Certain actuators hold a pointer to an objects: Property,
SceneCamera, AddObject, Camera, Parent, TractTo. When a
group is duplicated, the actuators that point to objects
within the group will be relinked to point to the
replicated objects and not to the original objects.
This helps to setup self-contained group with a camera
following a character for example.
This feature also works when adding a single object
(and all its children) with the AddObject actuator.
The second part of the patch extends the protection
against object deletion to all the actuators of the above
list (previously, only the TrackTo, AddObject and
Property actuators were protected). In case the target
object of these actuators is deleted, the BGE won't
crash.
Blender duplicates groups in the 3D view at the location of objects having the DUPLIGROUP option set. This feature is now supported in the BGE: the groups will be instantiated as in the 3D view when the scene is converted. This is useful to populate a scene with multiple enemies without having to actually duplicate the objects in the blend file.
Notes: * The BGE applies the same criteria to instantiate the group as Blender to display them: if you see the group in the 3D view, it will be instantiated in the BGE.
* Groups are instantiated as if the object having the DUPLIGROUP option (usually an empty) executed an AddObject actuator on the top objects of the group (objects without parent).
* As a result, only intra-group parent relationship is supported: the BGE will not instantiate objects that have parents outside the group.
* Intra-group logic bricks connections are preserved between the duplicated objects, even between the top objects of the group.
* For best result, the state engine of the objects in the group should be self-contained: logic bricks should only have intra-group connections. Use messages to communicate with state engines outside the group.
* Nested groups are supported: if one or more objects in the group have the DUPLIGROUP option set, the corresponding groups will be instantiated at the corresponding position and orientation.
* Nested groups are instantiated as separate groups, not as one big group.
* Linked groups are supported as well as groups containing objects from the active layers.
* There is a difference in the way Blender displays the groups in the 3D view and how BGE instantiates them: Blender does not take into account the parent relationship in the group and displays the objects as if they were all children of the object having the DUPLIGROUP option. That's correct for the top objects of the group but not for the children. Hence the orientation of the children objects may be different in the BGE.
* An AddGroup actuator will be added in a future release.
When using states, an action like kick or throw can often switch out before finishing playing the action, and there was no way to play from the start frame the second time round. (even setting the actions current frame through python doesn't work work)
=============================
* Clean up and optimizations in skinned/deformed mesh code.
* Compatibility fixes and clean up in the rasterizer.
* Changes related to GLSL shadow buffers which should have no
effect, to keep the code in sync with apricot.
New Add mode for Ipo actuator
=============================
A new Add button, mutually exclusive with Force button, is available in
the Ipo actuator. When selected, it activates the Add mode that consists
in adding the Ipo curve to the current object situation in world
coordinates, or parent coordinates if the object has a parent. Scale Ipo
curves are multiplied instead of added to the object current scale.
If the local flag is selected, the Ipo curve is added (multiplied) in
the object's local coordinates.
Delta Ipo curves are handled identically to normal Ipo curve and there
is no need to work with Delta Ipo curves provided that you make sure
that the Ipo curve starts from origin. Origin means location 0 for
Location Ipo curve, rotation 0 for Rotation Ipo curve and scale 1 for
Scale Ipo curve.
The "current object situation" means the object's location, rotation
and scale at the start of the Ipo curve. For Loop Stop and Loop End Ipo
actuators, this means at the start of each loop. This initial state is
used as a base during the execution of the Ipo Curve but when the Ipo
curve is restarted (later or immediately in case of Loop mode), the
object current situation at that time is used as the new base.
For reference, here is the exact operation of the Add mode for each
type of Ipo curve (oLoc, oRot, oScale, oMat: object's loc/rot/scale
and orientation matrix at the start of the curve; iLoc, iRot, iScale,
iMat: Ipo curve loc/rot/scale and orientation matrix resulting from
the rotation).
