1) With addition of new 3d object formats to import capabilities of Serious Modeler, new lines have been added to .scr file (for indepth explanation of script file please refer to Serious Tools Help file under Serious Modeler->Model Creation Tutorial-> Creating Models and Scripts).
By default, mapping is read from object model is created from. If there is no UV data assigned to polygons in that object, error message will be produced.
; Old style mapping definition <-- Legacy mapping loader for compatibility with old mapping loader (no longer needed, thus commented)
;DEFINE_MAPPING
; CoolWeapon_Closed.lwo
; CoolWeapon_Opened.lwo
; CoolWeapon_Unwrapped.lwo
2) Map file (.map) is now saved whenever model is saved (for indepth explanation of map file please refer to Serious Tools Help file). This eliminates problem of different values in .mdl and .map file if .map file wasnt updated to reflect changes in model.
3) Tiling texture shortcut (T) in Mapping mode has been removed, use icon "Toggle texture tiling" instead.
| Texture mapping bar with toggle texture tiling button squared in red | |
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| Texture tiling options | ||
4) New animation controls have been added to Animation control window of Serious Modeler. They consist of 2 values. First determines how fast will be loaded model translated along Z axes and second how many time will current animation loop. This controls is usefull when creating walk/run cycles for characters. When given speed of character from engine, you can type that value as first parameter and add few loops in animation to see does your character animation is in sync with that speed (to avoid sliding etc...).
| 1) Z axes translation speed 2) Current animation looping time |
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| Animation control | ||
5) Axis rendering is added to Serious Modeler. This feature is usefull when handling multipart models (via attachments). It is accesed with "X" shortcut or "Toggle axis rendering" button. It has 3 states: OFF- no axis rendering, NORMAL - only loaded model's axis are drawn and RECURSIVE- axis are rendered for current model and it's attachments. You would use that to help you adjust positions of attachments in for example Weapon items models. Basically weapon item model is set of triangles on wich you attach different models. In game, you want player to be able to pick new weapons during play. For that use Weapon Item model. It will be rendered in world as rotating model with particle effects. You want rotation to happen along its axis, thats when rendering axis in Modeler comes handy, to adjust attachments positions in case they arent offseted correctly. Try loading any multipart model, enable RECURSIVE axis rendering and click "R" to enable model rotatition to see if its roation axis are offseted.
| Axis drawn for current model only |  |
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| Normal mode ON | ||
6) Frame rate info has been added to Serious Modeler (similar to World Editor's one). Its toggled on/off with "alt-r" shortcut or "Show/hide frame rate" button in main screen. It comes handy in case of multipart models (with attachments). In example of RocketLauncher weapon. It consists of 5 triangles (2 for body parts and 3 for rockets). Every attachment on that model have LOD (created either manually or with Serious Modeler auto mipmodel creating tools). When you look in Info window ("Q" shortcut) under Mip tab you will see number of polygons 5. This is because Modeler normally dont count polygon count recursive (adding it from attachments). With frame rate info you can see from how many models actual models consists and how many polygons are in total (Including Floor model, so disabling floor rendering with "F" shortcut is good idea). If you have defined and adjusted miplevels (for more on defining and adjusting LOD check Serious Tools Help under Serious Modeler->Modeler Usage-> Defining LOD), with SPACE+RMB zoom out model and see how number of polygons and models change when miplevel is changed. This way you can see when miplevel is changed and how many polygons are removed in each miplevel, then use that information to adjust switching factor if needed. This eliminates need to constantly reload model in World Editor to adjust effective miplevel switching.
| 1. World info only (no use in Serious Modeler) 2. Total number of models and total number of polygons 3. Time needed to render models 4. World info only (no use in Serious Modeler) 5. Swap buffer time 6. Current framerate |
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| Frame rate info |
7) Update animation process has been Seriously optimised ( now faster more than 60times!!). Thank you Dean.
8) You can mix different file formats in animations sequences (adding animations in script).
9) Misc bugs have been fixed, some optimisations in model recreation/update have been done, resulting much faster process.