version 4.1 changes (14.05.2004)

• [new] improved parent-child hierachy
• [new] PC: WheelMouse support
• [new] textureCoordinateList of mesh modelResources
• [new] call 'sleep' on idle
• [new] undocumented texture quality #lowFiltered
• [changed] undocumented model visibility nodepth
• [changed] improved Little Arrows
• [changed] feature of copying a name
• [changed] selecting member of sprite
• [changed] picking through transparent cameras
• [changed] collapse button
• [changed] texture property #member
• [Bugfix] overlay.source hyperlink
• [Bugfix] saving and reading Registration and Preferences
• [Bugfix] error with havok
• [Bugfix] updating properties

 

The parent-child hierachy has got a couple of improvements: multiple selection: You can select more Nodes at once to change their hierachy position. Use the command key while clicking on a Node to add or remove it to/from the current selection, use the shift key to add a range of Nodes.   'removed from world': The line 'removed from world' is added to offer viewing the hierachy of Nodes that are removed from world. Please Note: As long as the arrow beside 'removed from world' is open, the 3DPI has to go through all models, all lights, all cameras and all groups to search for Nodes that have no parent. Because this can slow down the performance alot, always close the arrow if you currently are not interested in the hierachy removed from world.   BIG view: Click on the '+' button to view the parent-child hierachy enlarged, filling the 3DPI window. Click on the '-' button to get back to the normal view.   added buttons: On top of the parent-child hierachy there are now the buttons 'AddToWorld()', 'RemoveFromWorld()' and 'delete' to quicker do the specific action for multiple selected Nodes.   changed hyperlink action: To go to the Tab and view all details of a specific Node, on PC you now have to click on it with the right mouseButton, on Mac while pressing the control key.   Picking: When beeing in the member-Tab while the 'picking' button (right upper corner) is active and set to 'Pick TAB specific object', clicking on a model on the stage scrolls to the model in the parent-child hierachy and selects it.

 

On PC (and sadly not on Mac) the 3DPI does now support your mouse scroll wheel, if you have the 'WheelMouse' Xtra installed and your movie has a movieScript handler called 'WheelMouseEvent', that informs the 3DPI about the event.

Because the WheelMouse Xtra always notifies a movie Script handler of the stage, the 3DPI can never get informed automatically when you move your mouse wheel. Because your movie is running on the stage, it is the key to recieve the information from the Xtra and to send it furthor to the 3DPI.
The necessary script to inform the 3DPI can quickly be copied into your movie: Go to the 3DPI preferences (left upper corner) and click on the 'installScript' button.

You can erase the script member again whenever you want to, either by clicking on the 'remove script' button in the 3DPI Preferences, or by selecting the script member in the cast window and pressing the delete key.
If the script does not exist, your wheelscrolling has simply no reaction in the 3DPI.

Please Note: If you want the wheel support you need to install the script each time when opening another movie, that was not saved with the script.

 
At mesh modelresources the values for the textureCoordinateList are finally available to check and change.
When no textureCoordinateList was defined the fields are greyed out and there does not happen an error anymore when clicking on the 'PUT' button.

In the preferences of the 3DPI (button left upper corner) you can now choose if you want the 3DPI to call 'sleep 1' on idle to prevent 'processor hogging'.
Please note that this only works if the Xtra "UIHelper" is installed.

The undocumented texture quality value #lowFiltered is added.
Please Note: Items marked with an asterisk (*) are officially undocumented Lingo and might break in future versions of Director.

The undocumented model visibilty values #front_nodepth, #back_nodepth and #both_nodepth are added - without the need of pressing any key (in earlier 3DPI versions the values already appeared, but only when pressing the alt-key while opening the visibility popup).
Please Note: Items marked with an asterisk (*) are officially undocumented Lingo and might break in future versions of Director.

 
The behavior of the Little Arrows is improved:

• clicking on an arrow changes the value by 1 unit.
• clicking and keeping the mouse button pressed changes the value continuesly.
• clicking, keeping the mouse button pressed and moving the mouse outside of the arrow button changes the behavior to a 'wheel': each pixel the mouse moves vertically changes the value by 1 unit.
• when moving the mouse horizontal far away from the button while the mouse button is still pressed, the value changes back to what it was at the beginning.

While pressing the alt key, the value changes by 0.1 unit.
While pressing the shift key, the value changes by 10 units.

When clicking on a name in the upper list of names while pressing a special key, the name is copied to Clipbord. The changed detail now is that you need to press the COMMAND-key instead of the control-key to copy the name to clipboard.

At the moment when clicking in the sprite-Tab on a specific sprite in the list, the corresponding member will be selected too. You can recognize the selected member by the changed name on top of the 3DPI window.

The picking features of the 3DPI are now checking the 'transparency' of cameras: if the colorBuffer.clearAtRender property is set to False and no model was under the mouse of that camera, the 3DPI continues to search for modelsUnderThe-Mouse in cameras below.

The collapse Button, that was implemented in earlier 3DPI versions, is back, BUT sadly not on PC with Director MX 2004, because of the changed minimum sizes of Miaws.

The texture property #member is now always displayed by a PopUp, independend which type of texture is selected.

The hyperlink button beside the overlay.source property did not link to the texture. Fixed.

Director MX 2004 seems to have a bug with setPref and getPref on some PCs (Windows 2000 only ?). To nevertheless enable saving and reading the preferences and registration, I've added a workaround with FileIO.

When rebuilding a Havok World (resetWorld, Havok.ShutDown, ec.) while beeing in a Havok-Sub-Tab (rigidBody, Spring, LinearDashpot, AngularDashpot) the 3DPI created an error and stopped playing. FIXED.

After changing the selected Node by clicking on the Child-, Parent- or RootNode-Button, all the properties in the 3DPI window have not been updated. FIXED.