Location
Local=false: newLoc = oLoc+iLoc
Local=true : newLoc = oLoc+oScale*(oMat*iLoc)
Rotation
Local=false: newMat = iMat*oMat
Local=true : newMat = oMat*iMat
Scale
Local=false: newScale = oScale*iScale
Local=true : newScale = oScale*iScale
Add+Local mode is very useful to have dynamic object executing complex
movement relative to their current location/orientation. Of cource,
dynamics should be disabled during the execution of the curve.
Several corrections in state system
===================================
- Object initial state is taken into account when adding object
dynamically
- Fix bug with link count when adding object dynamically
- Fix false on-off detection for Actuator sensor when actuator is
trigged on negative event.
- Fix Parent actuator false activation on negative event
- Loop Ipo curve not restarting at correct frame when start frame is
different from one.
General
=======
- Removal of Damp option in motion actuator (replaced by
Servo control motion).
- No PyDoc at present, will be added soon.
Generalization of the Lvl option
================================
A sensor with the Lvl option selected will always produce an
event at the start of the game or when entering a state or at
object creation. The event will be positive or negative
depending of the sensor condition. A negative pulse makes
sense when used with a NAND controller: it will be converted
into an actuator activation.
Servo control motion
====================
A new variant of the motion actuator allows to control speed
with force. The control if of type "PID" (Propotional, Integral,
Derivate): the force is automatically adapted to achieve the
target speed. All the parameters of the servo controller are
configurable. The result is a great variety of motion style:
anysotropic friction, flying, sliding, pseudo Dloc...
This actuator should be used in preference to Dloc and LinV
as it produces more fluid movements and avoids the collision
problem with Dloc.
LinV : target speed as (X,Y,Z) vector in local or world
coordinates (mostly useful in local coordinates).
Limit: the force can be limited along each axis (in the same
coordinates of LinV). No limitation means that the force
will grow as large as necessary to achieve the target
speed along that axis. Set a max value to limit the
accelaration along an axis (slow start) and set a min
value (negative) to limit the brake force.
P: Proportional coefficient of servo controller, don't set
directly unless you know what you're doing.
I: Integral coefficient of servo controller. Use low value
(<0.1) for slow reaction (sliding), high values (>0.5)
for hard control. The P coefficient will be automatically
set to 60 times the I coefficient (a reasonable value).
D: Derivate coefficient. Leave to 0 unless you know what
you're doing. High values create instability.
Notes: - This actuator works perfectly in zero friction
environment: the PID controller will simulate friction
by applying force as needed.
- This actuator is compatible with simple Drot motion
actuator but not with LinV and Dloc motion.
- (0,0,0) is a valid target speed.
- All parameters are accessible through Python.
Distance constraint actuator
============================
A new variant of the constraint actuator allows to set the
distance and orientation relative to a surface. The controller
uses a ray to detect the surface (or any object) and adapt the
distance and orientation parallel to the surface.
Damp: Time constant (in nb of frames) of distance and
orientation control.
Dist: Select to enable distance control and set target
distance. The object will be position at the given
distance of surface along the ray direction.
Direction: chose a local axis as the ray direction.
Range: length of ray. Objecgt within this distance will be
detected.
N : Select to enable orientation control. The actuator will
change the orientation and the location of the object
so that it is parallel to the surface at the vertical
of the point of contact of the ray.
M/P : Select to enable material detection. Default is property
detection.
Property/Material: name of property/material that the target of
ray must have to be detected. If not set, property/
material filter is disabled and any collisioning object
within range will be detected.
PER : Select to enable persistent operation. Normally the
actuator disables itself automatically if the ray does
not reach a valid target.
time : Maximum activation time of actuator.
0 : unlimited.
>0: number of frames before automatic deactivation.
rotDamp: Time constant (in nb of frame) of orientation control.
0 : use Damp parameter.
>0: use a different time constant for orientation.
Notes: - If neither N nor Dist options are set, the actuator
does not change the position and orientation of the
object; it works as a ray sensor.
- The ray has no "X-ray" capability: if the first object
hit does not have the required property/material, it
returns no hit and the actuator disables itself unless
PER option is enabled.
- This actuator changes the position and orientation but
not the speed of the object. This has an important
implication in a gravity environment: the gravity will
cause the speed to increase although the object seems
to stay still (it is repositioned at each frame).
