VastPark Platform 0.98 Released
Along with a fresh look for www.vastpark.com, the 0.98 versions of the Player, Creator, Publisher and Server have been released. This will be the final DirectX only version of the platform as we move towards 1.0
What’s included in 0.98?
Drag and Drop
Drag and Drop allows the user to drag an Item from the Items list into the 3D space. This Item can then be interrogated via script or plugin and an action can occur based on the developer listening to the DragEnter, DragDrop, DragLeave triggers in IMML.
The benefits of this can be extensive, from dynamic presentations with multiple presenters able to drag out their presentation on demand to injecting new content into the scene.
Note: This Items list is populated by the Metaforik index. You can get content into this index using the Publisher application (you must have a publisher account!) which supports Models, Video, Audio, etc, but currently doesn’t support the type “Document”.
Simplified UI
Feedback was received that the UI for the Player was a little complex, so we’ve introduced a menu and removed much of the clutter from the tray area. All of the functionality previously accessible from the tray is now found under the menu at the top of the application.
The address bar now has back, forward and refresh buttons as well as a new icon that indicates the health of the current document and an icon that appears when content is loading in the background.
The debug dialog has been slightly tweaked and simplified also, note that debug rendering options now appear under the menu View -> Render. By default, the LoadQueue tab is now displayed which is useful in working out what is occurring while you are waiting for a document to complete loading.
More of a focus on capture
Along with the support for Continuum capture, the Player now supports capture of screenshots.
Screenshot and Continuum captures default to being stored in your Documents folder under the subfolders “Continuum” and “Screenshots”. This can be customised by visiting the Options menu (Tools -> Options) and selecting a new capture path.
In a future release video capture support is likely to make an appearance as we aim to provide a variety of ways to capture the experience within the Player.
Search Syntax
Some slightly more advanced searching ability is included in the Player’s Item list and follows this syntax:
Some valid searches that follow this syntax are:
Crate type:Model publisher:craigomatic
– Finds all Model items published by craigomatic that have a name like “Crate”
Crate
– Finds all items that have a name like “Crate”
type:Document
– Finds all items of the type Document
0.98 Platform Changelog
- Improved reliability and performance in all libraries that use threaded queueing
- Improved reliability of connection code in server libraries
- DragDrop, DragEnter, DragLeave events added to IMML
- Handle property added to IRenderEngine, plugins can now mix winforms/WPF overlays into the experience
- Added access to CacheProvider, ContentAcquirer and ContentLoader via ParkEngine. Plugins can now download content using the common download system and take advantage of the user’s cache
- Added concept of NetworkChannel, shifted mutex acquisition to a dedicated channel
- Added concept of Behaviours to IMML
- Fixed bug where texture source change didn’t work during runtime
- Fixed bug where video source change didn’t work during runtime
- Changed behaviour of Groups property in script scene.user:groups, now uses cached data. Use scene.user:GetProfile(“alias”) for live data
- Added support for constraints between bones on separate models
- Misc. bug fixes
Download link: http://www.vastpark.com/resources/downloads.html
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[…] of the major features of the 0.98 release is the inclusion of drag and drop. Basically, this allows you to drag an Item into the 3D space […]
[…] last post implied that v0.98 would be the final DirectX version of the framework. Instead a decision was made […]