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What's New
[3.3]
Art Tools Enhancements
Art tools are a key part of our development with RenderWare
Graphics, and as part of the 3.3 release they have seen many
significant improvements and enhancements that build on the solid
foundation we created in RenderWare Graphics 3.2. All in all, we
are confident that RenderWare Graphics 3.3 provides an unsurpassed
art to engine pathway for the quick and easy preparation of
game-ready assets.
Please note though, this is just one milestone in our program of
onward development of our art tools as we shall continue to focus
on enhancing the RenderWare Graphics art to engine pathway in
release 3.4 and beyond.
RenderWare Visualizer
RenderWare Visualizer is a new, enhanced viewer for RenderWare
Graphics that enables Artists to preview their assets on any or all
of the target platforms from their favorite modeler. RenderWare
Visualizer includes:
- Visualizer Viewer
- Visualizer Control Panel
- Connection Manager
- Launcher (standalone, with Connection Manager embedded)
Flexible Connection Editor
The target for the preview can be easily selected from the
RenderWare Visualizer Connection Editor, enabling you to specify
local (for your workstation) and/or remote (Nintendo GameCube, Xbox
etc). You can select one local option (D3D8, OpenGL or none) and
any number of the remote targets that have been configured and the
preview will be sent to all selected targets simultaneously.
Powerful Viewer
You can activate the RenderWare Visualizer either from within your
modeler (for 3ds max or Maya) or using the RenderWare Visualizer
Launcher, which is a standalone application for the PC. When the
viewer starts it uses the information that the Connection Editor
has saved into the registry about the local and remote controls and
runs the viewer on all of them. This loads the Visualizer Viewer
and the Control Panel on your workstation and sends your artwork to
any targets that you have selected in the Connection Editor. You
can view your entire scene or highlight selected models to preview.
The Control Panel contains the menus and control interface toolbar
for the viewer, while the Viewer itself is a separate Active X
preview window that will display your selected artwork if you have
selected a local target.
Versatile Preview Control
The RenderWare Visualizer Control Panel provides a number of
controls that toggle key display information (triangles, wireframe,
world sectors, hierarchies, normals, culling, mesh, statistics),
and manipulate lighting (ambient, main) and cameras selection (free
camera, near & far clip), to enable Artists to thoroughly
review their content on their target platform(s). Using the "free"
camera, you can use the mouse (for PC) or the appropriate console
controller to "fly" through your scene to fully preview your
artwork. The viewer also provides comprehensive onboard help.
Sector Editor
RtWorldImport
now includes a powerful GUI Sector Editor tool, provided as a
visual interface to the API for Sector and PVS editing. From the
Sector Editor you can select one of our standard schemes for
sectorization or navigate around your world, checking the
effectiveness of the partitioning. You can also edit PVS data from
the Sector Editor.
- Navigation
- Orbit, Walking and Teleport Modes
- Viewing
- Full-screen; two-screen vertical; two-screen horizontal and
four-screen views
- Geometry / Wireframe
- Partitions / Sectors, variable translucency, variable color (to
represent good/bad values)
- PVS data
- View, generate, clear, destroy PVS data
- Sample PVS from a sector
- Sector by sector editing
Exporter Enhancements
Streamlined Batch Exporting
The RenderWare Graphics batch export process has been enhanced to
automatically detect your export parameters. You can then make any
necessary changes before proceeding with the export.
Rationalization of Stream Into an rws File
Exported data is now stored in a single, platform-independent
".rws" file format (as a default) to enable any, or all for that
matter, platform viewing and also for ease of storage. The file
contains all the geometry, all textures (in a platform-independent
texture dictionary), material effects, animation, splines, lights
and camera data required for the scene/model. (The .rws file also
includes data tagged for lightmaps for use with the Lightmaps
toolkit.) You can, of course, revert to the .dff, .bsp or .anm file
format if that is more appropriate for a given export.
Exporters Upgraded for New Functionality - Lightmaps
The RenderWare Graphics exporters have been upgraded to provide
support for the Lightmaps plugin. Materials can be tagged to be
area lights and with other parameters relevant for lightmap
generation, and the export data can then be loaded into the
LightMaps toolkit (RtLtMap) for the lightmaps to be created.
Interface Improvements
The RenderWare Graphics 3ds max Exporter has an entirely new
interface based on feedback we have received from Artists - for
example, options are now grouped by functionality. Both Exporters
have menus in the main Maya/3ds max window with the most important
and regularly used options.
Support for the Export of Lighting and Cameras
You can now export lights and cameras - both lights and cameras are
exported as members of clumps and animation is supported by the
standard RenderWare Graphics HAnim animation system.
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