The gravity must be compensated in one way or another.
the new servo control motion actuator is the simplest
way: set the target speed along the ray axis to 0
and the servo control will automatically compensate
the gravity.
- This actuator changes the orientation of the object
and will conflict with Drot motion unless it is
placed BEFORE the Drot motion actuator (the order of
actuator is important)
- All parameters are accessible through Python.
Orientation constraint
======================
A new variant of the constraint actuator allows to align an
object axis along a global direction.
Damp : Time constant (in nb of frames) of orientation control.
X,Y,Z: Global coordinates of reference direction.
time : Maximum activation time of actuator.
0 : unlimited.
>0: number of frames before automatic deactivation.
Notes: - (X,Y,Z) = (0,0,0) is not a valid direction
- This actuator changes the orientation of the object
and will conflict with Drot motion unless it is placed
BEFORE the Drot motion actuator (the order of
actuator is important).
- This actuator doesn't change the location and speed.
It is compatible with gravity.
- All parameters are accessible through Python.
Actuator sensor
===============
This sensor detects the activation and deactivation of actuators
of the same object. The sensor generates a positive pulse when
the corresponding sensor is activated and a negative pulse when
it is deactivated (the contrary if the Inv option is selected).
This is mostly useful to chain actions and to detect the loss of
contact of the distance motion actuator.
Notes: - Actuators are disabled at the start of the game; if you
want to detect the On-Off transition of an actuator
after it has been activated at least once, unselect the
Lvl and Inv options and use a NAND controller.
- Some actuators deactivates themselves immediately after
being activated. The sensor detects this situation as
an On-Off transition.
- The actuator name can be set through Python.
This meant an error in a script could be reported in a different line or script file which makes it quite hard to trace the problem. There were also places where invalid pointers could be used because of this.
The whole game engine pyapi probably needs to have these checks added.
* Action FrameProp was checking if the string was true, not that it contained any text.
* Added GameObject.getVisible() since there is already a getVisible
* Added GameObject.getPropertyNames() Needed in apricot so Franky can collect and throw items in the level without having the names defined elsewhere or modifying his game logic which is stored in a separate blend file.
To take advantage of this feature, you must have a mesh with
relative shape keys and shape Ipo curves with drivers referring
to bones of the mesh's parent armature.
The BGE will automatically detect the dependency between the
shape keys and the armature and execute the Ipo drivers during
the rendering of the armature actions.
This technique is used to make the armature action more natural:
the shape keys compensate in places where the armature deformation
is uggly and the drivers make sure that the shape correction
is synchronized with the bone position.
Note: This is not compatible with shape actions; BLender does
not allow to have Shape Ipo Curves and Shape actions at the same
time.
This patch introduces two options for the motion actuator:
damping: number of frames to reach the target velocity. It takes
into account the startup velocityin the target velocity direction
and add 1/damping fraction of target velocity until the full
velocity is reached. Works only with linear and angular velocity.
It will be extended to delta and force motion method in a future
release.
clamping: apply the force and torque as long as the target velocity
is not reached. If this option is set, the velocity specified
in linV or angV are not applied to the object but used as target
velocity. You should also specify a force in force or torque field:
the force will be applied as long as the velocity along the axis of
the vector set in linV or angV is not reached. Works best in low
friction environment.
NAND controller is an inverted AND controller: the output is
1 if any of the input is 0.
NOR controller is an inverted OR controller: the output is 0
if any of the input is 1.
XOR controller is an exclusive OR: the output is 1 if and only
if one input is 1 and all the other inputs are 0.
XNOR controller is an inverted XOR: the output is 0 if and only
if one input is 0 and all the other inputs are 0.
The NAND, NORT and XNOR controllers are very usefull to create
complementary outputs to start and stop actuators synchronously.
MSCV project files updated.
