Skyline Release v1.0.2.5

Hello Skyline Users for another update of the Skyline Game Engine!
This time we are releasing v1.0.2.5 which aimed to fix a few things that were brought about by users and also to lay the new foundations for the attachment/detachment system being made, so lets get on with the blog then.

There have been some major changes under the hood which both increase performance slightly and changes some files that we have come accustomed too.
For instance, the scene files now are half the size as we removed the old redundant <MATERIAL> section from each entity which bloated the scene files drastically and also removed the entity.baseType stored file in the .xSkyScene as we had 2 and it was getting confusing.

Some fixes with projects have gone in also; these include improvements to the isolated projects which are now truly isolated compared to before and some threading fixes with resource library scanning with isolated projects

The terrain also has had an improvement to better compliment the WorldMachine to Skyline workflow pipeline which now the image outputted from WM can be used directly on the colourmap channel by loading the texture buttion. And to help make the terrain look better with the colourmap image from WM, there is now an additional blend mode setting to get the colours matching between the softwares.
We also added a save colourmap button so you can flip the result of your previous painted colourmaps. Note: On the new version, we are aware that the painting option for the colourmap is reversed on the terrain, this wil be fixed in the next version.

End game and player are working again, please note that the plugin system is not yet implemented into player or end game(e.g. grass).

Note: Also, please be sure to backup any scene files of your projects as the serializer saves out differently and if there was an issue, we don't want you all to lose work... however, we have tested many scenes ourselves and have not had a problem. Or you can save your level as MyLevel_A2.xSkyScene for instance

Anyway, check out the changelog for more information: 

New:

• New: EcoSystem Editor: Ground Cover: Wind can now be turned off on a layer.
• New: Terrain Paint: The colourmap can now be loaded from a texture, great for mega texture applications.
• New: Terrain Paint: The colourmap can now be saved to a texture to do more work outside skyline or flip to match the new texture rotation.
• New: Terrain Paint: The colourmap can now be blended in different ways.
• New: Terrain Paint: The colourmap can now be mixed with the base layers to blend it better.
• New: Passing "\"Skyline Editor.exe\" -d true" in command line will show the dos console for skyline which is useful for debug help
• New: Sky Lua Library
  • New: gameManagerScriptID = sky.getGameScriptID()

Updated:

• Updated: In preparation for the new attach and detach system, much of the core has been touched and the way we attach entities to the scene has changed. From your user perspective, nothing should have changed yet visually or workflow, but its ready for the next bit of work for scene entity list attach & detach.
• Updated: Terrain serializers have been upgraded and now save the Colourmap blend and mix settings.
• Updated: Scene files have had quite a change, they no longer store all the old material data which improves loading time on scenes with lots of entities.
• Updated: Scene files are now half the size and patch number increased to compensate.
• Updated: Scene files no longer save the baseType value, only type is now used as both properties did the same thing and we have done a similar change inside the engine also.
• Updated: Main editor exe is smaller by a small amount
• Updated: Preset files no longer store the old unique material from Gen1 creating a lighter serializer which is faster to load in.
• Updated: Preset files are half the size.
• Updated: The old vegetation tab has been removed from the Terrain editor in light of the new eco system toolset.
• Updated: Scripts are now cleaned up and deleted on end the game rather than when the next play was started which left bad memory allocations behind.
• Updated: We have improved the core system to remove as much string parsing during loops as possible to smooth and reduce cpu cycles.
• Updated: Terrain Paint Colourmap: We have flipped the image in the shader to correspond to the Worldmachine outputs easier so their texture can be used right away.
• Updated: Roads: The serializer has removed some unrequired baggage and has upped the patch number again.
• Updated: Roads: The material group is now saved with the road which stops the remapper appearing each time you load the level.
• Updated: Projects: Isolated Projects on scene load was bringing up the message box for the isolation each time. Quite annoying! :P

Fixed:

• Fixed: EcoSystem Editor: Ground Cover: Fixed a loading back issue where it would crash because of an uninitialised variable.
• Fixed: EcoSystem Editor: Ground Cover: Incorrect property in the shader meant that wind could not be disabled on a grass entity
• Fixed: If the Auto update failed, you required you to remove the folder and then try again otherwise it would fail continuouly. This has been fixed by emptying the folder of contents for downloading the update.
• Fixed: When loading skyline with no render config setup, if you pressed ok without selecting dx11, then GL was chosen leading to confusion. Fixed: Scripts were loading and being created as the scene loaded which could have lead to unseen errors when starting/stopping the game.
• Fixed: Scene scripts were not running on the second play, and every other second run after.
• Fixed: Entity External scripts would crash on the second play.
• Fixed: Saving an external script in the script editor would create the script there and then and potentially crash later
• Fixed: Microscripts were being created straight away on save in the script editor and then lead to a potential crash later.
• Fixed: If the Shader cache folder was deleted, skyline would crash on close down as it tries to save to a non existant directory.
• Fixed: Skyline did not have a properly working lock FPS after the previous update.
• Fixed: Editor Player when launched from skyline did not load the scene and only showed blank. Now the scene loads again.
• Fixed: Editor Player: Roads with a custom material would crash on load.
• Fixed: If loading a project that is isolated while skyline is checking resources for file existance on a seperate thread, skyline would crash.
• Fixed: End game exporter: Was not parsing scene files correctly and therefore missing assets
• Fixed: End game: There was a crash sometimes after the splashscreen
• Fixed: Projects: Isolated scenes and levels that still has an asset using the main libraries would still load from them giving a misrepresenting scene.