Release v1.2

What's Changed

• Neroxis Toolsuite update in #96
  The Neroxis Toolsuite to generate the helper textures for advanced shaders has been updated.
  Providing a java environment is no longer necessary.
  The editor now ships with example height and roughness textures to easily create the PBR texture atlas.
• Improve responsiveness of log window in #97
  The log window of the Neroxis Toolsuite has been refactored and updates properly now.
• Improve heightmap import error message in #93
  It now reminds users that the heightmap must be n²+1.
• Remove terrain clamping at 50 height difference in #95
  This clamping is no longer necessary in FAF. This also removed a bug with the terrain brushes that was related to the clamping setting.
• Remove texture preset dropdown during map creation in #94
  This seems to be a feature that was once planned but never finished.
• Fix the "play map" option.
  The editor now launches the FAF executable, which fixed the startup crash.

Full Changelog: v1.1.1...v1.2

Release v1.1.1

What's Changed

• Enable renaming of marker chains by @BlackYps in #88
• Automate releases more by @BlackYps in #86
• Fix some issues for the linux build by @BlackYps in #87

Full Changelog: v1.1...v1.1.1

Release v1.1

This release contains a lot of bugfixes. With gratitude to all the people who took the time to report bugs.

BlackYps

New Features

• Add a "View" Menu that contains grid overlays and alternative viewing modes (#80)
  
  • The center lines can now be toggled independently of the grid overlays
  • The grid views have been reimplemented. Issues with the old grid views should be gone now.
  • The center lines can now be toggled independently of the grid overlays
  • New view modes are available:
    • Untextured, to check the lighting conditions
    • Layer Masks, to troubleshoot texture layers
    • Normals
    • Roughness, only for Terrain100 and Terrain200 shaders
    • Ambient Occlusion, for all shaders that use the Terrain Info Texture

Bugfixes

• Textures sometimes turned white when zooming out (#81)
  The editor stores the stratum textures in an array texture, one for the normal textures and one for the albedo textures. All textures in an array need to have the same size. So when you use textures of different sizes, the smaller textures need to be scaled up. So far so good, but when you double the texture scale (scaling up from 512 to 1024) you also get one more mipmap level. Normally, when rescaling a texture, Unity would calculate new mipmaps automatically. But in supreme commander the mipmaps actually carry additional information, the mipmaps are artificially blurred to reduce the problem of obvious repetition. When disabling the automatic recalculation in #71 I failed to notice that I need to deal with the newly created mipmap layers manually. As unity had no data to put there, it put in white. This is now fixed.

• The slope overlay could be hard to read on bright maps. The slope overlay now changes the terrain color, to give better readability (#81)

• maps using PBR reflections had an area of reduced reflections on the left. This is now fixed (#81)

• accurate fog rendering (#82)
  I actually managed to replicate the fog rendering of the game in the editor! This means users will be able to dial in the fog settings properly with accurate visual feedback.

• Create new maps as Version 60 (FA version, has a procedural skybox) (#83)

• Fix issue #77
  The selection rectangle now shows up where the cursor is, regardless of UI scaling. UI downscaling has been removed.

• Fix issue #79
  Custom textures for waves and cubemaps will now update their path when saving the map as a new version or under a new name.

• Make texture layer tab react correctly to chosen shader (#83)
  The textures and sliders now have a title that reflects their function in the chosen map shader.

Other

• Copy water rendering change from game (#84)
  Water rendering has been changed slightly with game patch 3825. We need to make sure that the editor and the game stay in sync.

• Improve build automation (#85)
  The builds now have an automatic version number and there is a Windows and a Linux version.

Full Changelog: v1.0...v1.1

Release v1.0

These are exiting times! Now that some long-standing missing pieces of the editor are implemented, we are finally able to release version 1.0 of the editor. The most significant additions are

• Fully configurable water and lighting settings.
• Support for the new terrain shaders that are now available in the game.

You can read more about how the new shaders work, along with some pictures, here: https://wiki.faforever.com/Development/Shaders/terrain-shaders

New Features

• Added support for new shaders recently added to the game (#47, #51, #60, #61, #65, #66, #68, #71)
  • Removed the TTerrainXp shader toggle in the Texture tab
  • Added a text box in the Map tab to input the shader name instead
  • Implemented the new shaders introduced in the latest game patch
  • Added buttons in Textures > Tools to generate the required textures for the new shaders. Under the hood this integrates the Neroxis Tool Suite, a CLI program written in Java. A Java environment is required, but if you have the FAF client installed, you can simply use that one.
  • Added an option to disable the map info texture in the upper slot (via the v button)
  • The specular color UI in the light settings now changes based on the selected shader
  • Many more UI improvements in the texture layer tab to better support different shaders
• Improved lighting settings (#52, #56, #71)
  • Changed sun angle terminology from RA and DA to Azimuth and Elevation Angle
  • Added environment texture path (This texture is only visible on reflections of units, not on the map)
  • Various other minor UI improvements
• Improved water settings (#52, #56, #71)
  • Removed water parameters that had no in-game effect
  • Added toggle to copy sun color and angle from light settings to get fitting sun reflections on the water
  • Added toggle for advanced water absorption (this will recalculate the light settings in the background)
    Advanced absorption behaves more like real-world light absorption, allowing deep water to visibly obscure units and terrain.
  • Added texture paths for water ramp and skycube
  • Added UI controls for ocean waves
  • Fixed water coloration bleeding onto shores
  • Various other minor UI improvements
• Improved default values when creating a new map (#59)
• Improved Resource Browser UI (#62)
  • Added alpha channel preview
  • Added mipmap previews at levels 2, 4, and 6
  • Display texture resolution
    These changes only affect the layer textures. The resource browser is still the same for decals and props.
• You can now import stratum masks in PNG format (#63)
• Made FAF directory configurable (#45)
  Previously, the editor assumed the FAF data directory was at a fixed location. It now supports custom paths, as configured in the FAF client.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the slope overlay (#54)
• Improved behaviour of input fields (#55)
  Basically all input fields were configured in a way that you had to press enter to assign the value. Confusingly, they did not actually assign the value when clicking away, but didn't discard the edits you made in the field either. So it was very hard to understand what was going on. Now all fields assign the value on pressing enter or when clicking elsewhere.
• Textures in the resource browser and the layer tab are not upside down anymore (#56, #62)
• Fixed multiline map description text breaking the scenario file (#67)
• Fixed issues with the linear brush option and rename it to Scale target to 0.5 to 1 range (#67)
• Fixed mipmap rendering (#71)
  When using textures of different resolutions in the Layers tab, they have to be all scaled to the same size internally because they are stored in an array texture. This scaling would lead to a recalculation of mipmaps, so the blurred mipmaps would not be visible anymore, leading to a different look than in the game. Mipmaps are now preserved properly.