Level option is now available on all sensors but is only implemented on
mouse and keyboard sensors. The purpose of that option is to make
the sensor react on level rather than edge by default. It's only
applicable to state engine system when there is a state transition:
the sensor will generate a pulse if the condition is met from the
start of the state. Normally, the keyboard sensor generate a pulse
only when the key is pressed and not when the key is already pressed.
This patch allows to select this behavior.
The second part of the patch corrects the reset method for sensors
with inverted output.
This patch introduces a simple state engine system with the logic bricks. This system features full
backward compatibility, multiple active states, multiple state transitions, automatic disabling of
sensor and actuators, full GUI support and selective display of sensors and actuators.
Note: Python API is available but not documented yet. It will be added asap.
State internals
===============
The state system is object based. The current state mask is stored in the object as a 32 bit value;
each bit set in the mask is an active state. The controllers have a state mask too but only one bit
can be set: a controller belongs to a single state. The game engine will only execute controllers
that belong to active states. Sensors and actuators don't have a state mask but are effectively
attached to states via their links to the controllers. Sensors and actuators can be connected to more
than one state. When a controller becomes inactive because of a state change, its links to sensors
and actuators are temporarily broken (until the state becomes active again). If an actuator gets isolated,
i.e all the links to controllers are broken, it is automatically disabled. If a sensor gets isolated,
the game engine will stop calling it to save CPU. It will also reset the sensor internal state so that
it can react as if the game just started when it gets reconnected to an active controller. For example,
an Always sensor in no pulse mode that is connected to a single state (i.e connected to one or more
controllers of a single state) will generate a pulse each time the state becomes active. This feature is
not available on all sensors, see the notes below.
GUI
===
This system system is fully configurable through the GUI: the object state mask is visible under the
object bar in the controller's colum as an array of buttons just like the 3D view layer mask.
Click on a state bit to only display the controllers of that state. You can select more than one state
with SHIFT-click. The All button sets all the bits so that you can see all the controllers of the object.
The Ini button sets the state mask back to the object default state. You can change the default state
of object by first selecting the desired state mask and storing using the menu under the State button.
If you define a default state mask, it will be loaded into the object state make when you load the blend
file or when you run the game under the blenderplayer. However, when you run the game under Blender,
the current selected state mask will be used as the startup state for the object. This allows you to test
specific state during the game design.
The controller display the state they belong to with a new button in the controller header. When you add
a new controller, it is added by default in the lowest enabled state. You can change the controller state
by clicking on the button and selecting another state. If more than one state is enabled in the object
state mask, controllers are grouped by state for more readibility.
The new Sta button in the sensor and actuator column header allows you to display only the sensors and
actuators that are linked to visible controllers.
A new state actuator is available to modify the state during the game. It defines a bit mask and
the operation to apply on the current object state mask:
Cpy: the bit mask is copied to the object state mask.
Add: the bits that set in the bit mask will be turned on in the object state mask.
Sub: the bits that set in the bit mask will be turned off in the object state mask.
Inv: the bits that set in the bit mask will be inverted in the objecyy state mask.
Notes
=====
- Although states have no name, a simply convention consists in using the name of the first controller
of the state as the state name. The GUI will support that convention by displaying as a hint the name
of the first controller of the state when you move the mouse over a state bit of the object state mask
or of the state actuator bit mask.
- Each object has a state mask and each object can have a state engine but if several objects are
part of a logical group, it is recommended to put the state engine only in the main object and to
link the controllers of that object to the sensors and actuators of the different objects.
- When loading an old blend file, the state mask of all objects and controllers are initialized to 1
so that all the controllers belong to this single state. This ensures backward compatibility with
existing game.
- When the state actuator is activated at the same time as other actuators, these actuators are
guaranteed to execute before being eventually disabled due to the state change. This is useful for
example to send a message or update a property at the time of changing the state.
- Sensors that depend on underlying resource won't reset fully when they are isolated. By the time they
are acticated again, they will behave as follow:
* keyboard sensor: keys already pressed won't be detected. The keyboard sensor is only sensitive
to new key press.
* collision sensor: objects already colliding won't be detected. Only new collisions are
detected.
* near and radar sensor: same as collision sensor.
