Crystal Space 0.96r001 released

  Crystal Space is an Open Source and portable 3D Engine. Check out
http://crystal.sf.net for more information.

Finally here is the long expected release of Crystal Space 0.96r001. This
is a VERY significant release compared to 0.94. Almost everything has
changed :-) Lucky for you we have tried to make the transition as easy
as possible. Check out the appendix where there is a document describing
what you must do. Here is a summary of all the significant changes. Much
more has happened though:
- XML transition: the CS map format has been changed to XML. The main
reason for this change was easier parsing and writing of the file.
There are many XML parsers and writers available and this was
something that was hard to do with the old format. This makes it
a lot easier to write tools to read/write the CS format.
There is a tool that converts old style maps to XML (cs2xml), so the
transition should be easy.
- Smart pointers: one of the major reasons for bugs in CS programs
has always been the difficulty in knowing when to 'DecRef' a pointer
and when not. Sometimes there were too many DecRef()'s causing
bad crashes which are hard to track down. Sometimes there were too
few DecRef()'s causing memory leaks. Now we introduced a new
smart pointer class which helps keeping track of references
for you. This has been done in a way that keeps the API
as compatible as possible.
- Effect System: A lot of work has been done on the OpenGL renderer.
We now have an effect system in CS (think vertex and pixel shaders).
It is still not fully done but already nice things are possible.
This is still an area in which we are doing heavy development
right now. In general the OpenGL renderer is also being improved
considerably. Expect more in this area in the next release of CS :-)
- Sequence Manager: A brand new module in CS is the engine sequence
manager. This is a built-in time based sequencing tool with which
you can create effects in maps. Some examples:
- Lights that you can turn on/off by clicking on a switch.
- Doors that open automatically when you approach them.
- Doors that open when you click on them.
- Animated effects that trigger when you come near some object.
- Fading lights and fog.
- and lots more...
The use of these features requires NO application programming at
all. You can define all these operations in the map file.
- New ODE based physics plugin. This has been in CS for a little time
now but it is a new feature if you compare with the latest stable
release.
- The old octree/bsp based visibility culler has been removed. This culler
was hard to maintain and fully integrated with the engine. This
prevented further development of the engine and also prevented the
development of the new OpenGL renderer. A disadvantage of this is
that some indoor levels will now run slower since Dynavis is not
that mature yet. Expect this to change in future versions of Crystal
Space.
- Switched to autoconf for project configuration. So to configure CS now
you simply do './configure'.
- Improved procedural texture handling.
- New collision detection plugin based on OPCODE.
- HUGE amounts of bug fixes and improvements all over the project.
- Removed 8-bit display support in software renderer. Only 15, 16, and
32-bit displays are now supported.
- Updated documentation.

One note: several outdated ports have been removed due to lack of
user interested and/or lack of maintenance. In particular the only
ports that still remain operational are: GNU/Linux, Windows with MSVC,
Windows with MSYS/MingW, Windows with Cygwin, and MacOS/X. Other flavours
of Unix (Solaris, SGI, FreeBSD, ...) may also work but are mostly untested.

This is a source only release at the moment. Executables will come later.

Greetings,

-- 
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Jorrit.Tyberghein@uz.kuleuven.ac.be, University Hospitals KU Leuven BELGIUM

Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies,
worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the
environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large
animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders
into the cave and starts to purr.
        -- Why humans like cats
           (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)
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