for all ATI card owners.

Here is the context menu for nodes in UnigineEditor:

New TerrainEditor can add holes:

Terrain upgrade guide: save height map into DDS format by old TerrainEditor, create a new terrain by new TerrainEditor, import old height map.

• New 'world' samples: occluders, sectors and portals, WorldTrigger usage.
• Plugins for 3dsMax 2009.
• Xml module doesn't generate   anymore due to standart compliance.
• 'quit' callback for the editor (quit from the world).
• Backup of .world file before saving new one.
• Brush rotation in TerrainEditor.
• Excluding support in Archiver.
• Visualization of ambient occlusion.
• Built-in packed resources instead of XPM files.
• New 'Resource' tool for packing of resources to be built-in into the binary.
• TTF fonts in ResourceEditor.
• 3x3 PCF for shadows in lightmap generator.
• More optimal ambient occlusion for open spaces owing to branching in shaders.
• Transformations of texture coordinates in ResourceEditor.
• isNode(), isBody(), isJoint() functions in UnigineScript for pointer type detection.
• call_stack() and stack_dump() functions in UnigineScript for easy debugging.

There are also tons of changes in UnigineEditor in our development branch, but they require some time for stabilization, so they will be introduced in next updates.

PS: Unigine team is hiring: see vacancies list. We would be happy to find more great developers, may be it is your chance to join us!

By the way, we met some of our customers at KRI (including Afterfall developers), we hope those meetings being fruitful.

Current update provides the following:

• New sound module is almost ready (except for reverberations).
• Added sound usage samples (data/samples/sounds).
• Improved ControlsApp: keys and buttons can be assigned from scripts.
• Optimized mesh intersections.
• Lightmap generator for all types of lights in UnigineEditor.
• User-adjustable containers inside "Materials" and "Nodes" windows.
• Great speedup of ResourceEditor / NormalMapper (now it uses dedicated tracing code).
• Less memory consumption by NormalMapper, it's more stable in Windows now.
• color_scale instead of alpha_scale in shaders.
• New WidgetVPaned and WidgetHPaned widgets, which can be adjusted in size by a user.
• Access to a swizzled member of arrays is allowed from user classes now: foo.array.size().
• Access to methods and members of a class is allowed if the object is a member of another class now: foo.file.close().
• isCallbackEnabled() in UnigineScript.
• copy, swap and compare functions for arrays in UnigineScript.
• Case-insensitive mode for filesystem (data_icase console variable).
• 'hidden' flag for widgets (it controls visibility).
• New WorldTrigger object with callbacks (see data/samples/worlds/triggers_00.cpp).

We are going to get back to normal development pace in 2 weeks.