Shape Action are now supported in the BGE. A new type of actuator "Shape Action" is available on mesh objects. It can be combined with Action actuator on parent armature. Only relative keys are supported. All the usual action options are available: type, blending, priority, Python API. Only actions with shape channels should be specified of course, otherwise the actuator has no effect. Shape action will still work after a mesh replacement provided that the new mesh has compatible shape keys.
GLEW
====
Added the GLEW opengl extension library into extern/, always compiled
into Blender now. This is much nicer than doing this kind of extension
management manually, and will be used in the game engine, for GLSL, and
other opengl extensions.
* According to the GLEW website it works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X,
FreeBSD, Irix, and Solaris. There might still be platform specific
issues due to this commit, so let me know and I'll look into it.
* This means also that all extensions will now always be compiled in,
regardless of the glext.h on the platform where compilation happens.
Game Engine
===========
Refactoring of the use of opengl extensions and other drawing code
in the game engine, and cleaning up some hacks related to GLSL
integration. These changes will be merged into trunk too after this.
The game engine graphics demos & apricot level survived my tests,
but this could use some good testing of course.
For users: please test with the options "Generate Display Lists" and
"Vertex Arrays" enabled, these should be the fastest and are supposed
to be "unreliable", but if that's the case that's probably due to bugs
that can be fixed.
* The game engine now also uses GLEW for extensions, replacing the
custom opengl extensions code that was there. Removes a lot of
#ifdef's, but the runtime checks stay of course.
* Removed the WITHOUT_GLEXT environment variable. This was added to
work around a specific bug and only disabled multitexturing anyway.
It might also have caused a slowdown since it was retrieving the
environment variable for every vertex in immediate mode (bug #13680).
* Refactored the code to allow drawing skinned meshes with vertex
arrays too, removing some specific immediate mode drawing functions
for this that only did extra normal calculation. Now it always splits
vertices of flat faces instead.
* Refactored normal recalculation with some minor optimizations,
required for the above change.
* Removed some outdated code behind the __NLA_OLDDEFORM #ifdef.
* Fixed various bugs in setting of multitexture coordinates and vertex
attributes for vertex arrays. These were not being enabled/disabled
correct according to the opengl spec, leading to crashes. Also tangent
attributes used an immediate mode call for vertex arrays, which can't
work.
* Fixed use of uninitialized variable in RAS_TexVert.
* Exporting skinned meshes was doing O(n^2) lookups for vertices and
deform weights, now uses same trick as regular meshes.
The best rules for stereo rendering are now applied to Blender. Here is the new situation:
1) The focal distance is now settable through the GUI: select the camera (each camera can have a different setting) and go to the camera data (F9): the "Dof Dist" and "Dof Ob" can be used to set the focal distance for that camera. The "Dof Ob" is interesting because it sets the focal distance so that the center this object will appear at the surface of the screen when running the game.
2) The eye separation is automatically set to focal_distance/30, which is considered to be a reasonable value. If you need a different value, you can always use Python scripting.
Notes:
- If you switch camera during the game, the focal distance will also change unless you have set the focal distance by scripting, in which case it overwrites the focal distance setting of all cameras.
- If you don't set the focal distance in the camera data or by scripting, the default value will be used. The default value corresponds more of less to the near clipping plane which means that all the objects will be very far with little 3D effect.
- If you don't set the eye separation by scripting, it is automatically computed as focal_distance/30, regardless on how the focal distance was set.
The current layer information is now stored in KX_GameObject and inherited from the parent object when dynamically added. This information is used during the rendering the select the lamps. As the selected lamps are always coming from active layers, their position and orientation are correct.
This bug fix is made of two parts:
1) It's now possible to dynamically add a camera.
2) Empty camera name on a SetCamera actuator now points to the actuator's parent object if this object is a camera.
This trick is useful to make current a dynamically created camera: just add a SetCamera actuator on the camera itself and leave the name empty. Later, when the camera is added in the scene with an AddObject actuator, either directly or via a parent object, you just need to activate the actuator to make the newly created camera current. If you set a name on a SetCamera actuator, it will always point to the original camera, even after replication.