Other

• Slider values are no longer clamped. You can now input any value in the text box above a slider. (#47)
• Default maximum of texture scale sliders is now 20 to make the sliders feasible to use (#51)
• Order textures alphabetically before creating the texture buttons for the resource browser (contributed by sting) (#49)
• Removed normal map check (#57)
  The "Can't assign albedo as normal map" check when assigning texture channelssometimes produced false positives and blocked adding special textures for advanced shaders.
• Remove the two buttons that you could use to generate a random heightmap. (#60)
  The used Neroxis version was way outdated and we don't allow uploading maps based on the map generator to the FAF map vault anyway.
• Improved version check behavior (#70)
• Terrain now retains more details when zoomed out, making it more consistent with the in-game view (#71)
• The editor should now pause rendering when it is in the background, reducing resource usage (#71)

As there have been extensive changes, it is likely that some new bugs have surfaced. Please report them on the FAF forum or open an issue here in github.

With gratitude to all those who took the time to report issues with the release candidates, and a special thank you to @kent-sole who showed me around in the Unity editor and answered my questions. Without him all this work would not have been possible.

Happy mapmaking!

BlackYps

Git Changelog: v0.901...v1.0

v1.0-rc4

This release uses the new shader names and texture requirements. This will probably be the last release candidate.

What's Changed

• Shader update by @BlackYps in #65
• Neroxis toolsuite improvements by @BlackYps in #66
• Bugfixes by @BlackYps in #67
• Shader improvement by @BlackYps in #68
• Improve update checking by @BlackYps in #70

Full Changelog: v1.0-rc3...v1.0-rc4

Release v1.0-rc3

This is the last release candidate that will work with the advanced game shaders as they are right now (game version 3819). There is an upcoming shader rework that will be included in the next game release in May and will be supported by the next release candidate. The full release of the map editor v1.0 will probably happen only after the game patch and will support the changed shaders.

Changes since the last release candidate:

• Improve Resource Browser UI by @BlackYps in #62
• Bugfixes by @BlackYps in #63

Full Changelog: v1.0-rc2...v1.0-rc3

Release v1.0-rc2

What's Changed

• Add TTerrainXPExt shader and accompanying Terrain000 and Terrain050 by @BlackYps in #61

Full Changelog: v1.0-rc1...v1.0-rc2

Release v1.0-rc1

Exiting times are ahead of us. Now that the missing pieces of the editor are included we are finally able to release version 1.0 of the editor. This is a prelease for testing. The most important changes are

• fully configurable water and light settings,
• the ability to handle most of the new shaders that the game supports now,
• integration of tools to generate the new textures that the new shaders need.

Changelog

• Make FAF directory configurable by @BlackYps in #45
• Add Terrain351 shader by @BlackYps in #47
• Resource Browser Texture Order by @sting-2 in #49
• Improve shader support by @BlackYps in #51
• Improved water settings by @BlackYps in #52
• Slope overlay by @BlackYps in #54
• Change input behaviour by @BlackYps in #55
• Add remaining water and light controls by @BlackYps in #56
• Remove normal map check by @BlackYps in #57
• Integrate neroxis toolsuite by @BlackYps in #60
• Improve default values by @BlackYps in #59

New Contributors

• @sting-2 made their first contribution in #49

Full Changelog: v0.901...v1.0-rc1

Release v0.901

Fixes the internal version number, so the editor doesn't constantly think there is a new version available.

Release v0.9

This release comes with a reimplementation of the game's shaders. People reported lighting differences between the editor and the game, these should be fixed now.
This rework also adds the Terrain301 shader. The shader toggle has been changed to a text field where you type in the name of the shader you want to use.

Changelog

• UI/Script/Prefab Cleanup by @kent-sole in #35
• Map Area Fixes - Issue 34 by @kent-sole in #38
• Add vsconfig to gitignore by @BlackYps in #39
• Shader rework by @BlackYps in #42

New Contributors

• @kent-sole made their first contribution in #35
• @BlackYps made their first contribution in #39

Full Changelog: v0.8...v0.9