This patch consists in new KX_GameObject::SetParent() and KX_GameObject::RemoveParent() functions to create and destroy parent relation during game. These functions are accessible through python and through a new actuator KX_ParentActuator. Function documentation in PyDoc.
The object keeps its orientation, position and scale when it is parented but will further rotate, move and scale with its parent from that point on. When the parent relation is broken, the object keeps the orientation, position and scale it had at that time.
The function has no effect if any of the X/Y/Z scale of the object or its new parent are below Epsilon.
Changing the mesh of an object that has a deform controller (armature) is now properly handled. The new mesh must have vertex groups matching the armature bones. In simple terms, the new mesh must deform correctly when you assign it to the object in Blender and you test the action. It will deform the same when you replace the object mesh during the game.
This patch modifies the BL_ConvertMesh method from the data conversion module in order to reduce the number of polygon
material objects that are created.
Normally, there should be only one material object for each material bucket(the group of meshes that are rendered together
with a single material). However, the number of materials that are created right now in the converter is much higher
and eats a lot of memory in scenes with large polygon counts. This patch deletes those material objects(KX_BlenderMaterial)
that are used only temporarily in the converter(and are now deleted only when the converter is destroyed, at the end
of the game).
For a cube that's subdivided 7 times(90+ k polygons) I get 200 MB usage in the game engine in 2.45 and 44 MB with a
svn build with this patch applied if the "Use Blender Materials" option is activated in the Game menu.
- check that an object has been created before setting the physics environment
- check that there is an active camera before using it
- when a camera is deleted, remove it from m_cameras list
rayCastTo(other,dist,prop)
Look towards another point/KX_GameObject and return first object hit within dist with a property that match prop, None if no object found or if it does not match prop.
Parameters:
other = 3-tuple (xyz coordinates) or object reference (target=center of object)
(type = list [x,y,z] or object reference)
dist = max distance of detection (can be negative => look behind)
If 0 or omitted => detect up to other
(type=float)
prop = property name that object must have
If empty or omitted => detect any object
(type=string)
1. All Ipo channels are now independent.
In Blender 2.45, all 3 Loc Ipo channels were automatically set
together. For example, having just a LocX Ipo channel was sufficient
to fix the X, Y and Z coordinates, with the Y and Z value taken
from the object original Y and Z location in Blender. The same
was true for the 3 Rot and the 3 Scale Ipo channels: the missing
channels were assumed to have constant value taken from the object
original orientation/scale in Blender.
With this patch, all Ipo channels are now independent.
THIS WILL CREATE BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY PROBLEM if you omit to
define the 3 channels of a same type together in your Blend file:
the undefined Loc, Rot, Scale coordinates of the object will
be influenced by the parent/spawner Loc/Rot/Scale in case the
object is a child or dynamically created.
2. Delta Loc, Rot, Scale are now supported with the following
limitations:
- The delta Loc/Rot Ipo modify the object global (NOT local)
location/orientation
- The delta Scale change the object local scale
- The delta Ipo curves are relative to the object starting
Loc/Rot/Scale when the Ipo was first activated; after that, the
delta Ipo becomes global. This means that the object will return
to this initial Loc/Rot/Scale when you later restart the Ipo
curve, even if you had changed the object Loc/Rot/Scale in the
meantime. Of course this applies only to the specific Loc/Rot/Scale
coordinate that are defined in the Ipo channels as the channels
are now independent.
3. When the objects are converted from Blender to the BGE, the
delta Loc/Rot/Scale that might result from initial non-zero values
in delta Ipo Curves will be ignored. However, as soon as the
delta Ipo curve is activated, the non-zero values will be taken
into account and the object will jump to the same Loc/Rot/Scale
situation as in Blender. Note that delta Ipo curves with initial
non-zero values is bad practice; logically, a delta Ipo curver
should always start from 0.
4. If you define both a global and delta channel of the same
type (LocX and DLocX), the result will be a global channel equivalent
to the sum of the two channels (LocX+DLocX).
